Is AM harder than stocks? (37)
just wondering since AM and stocks are the main 2 ways ppl be making money online, which is harder to be successful at?
Originally Posted by bluecrayon
In AM, you got more control over the action, but it also requires a lot of work.
If you're lucky, stocks might be your poison today, and it might kill you the next one
AM is more predictable.
... NOW CHOOSE
haha cool i was just wondering, wasn't trying to get into stocks or anything
AM for life!
Originally Posted by bluecrayon
So far I only played with dow jones index and some commodities for a few months - like 7 or so years ago. I burned 5k and backed out. But one day, I might try it again, its too tempting
Originally Posted by matuloo
So far I only played with dow jones index and some commodities for a few months - like 7 or so years ago. I burned 5k and backed out. But one day, I might try it again, its too tempting 1. Investing = broad diversified portfolio of assets, low/no leverage, infrequent trading
2. Gambling = buying just one or two stocks/assets, buying on high leverage (e.g. margin, options), frequent trading
The former can be a sound strategy in the long run.
The latter normally ends in tears.
Most retail forex trading is done on margin, and it does not take much for you to get wiped out completely.
Who told you this? mgrunin?
Originally Posted by cmdeal
There is no fun in investing wisely and the returns are slow
Originally Posted by matuloo
So far I only played with dow jones index and some commodities for a few months - like 7 or so years ago. I burned 5k and backed out. But one day, I might try it again, its too tempting The hardest part in trading is psychology/discipline, it's 80% of the winning mix, then come the rules to entry/exit and money management.
I'm not a very active trader, I'm very picky with my trades, in fact I trade 2-3 times a month, but everyone has his style. I know very few people who became rich with trading. I make money trading but I don't want to trade as a living.
AM gives better chances to become wealthy. Yes, it requires hard work, but the opportunities are bigger.
No. AM is easier
One might say affiliate marketing breeds a much, much more valuable skill set that you can leverage in the future vs forex trading.
In AM you deal with creative sides, business development, technology and infrastructure, human psychology, networking, how to actually sell things (if you can sell things, you are never out of a job) and funnels, market predictions, etc.
I look at trading as having a similar skill set to basic arbitrage in AM, which is a small part of what you could be doing. I am sure trading can (and likely does) involve a lot of research, management and networking, but I wager most people who get into this from the "working at home" lifestyle are not as likely to move to a level where these skills are fully exploited.
Originally Posted by johnaff
It is possible to make money trading, and see success within 1-2 years. Just need someone that show you what really works. Trust me, the internet is full of garbage, like indicators, courses, strategies, that don't work.
Forex is arguably the most liquid market in the world, with volumes of almost $5 trillion a day.
I know some really really really smart people (like in .00001% of the population smart), but I don't know anyone who can actually forecast or predict short term, day to day, forex rates with any degree of reliability or consistency on any of the major currencies.
It would be hard to believe that someone would have some sort of true edge in this market for their $5,000 trade on a Saxo account. If they did, given the size of the forex market, they could easily become the richest person in the world instead of having to hawk $4999 seminars in outdated hotels.
If you see it as placing a bet like on horses or on a roulette table, that is probably more accurate.
Originally Posted by cmdeal
nobody can predict prices, it's a matter of an edge, probabilities and cutting loses. Regarding me, I'm not a top trader because of some discipline obstacles I have to overcome yet. Just making some money. Some traders I know, and run hedge funds, took even 11 years to become top traders.
I would like to show you an example of a series of trades. You win and you lose, but the total amount of the gains must be greater than the amount of losses.
Long EURUSD: + 220 $
Short USDJPY: - 50 $
Long EURAUD: - 20 $
Short USDCAD: +310 $
Short: GBPCHF: -60 $
= + 400 $
The losses are the costs of the business.
My best gain was 1200 $ in one day, but there are periods when I don't trade at all, and periods when I lose, but I keep losses small. So I don't always have green days like that. My last trade was in march.
Even if you are a big winner you can't become rich overnight because of money management, that is the size of your position. Let's say you feel you are good because you earned 5,000 last month. You may think, wow, now I put great part of my earnings on the next position, so you enter with a big position. It may work, but a loss with that big lots would be a disaster for your capital, and this situation is very common.
