On a separate note, if you want to trade and learn with the least amount of capital, trade futures. Many futures brokerage firms offer daytrading margins of only $50 for one micro S&P futures contract. And there is no pattern daytrading rule in futures unlike in stocks. So if you fund your account with $500, that is more than enough to trade one micro and accelerate your learning.
I dont know how to trade futures, or anything besides stocks. Never looked into that. I tried to understand options but i think i do one at a time for now. Once i get profitable with stocks i might explore other areas
Since you are not profitable yet, why not make the switch now? To stock indexes for example? Because as Coin Flip said, it requires much less capital.
Forget youtube. You are only seeing the winners. My current best counter example is the Ahmet Zappa podcast, Rocktails. He has a built in audience being Frank Zappa's son and he is quite a funny guy himself. He gets about 400 -500 views a podcast because everyone has a podcast already. Everyone is doing the same thing trying to emulate a handful of winners because they don't see all the people wasting their time almost by definition. If you don't have a 401k or Roth getting the market return then you are making a huge mistake with trading a cash account. What mostly helped my trading cash account was time and getting promotions at work. My interest in markets had the side effect of constantly learning new skills and having to think in new ways that helped me get those promotions. If I started over I would cut expenses more, save more, index more and buy and hold more. Delete all social media. Learn negotiation. I can't imagine how much money I gave up when young from being afraid to negotiate a price. Get up early, get in shape. It is the best time to be young because you can easily find out how to do basically anything while 99% of people are doing things that are stupid because they think their only chance in life is to win the lottery.
Put trading aside for a while...get a 2nd job, save your money, and cut your expenses until you reach your level of being able to properly fund your trading account. The markets will be here tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. Thus, you will not miss anything. You will be that much further ahead than most traders. I've met a few that worked three jobs to properly fund their trading account...not easy but they were able to reach their goal. wrbtrader
I have never traded futures, only stocks and options on stocks. What is the downside of trading futures? There must be?
One possible downside is if you trade stocks, you can scan the universe of thousands of stocks for the best setup on any given day, but for futures you are stuck with trading the handful of indices, which may not have a particular setup on any given day. The bottom line is trading futures is just a different game than stocks. Some say the futures market is more competitive than the equities market but I don't know how one would actually go about testing the "competitiveness" of a market.
Thanks. Isn't future highly leverage, like options? If so, the risks of high payout and ruin are multiplied. I trade options because if I only go long, call or put, my loss is predetermined and capped.
It's not because leverage is available that you have to use it. Margin requirements are small, but nothing is stopping you from taking less risk.