jerry 58

Thanks Steve and MM The reason I lost most of my investment the 1st go around was I got away from my setup and thought I could trade any style. I am a little more aware I need to stick with what works for me and will adhere to my setup and not deviate from that plan. On another note- Can someone explain margin accounts to me. I called my Scottrade broker Friday on a couple of things. I told him it would be nice to trade and not have to wait 3 days for my funds to settle. He told me if I opened a margin acct, I would not need to wait and I could do 3 rounds in a 5 day period. Anything above the 3 and I'll need the $25,000. I think for the time being 3 trades in 5 days is ok and shouldn't be long until I cross the $25000 barrier. Does that sound about right, what the broker told me and how much would it cost me for the margin account. Is it by the trade or what.

A little about me- I'm Jerry a 53 year old military vet and owner of a bankrupt trucking company. I have been on ssdi for about 3 years. I began trading with the spare time on my hands. 1st I played the CNBC stock market contest and enjoyed it. Finished in top 5% and at one point was in the top .1%. So I thought I had what it takes to trade. Shorty afterwards I opened a Scottrade account and began trading a couple of years ago with about $2500. I had a little success right off the bat and that is when things started to unravel. I got away from my fundamentals and lost all of my investment except about $500. I stopped trading until about 13 months ago. I began trading again in July 2010 and have invested $4800, but not all at once as I am on a fixed income from my social security disability. At this time I now have $16500. I have stuck to my one strategy which has worked for me so far, That is trading on missed earning when the stock has plummeted 40-70% with 10 to 50 time 100 day vol avg. Only problem are these don't occur frequently enough. I am trying to supplement my ssdi for retirement. My wife still works and has a little 401k but would like to make our retirement years a little more enjoyable. Ok give it to me.