Things are harder fot those with small capital, like you said.
There are some patterns configurations which have a high probabilty of success. Long and thin sideways anticipate big moves, with a good risk/reward ratio. They are rare, but when you spot them there is money to be made, with low risk
Originally Posted by cmdeal
The hardest thing with market trading is NOT to trade too much.
"Every man thinks that playing the stock market is like shooting fish in a barrel. What each man fails to realize is that he’s the fish." 
I put my money to work for me buy investing in passive, safer bets. I know where I can make the big explosive money: affiliate marketing. I put my focus there. If you make big bets in stocks it will divert all your attention, you will get emotionally invested in it, and be checking your stocks every minute. Hard to make money with AM while doing this. Been there, done that.
Make big money with AM
Lock it away in safe passive investments so its always growing
I sure as heck hope Am is easier because I once worked in the Stock brokerage industry and that was not my cup of tea.
I'm new to this game and I'm just trying to take it one step at a time right now without becoming too overwhelmed.
My goal today, mess with
I think its important only to invest and work with things you know and understand. If you work at the trading desk of Goldmand and understand stocks and don't know anything about AM, im sure stocks is easier. If you are a superaffiliate, focus your time and attention on AM as this will pay off bigger than gambling on stocks you don't know about.
I think stock (or forex) trading is a game of skill that is hard to transfer. It is only you. you can only scale by having huge capital and employing people that KNOW already how to trade. Only banks (or hedge funds) can employ people to trade their capital and really scale. so for normal people with a limited capital it will never turn into a business in my opinion.
once you have large capital, though it would not be a bad idea to make it work through the financial markets.
AM allows to learn the skills to build real businesses. And most activities can be outsourced so that scale and automation can be achieved without needing huge capitals.
also there are several people on this very forum that showed that by mastering media buys it is possible to turn a capital of 5k to 10k (more is better obviously) in 1m over 1 or 2 years. I think it is way less common trading.
personally I think it is not a matter of choosing. You need a vehicle to create cash first, and then once you have accumulated larger capitals, you can use investing (not trading) to produce more cash. I think even better is using cash to build assets that produce cash (like real estate)
I am more for real estate anyway than stocks
real estate is a low risk - low return investment which is good to compensate the high risk - high return industry of affiliate marketing
Careful with real estate and timing, example, ppl who invested before the crisis in Spain. Bubble, bubble. Now, maybe low investment, however definately low return for sure.
On second thought, if your looking for 'the easiest' ANYTHING, your probably in the wrong mindset
Originally Posted by MarinaKimia
Unless you are buying property with 100% cash (which almost no one does), you will be borrowing money to do so.
At an average LTV of 80%, this means that if the value of your property goes up by 20% in one year, you have doubled your investment. AWESOME!
Unfortunately, it also means that if the value of your property goes down by 20% in one year ... uhhh, you are wiped out. You lose 100% of your investment. Not so awesome.
Originally Posted by bluecrayon
Bluecrayon: How do you define success? Let me assume you mean the greatest profitability, with the least effort and risk, in the shortest time period (relatively), for the “average” person (i.e. no specific skills or advantages in either discipline), in a manner that can be somewhat sustained (repeated) is what you’re getting at.
I think you have a higher probability of making larger returns in AM, than with ‘trading’ and more chance to scale into bigger profits too.
My guess is that it would be more likely for someone using their own capital and skills to earn bigger compound returns in AM than Trading, over a reasonable time period (5 years)
That is a function of: number of opportunities, lower barriers to entry, visibility and help/ guidance available (STM, Aff Managers, mastermind groups)
Skillset for Trading – I would say it takes longer to acquire than AM, because there is so much bad advice, very few people are transparent about their strategies, you rarely get a forum like STM for help and there aren’t any spying tools.
Barriers to entry - if you decide to scale (tech, capital, research, info) - are High!
Most money in ‘trading’ is made from managing money or transacting for others… not outright trading. However the sexy stories of traders big bets paying off (The Big Short for example) take the limelight.
