I’ve been trading for a bit under 15 years now. Really great article and ideas, but I actually disagree with both of you that analysts are a good source of ideas/inspiration (Seeking Alpha/Twitter/Stocktwits). They normally have an angle based around whoever they work for and are trying to position a certain stock based on those factors.
If you look at most analysts’ performance, they almost always underperform standard market indexes over a long timeframe.
These days, I’m looking at specific technical patterns within hot areas (e.g. AI/semiconductor ETFs are outperforming standard indexes by +2.5% per month).
Some quick tips I thought I would share with others looking to trade full time:
Start small (5% of funds) until you have at least 3 months of profitable trades.
Scale up when your trades start becoming profitable; scale down when trades are unprofitable.
Study, study, study. Study the best trades rather than relying on opinions. You can then reverse engineer what happened to see why that stock was one of the best trades. A company called Finsuba used to have a free daily email with the best trades (entry time, gain, and exit time). I think it is a paid report now, but it used to help me commit to studying each day.
Start with stocks. 99% of traders are unprofitable with options. Only when you have a really high conviction trade with multiple data points would I consider options. I still tend to avoid them.
Use stops with every trade; they are like insurance when you are getting started.
Avoid low volume, low market-cap stocks, large bid and ask spreads and Chinese ADRs. These are normally traps and manipulated.
Watch market segments closely. Premarket can give a lot of detail about how a stock will trade that day.
And lastly, good luck out there. Trading is tough. Your mindset and convictions will need to be strong.
I’ve been trading for a bit under 15 years now. Really great article and ideas, but I actually disagree with both of you that analysts are a good source of ideas/inspiration (Seeking Alpha/Twitter/Stocktwits). They normally have an angle based around whoever they work for and are trying to position a certain stock based on those factors.
If you look at most analysts’ performance, they almost always underperform standard market indexes over a long timeframe.
These days, I’m looking at specific technical patterns within hot areas (e.g. AI/semiconductor ETFs are outperforming standard indexes by +2.5% per month).
Some quick tips I thought I would share with others looking to trade full time:
Start small (5% of funds) until you have at least 3 months of profitable trades.
Scale up when your trades start becoming profitable; scale down when trades are unprofitable.
Study, study, study. Study the best trades rather than relying on opinions. You can then reverse engineer what happened to see why that stock was one of the best trades. A company called Finsuba used to have a free daily email with the best trades (entry time, gain, and exit time). I think it is a paid report now, but it used to help me commit to studying each day.
Start with stocks. 99% of traders are unprofitable with options. Only when you have a really high conviction trade with multiple data points would I consider options. I still tend to avoid them.
Use stops with every trade; they are like insurance when you are getting started.
Avoid low volume, low market-cap stocks, large bid and ask spreads and Chinese ADRs. These are normally traps and manipulated.
Watch market segments closely. Premarket can give a lot of detail about how a stock will trade that day.
And lastly, good luck out there. Trading is tough. Your mindset and convictions will need to be strong.