Most outsize profits are leveraged returns, so look better than in reality. E.g. Hedge Fund Manager has $100m capital from his investors. She leverages that (borrows more money) so she now has $500m. She trades / invests for a year and makes a 3% profit. Because of the leverage, it looks like a 15% profit has been made on the original investment (i.e. the risk is much higher than people realise). In fact the S&P 500 probably went up 8% that year… but the Hedge Fund manager looks like a superstar and gets more investors for next year. This usually runs for about 2-3 years, then a period of ‘volatility’ hits (markets go down, or up/down/up/down) and the Hedge Fund loses 5%, which because of leverage is actually 25% of their trading capital. Then the Hedge Fund manager walks away and the investors get screwed. Happens an awful lot (and the Hedge Fund manager usually gets another job in 6 months’ time)
Very few people make consistent profits (i.e. positive each quarter, or each year) over a long period of time. Yes there are some, in fact I know perhaps 20, but this is 20 out of several hundred I have come across – all of them with professional backgrounds / training and absolute top of their field (i.e. the Trading equivalents of MrGreen, StackMan, BBRock, Caurmen, CMDeal...)
Most traders that seem profitable make money from a type of trading that is in vogue – they are in the right place at the right time. It rarely lasts more than 3 years. My advice to newcomers at trading houses has always been "you need to be in the right place at the right time, for 2 years, and you can retire.... the skill is not the trading, it's maneuvering to be in the right place, at the right time, whether through skill or luck"
There are a variety of trading styles, some of the most common:
Scalping – was the preserve of independent traders. Now almost gone. Spot a big order, trade ahead of it, then reverse your position to the person with the big order, once they have moved the price in your favour.
Arbitrage – just like AM.. many trading instruments can offer arbitrage opportunities - price discrepancies between different exchanges, similar securities with pricing anomalies, carry trades (e.g. differing interest rates in different countries), tax (taking a stock whose dividends are taxed highly in one country and getting the dividend paid in another country with low tax rate)… almost every one of these has either disappeared through competition or is dominated by very large firms. Even where opportunities still exist, scale is usually needed (e.g. I know a trader who could arbitrage a specific type of share, who gathered £5m from friends and family, which he can leverage to £250m [yes that’s right, very specific case], who realised his costs were too high and he needed over £1 billion to be profitable…. But there is a profit there if he can get the capital and leverage... 18 months on, he's still trying). Or you can find small arbitrage opportunities, but as soon as you try and scale the opportunity disappears (e.g. moving from XXX to XXXX a day increases your footprint, destroying the opportunity)
High Frequency Trading – Read Flash Boys by Michael Lewis for the full story. This trading can make consistent profits every day. It is an arms race of technology, to be the fastest in the world. Minimum investment is around $300m to create a platform… then you need to keep investing to stay ahead of the pack. These guys are only limited by the speed of light (that is not an exaggeration). They are the guys trying to put Antenna masts onto ships (which remain in one place) in the Atlantic Ocean, to improve the London to New York trading time by milliseconds. By the way… these guys are only right just over half the time, it’s just that they repeat this trade millions of times a day:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3082...h-a-clear-edge
Small premiums – in many instruments you can get paid to take on risk. It’s like collecting the pennies infront of a steam roller. People do it. People think they are smart. Others think they are smart. The steam roller hits.
Access to exclusive flows (Akin to being someone who can use a traffic source, or media buy, that others can’t). Various institutions can access trading flows others can’t. The exclusivity creates pricing opportunities to profit.
Information edge – If you have a legal information edge (i.e. not Gordon Gekko style) you can profit, because you’re first to the cake, before the crowd comes along. This is often as simple as having a newsfeed (Bloomberg, Reuters), seeing the news headline, taking the trade, moving faster than the heard. This works consistently. Especially when companies release a comment on something like Twitter, that most people aren’t looking at. The robots are also at work here… scanning news feeds and automatically placing trades. Still, a lot of professional traders still make money this way (a guy we know, who trades his own money, made over $6m when the Swiss National Bank broke away from it’s Currency being ‘fixed’ or ‘pegged’… he was waiting 2 years to see that headline and hit the Sell button fast. It was a once in a lifetime trade. Chart: http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.fr/201...cb-and-qe.html
Fundamental research – just as some of you are very good at researching Offers, to work out which ones are likely to be winners, many investors spend a lot of time researching companies, markets, products and placing appropriate trades… most institutional business is founded on this. 80% of these guys underperform over time, versus just investing in a major index (like S&P500)
Systematic approach - Can involve many trading styles, but usually technical (i.e. looking at historical price action and making trades accordingly, to benefit from the repeat behaviour human psychology often produces). Focuses on trading in the same size of risk unit per trade (buying $100 of Apple shares is not the same risk as buying $100 of Verizon shares). Works if you use a Risk:Reward ratio of 1:3+ and are consistent (follow your rules). If you are AM guy / gal, looking to learn the trading skillset, take this approach and learn from the master: http://www.iitm.com/ Start with his books... if you don't like, don't proceed (or mail your money to me... same net effect for you)
Some thoughts on the comments made on this thread:
Matuloo – “In stocks, you have NO chance to influence the markets, you either hit the direction its going or you don’t.”
Actually you can. There are a few individuals and a larger number of firms that can influence the market. It’s either illegal, or very close to it… and certainly not recommended. However, until recently it was relatively common in some markets, and known as “spoofing”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...icago-ie4n4s0s
http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-spoofing/
CMDeal – Investing vs trading. As the very wise CMDeal points out, most individuals are either Investing or Gambling. In the middle is Trading… but it’s not actually the behaviour most “day traders” are adopting… they are closer to gambling. And please…. Never touch a Binary option in ‘Trading’…. You only profit from that in AM. The reality is most ‘at home’ traders were benefiting from Bull markets: in a generally upwardly trending market, many more traders make money (true for Pro’s too). Introduce volatility, as we’ve seen recently and very few traders continue to make money. Even the Pro’s. 80% of trades made by Pro’s are long bets (prices need to move up to profit)… in volatile markets, generally that means they lose money. I would guess that 95% of amateur trades are long bets.
Pershing – You have it right Sir. The focus is indeed on psychology / discipline, entry / exit, money management. For those of you that want to be serious Traders (or Investors), the fastest way to learn these principles is via: http://www.vantharp.com/
Tip: just signing up for his emails is well worth it, if you are in AM or Trading. He drops gems in almost every one…
Zeno – agree skill set is broader and easier to leverage across multiple industries / businesses. I would speculate that the AM skillset would more likely give you “tools for life.” The trading skillset, will ironically give you some good skills for AM (money management, risk management, data analysis, discipline), but most traders struggle to transfer their skills to other vocations without re-training.
Mr Green - getting all philosophical on us! “Every man thinks that playing the stock market is like shooting fish in a barrel. What each man fails to realize is that he’s the fish." – and I am the Piranha!
it is true that there is a very strange allure to Trading… I guess what purer form of greed than to make money from money (oh hang on, that’s AM too right 
). For sure the brokers and sharks continue to set out big nets to lure the fish in, then eat them whole. I guess in AM there is less of that? i.e. you might copy someone, but there aren't so many out there setting traps for others? (I'm no AM expert, so excuse my probable ignorance here)In the end, it’s probably quicker and higher probability to make money from trading info products than trading itself.
For those who still want to trade, with guaranteed success, on a small capital investment and only 2 hours applied time each day, I’ll be releasing only 50 copies of my new eBook “Trade like a Wolf, Profit like a Gekko, in 10 easy steps” for only $49.99* in a few weeks…. PM me to get on the Advance signup list….
*Affiliate opportunities available
LOL… in all seriousness, I may be take a break from STM at the end of May [it’s way too distracting when I'm supposed to be focusing on shooting fish
], so respond now if you have Questions.
I saw ProgramTrader had commented on this thread and immediately jumped in to check it out. Was. Not. Disappointed.
I think I know what's going in the newsletter next week
Wow, what an excellent post ProgramTrader Perfect summary of what is possible to do in the trading field. Im definitely getting your book, trading has always been of huge interest to me, so it might be time to take a closer look at it
Originally Posted by caurmen
I think I know what's going in the newsletter next week
I have spent time in both industries and I'll tell you one thing, there wasn't a single "meet-up" in my wall street days. AM wins for me just on the social aspect. This industry is FUN.
Originally Posted by ProgramTrader
Bluecrayon: How do you define success? Let me assume you mean the greatest profitability, with the least effort and risk, in the shortest time period (relatively), for the “average” person (i.e. no specific skills or advantages in either discipline), in a manner that can be somewhat sustained (repeated) is what you’re getting at.
I think you have a higher probability of making larger returns in AM, than with ‘trading’ and more chance to scale into bigger profits too.
My guess is that it would be more likely for someone using their own capital and skills to earn bigger compound returns in AM than Trading, over a reasonable time period (5 years)
That is a function of: number of opportunities, lower barriers to entry, visibility and help/ guidance available (STM, Aff Managers, mastermind groups)
Skillset for Trading – I would say it takes longer to acquire than AM, because there is so much bad advice, very few people are transparent about their strategies, you rarely get a forum like STM for help and there aren’t any spying tools.
Barriers to entry - if you decide to scale (tech, capital, research, info) - are High!
Most money in ‘trading’ is made from managing money or transacting for others… not outright trading. However the sexy stories of traders big bets paying off (The Big Short for example) take the limelight.
Most outsize profits are leveraged returns, so look better than in reality. E.g. Hedge Fund Manager has $100m capital from his investors. She leverages that (borrows more money) so she now has $500m. She trades / invests for a year and makes a 3% profit. Because of the leverage, it looks like a 15% profit has been made on the original investment (i.e. the risk is much higher than people realise). In fact the S&P 500 probably went up 8% that year… but the Hedge Fund manager looks like a superstar and gets more investors for next year. This usually runs for about 2-3 years, then a period of ‘volatility’ hits (markets go down, or up/down/up/down) and the Hedge Fund loses 5%, which because of leverage is actually 25% of their trading capital. Then the Hedge Fund manager walks away and the investors get screwed. Happens an awful lot (and the Hedge Fund manager usually gets another job in 6 months’ time)
Very few people make consistent profits (i.e. positive each quarter, or each year) over a long period of time. Yes there are some, in fact I know perhaps 20, but this is 20 out of several hundred I have come across – all of them with professional backgrounds / training and absolute top of their field (i.e. the Trading equivalents of MrGreen, StackMan, BBRock, Caurmen, CMDeal...)
Most traders that seem profitable make money from a type of trading that is in vogue – they are in the right place at the right time. It rarely lasts more than 3 years. My advice to newcomers at trading houses has always been "you need to be in the right place at the right time, for 2 years, and you can retire.... the skill is not the trading, it's maneuvering to be in the right place, at the right time, whether through skill or luck"
There are a variety of trading styles, some of the most common:
Scalping – was the preserve of independent traders. Now almost gone. Spot a big order, trade ahead of it, then reverse your position to the person with the big order, once they have moved the price in your favour.
Arbitrage – just like AM.. many trading instruments can offer arbitrage opportunities - price discrepancies between different exchanges, similar securities with pricing anomalies, carry trades (e.g. differing interest rates in different countries), tax (taking a stock whose dividends are taxed highly in one country and getting the dividend paid in another country with low tax rate)… almost every one of these has either disappeared through competition or is dominated by very large firms. Even where opportunities still exist, scale is usually needed (e.g. I know a trader who could arbitrage a specific type of share, who gathered £5m from friends and family, which he can leverage to £250m [yes that’s right, very specific case], who realised his costs were too high and he needed over £1 billion to be profitable…. But there is a profit there if he can get the capital and leverage... 18 months on, he's still trying). Or you can find small arbitrage opportunities, but as soon as you try and scale the opportunity disappears (e.g. moving from XXX to XXXX a day increases your footprint, destroying the opportunity)
High Frequency Trading – Read Flash Boys by Michael Lewis for the full story. This trading can make consistent profits every day. It is an arms race of technology, to be the fastest in the world. Minimum investment is around $300m to create a platform… then you need to keep investing to stay ahead of the pack. These guys are only limited by the speed of light (that is not an exaggeration). They are the guys trying to put Antenna masts onto ships (which remain in one place) in the Atlantic Ocean, to improve the London to New York trading time by milliseconds. By the way… these guys are only right just over half the time, it’s just that they repeat this trade millions of times a day:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3082...h-a-clear-edge
Small premiums – in many instruments you can get paid to take on risk. It’s like collecting the pennies infront of a steam roller. People do it. People think they are smart. Others think they are smart. The steam roller hits.
Access to exclusive flows (Akin to being someone who can use a traffic source, or media buy, that others can’t). Various institutions can access trading flows others can’t. The exclusivity creates pricing opportunities to profit.
Information edge – If you have a legal information edge (i.e. not Gordon Gekko style) you can profit, because you’re first to the cake, before the crowd comes along. This is often as simple as having a newsfeed (Bloomberg, Reuters), seeing the news headline, taking the trade, moving faster than the heard. This works consistently. Especially when companies release a comment on something like Twitter, that most people aren’t looking at. The robots are also at work here… scanning news feeds and automatically placing trades. Still, a lot of professional traders still make money this way (a guy we know, who trades his own money, made over $6m when the Swiss National Bank broke away from it’s Currency being ‘fixed’ or ‘pegged’… he was waiting 2 years to see that headline and hit the Sell button fast. It was a once in a lifetime trade. Chart: http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.fr/201...cb-and-qe.html
Fundamental research – just as some of you are very good at researching Offers, to work out which ones are likely to be winners, many investors spend a lot of time researching companies, markets, products and placing appropriate trades… most institutional business is founded on this. 80% of these guys underperform over time, versus just investing in a major index (like S&P500)
Systematic approach - Can involve many trading styles, but usually technical (i.e. looking at historical price action and making trades accordingly, to benefit from the repeat behaviour human psychology often produces). Focuses on trading in the same size of risk unit per trade (buying $100 of Apple shares is not the same risk as buying $100 of Verizon shares). Works if you use a Risk:Reward ratio of 1:3+ and are consistent (follow your rules). If you are AM guy / gal, looking to learn the trading skillset, take this approach and learn from the master: http://www.iitm.com/ Start with his books... if you don't like, don't proceed (or mail your money to me... same net effect for you)
Some thoughts on the comments made on this thread:
Matuloo – “In stocks, you have NO chance to influence the markets, you either hit the direction its going or you don’t.”
Actually you can. There are a few individuals and a larger number of firms that can influence the market. It’s either illegal, or very close to it… and certainly not recommended. However, until recently it was relatively common in some markets, and known as “spoofing”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...icago-ie4n4s0s
http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-spoofing/
CMDeal – Investing vs trading. As the very wise CMDeal points out, most individuals are either Investing or Gambling. In the middle is Trading… but it’s not actually the behaviour most “day traders” are adopting… they are closer to gambling. And please…. Never touch a Binary option in ‘Trading’…. You only profit from that in AM. The reality is most ‘at home’ traders were benefiting from Bull markets: in a generally upwardly trending market, many more traders make money (true for Pro’s too). Introduce volatility, as we’ve seen recently and very few traders continue to make money. Even the Pro’s. 80% of trades made by Pro’s are long bets (prices need to move up to profit)… in volatile markets, generally that means they lose money. I would guess that 95% of amateur trades are long bets.
Pershing – You have it right Sir. The focus is indeed on psychology / discipline, entry / exit, money management. For those of you that want to be serious Traders (or Investors), the fastest way to learn these principles is via: http://www.vantharp.com/
Tip: just signing up for his emails is well worth it, if you are in AM or Trading. He drops gems in almost every one…
Zeno – agree skill set is broader and easier to leverage across multiple industries / businesses. I would speculate that the AM skillset would more likely give you “tools for life.” The trading skillset, will ironically give you some good skills for AM (money management, risk management, data analysis, discipline), but most traders struggle to transfer their skills to other vocations without re-training.
Mr Green - getting all philosophical on us! “Every man thinks that playing the stock market is like shooting fish in a barrel. What each man fails to realize is that he’s the fish." – and I am the Piranha!
it is true that there is a very strange allure to Trading… I guess what purer form of greed than to make money from money (oh hang on, that’s AM too right ). For sure the brokers and sharks continue to set out big nets to lure the fish in, then eat them whole. I guess in AM there is less of that? i.e. you might copy someone, but there aren't so many out there setting traps for others? (I'm no AM expert, so excuse my probable ignorance here)In the end, it’s probably quicker and higher probability to make money from trading info products than trading itself.
For those who still want to trade, with guaranteed success, on a small capital investment and only 2 hours applied time each day, I’ll be releasing only 50 copies of my new eBook “Trade like a Wolf, Profit like a Gekko, in 10 easy steps” for only $49.99* in a few weeks…. PM me to get on the Advance signup list….
*Affiliate opportunities available
LOL… in all seriousness, I may be take a break from STM at the end of May [it’s way too distracting when I'm supposed to be focusing on shooting fish
], so respond now if you have Questions.Let me ask you this, how do you feel about Motley Fool considering they are market based but use direct response style advertising.
Both AM and stocks are businesses with fixed and variable costs, and you need to spend before earning. 99% of the trading golden tips are free on the web, the problem is that if you are starting now you don't know what works and what doesn't, and you may lose time with garbage stuff.
I trade forex and CFD, but I know some GREAT traders, and I can tell you what they use. I've been learning from them for years, and helped me to not quit trading. Some years ago I was lost because nothing seemed to work, then I saw the light.
A lot of tools, strategies, indicators, are useless. Internet is full of stats showing amazing gains, but I can tell you that if you apply them you'll lose a lot of money.
Every single trading student thinks that in order to succeed he should study supercomplicated strategies and indicators, but trust me, this is far from the truth. I don't mean that trading is easy, but the hard part is in mastering the simple tools and apply them with "US marine" discipline.
Here what works:
1- Discipline
2- Thousands of hours in chart observation
3- Bars or candlestick chart partterns
3- Supports and resistatances
4- Stop loss. The maximum amount you are willing to lose on each position.
5- A volatilty indicator is optional
REMEMBER: PRICE ACTION IS KING.
These are the tools that the top traders use. The trick is to master them with the right mindset
Trading is not gambling but a probalilities game, where you can increase the chances of winning by mastering the tools above, with a good accuracy.
Just to give you an idea, here a chart with a support/reistance level. These are levels are areas where prices bounces. In the following example EurChf touched a support and reacted. It's a BUY example.
Trading is stressfull and it happens that you can't make money for weeks because of unusual chart behavior, or that you have to recover from a loss. If sometimes you have personal problems you can't trading, you'de lose money for sure, because of the psychology aspect.
For several reasons I'm prefering AM now, it seem more stable, scalable, less stressfull, long term.
Originally Posted by pershing
important
In case you think that people can become rich with trading, then I have to deny. It's VERY VERY hard, unless you work with a Gordon Gekko.
There is no way to go from like 10,000 to 50,000 or 100,000 in a short period of time with trading, unless of a serie of lucky positions, but those have an end.
Because of money management reasons you have to start with a large capital to make nice amounts.
With AM you can start with 4.000 and end the year with XX,XXX in your account,.
If you take a look at trading performances, the good numbers are way lower than AM, like yearly 10%, 20%, up to 50% if we talk about the best hedge funds. Private traders can reach 100% or 200%, but it's not common.
And I leave with an epic Gordon Gekko's speech
Good words Pershing
Watch the Showtime series BILLIONS. It is so frickin life-like it is unbelievable! This show is extremely well researched and scripted. Sometimes they have blended two or three real life characters into one on-screen character, but overall, this really is a very accurate show - and great entertainment!
Read the book - The Greatest Trade Ever: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of How John Paulson Defied Wall Street and Made Financial History
by Gregory Zuckerman. One trade 2.5% premium on the Credit Default Swap = $250 million (if you are not "in the money" you will be out this amount) for a payout of $10 billion dollars and some change.
Stocks are easier if you have decent capital, with dividend investing there is practically very little chance you'll lose.
AM 100%. While Forex for example, is at an all time 'trendy and hip' ascent (think all those Instagrams touting freedom & luxury etc) it's a far riskier endeavour investment than AM although some people who got an early start with it 5-10 years ago are very successful with that type of trading.
Home > General > Affiliate Marketing Forum