Day trading swing trading and passive investing
I watch my coworker (we work in an unrelated field) trade options everyday and he’s already reaped five thousand dollars in one month. Day trading seems overwhelming but I heard about swing trading which seems a bit more maneagable. Has anyone done this as more of a side thing to make extra money or to supplement income? Is it maneagable for the lay person? Or is it smarter to invest everything in mutual funds etc thanks
Re: Day trading swing trading and passive investing
Its not easy money and options trading is especially random. One bad call and your $5000 you made today can be gone tomorrow. Hubby went through an entire rollercoaster with his small inheritance in the last 6 months trying to day-trade and swing trade, especially with options. The stress made him lose about 20 lbs I think. He started fundamental trading and only using buy-write options and the daily gains are smaller but almost always gains now. Count on losing a lot of money (think of it as "tuition") when you start. The brokerages count on the 90-90-90 rule...90% of everyone loses 90% of their starting money in the first 90 days. Some brokerages don't even really post your activity to the public exchange, they just privately take the opposite of every trade and take your money themselves. If you're a rare winner, then they just start mirroring your trades or double-hedging against you. The people that brag about their $5000 wins never tell you about their losses and the investing world is absolutely packed with fake gurus that try to predict the next big winner or use pseudoscience to predict market moves.
The only way you're going to have real income from stocks/options is if you have a very large amount to start and take a long view investing in relatively safe investments. If you have lower amounts of income, its a good way to save for the future, but you will get very frustrated (and for sure lose) trying to make a guaranteed or steady current income. Day and swing-trading is every bit as risky as professional gambling and very time consuming.
Re: Day trading swing trading and passive investing
Quote:
Originally Posted by
LaurenAus
I watch my coworker (we work in an unrelated field) trade options everyday and he’s already reaped five thousand dollars in one month. Day trading seems overwhelming but I heard about swing trading which seems a bit more maneagable. Has anyone done this as more of a side thing to make extra money or to supplement income? Is it maneagable for the lay person? Or is it smarter to invest everything in mutual funds etc thanks
I've recently started learning about trading in foreign currency market with a company, once you know the theory and understand how the market works it makes sense to start with a low funded account. and low is really a matter of what money re you willing to start with that you won't miss if you didn't implement the right risk management and lost it. You have to see it as buying drugs or gambling. there is a reward yes but there is also for language purposes a consequence or reaction.
foreign exchange trading appealed to me for the simple fact. I do it already on a retail level cashing my earnings from USD to CAD (Canadian dollar), for as along as I've been working online I've been paid in USD and I have to find the best rate available when my money arrives to me.
that in itself was a roller coaster ride.
so I figure why not learn foreign exchange and learn how to get back some of that money in the market, when reality is I am using money today to sit in my account and learn proper risk management so that new account will grow on it's own in separate way then how my primary money comes to me.
it becomes this energy field of moving money so i can have more then what I started with.
Re: Day trading swing trading and passive investing
Warren Buffet gives this advice: buy shares of a good American company, then sit back and let business do its job for you.
Day trading is fine if you find that entertaining and if you have money to lose. But if you want to get rich, buy and hold is the only way to go.
Re: Day trading swing trading and passive investing
You can trade on Tastytrade. They have all the lessons you need to get started and its not 50/50 trading like with stocks! Just focus on trading options small and getting small wins but trade often. I recommend watching the LIZ and Jenny show on there which is called Trade Small, Trade Often. It has worked for me. Im not making $5000 a month. I did make that once when I was trading in futures but I lost half in one day and never traded futures again. I prefer the safer methods myself. But you have to put in the work to learn how to trade and also you have to do it every day Monday to Friday so you catch you wins. The learning curve is not huge. You can learn it in a month if you really double down but having to be accountable to trade and manage your positions every day might be difficult for some.
Re: Day trading swing trading and passive investing
Hi deep thoughts, good stuff! I’ve heard of tasty trades. Do you think it’s better to trade options? Does it require a lot of understanding of quant and mathematics? I don’t know if I have time everyday to trade which was why I was considering swing trading. Do you profit enough to make it worth it? Thanks
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DeepThoughts
You can trade on Tastytrade. They have all the lessons you need to get started and its not 50/50 trading like with stocks! Just focus on trading options small and getting small wins but trade often. I recommend watching the LIZ and Jenny show on there which is called Trade Small, Trade Often. It has worked for me. Im not making $5000 a month. I did make that once when I was trading in futures but I lost half in one day and never traded futures again. I prefer the safer methods myself. But you have to put in the work to learn how to trade and also you have to do it every day Monday to Friday so you catch you wins. The learning curve is not huge. You can learn it in a month if you really double down but having to be accountable to trade and manage your positions every day might be difficult for some.
Re: Day trading swing trading and passive investing
Options and futures investing is both extremely expensive and very risky. All it takes is one bad trade or a crazy market day to wipe out any profits you may have achieved. Every so called "system" for investing in options gets firebombed sooner or later. Every single one. This includes Tastytrades, with strategies that got pummeled in 2014 and resulted in heavy losses for investors using their strategies, including the fraud Karen the Supertader.
But here's the thing: Tastytrades doesn't really care about how much money you make, only that you keep trading, because they make money whether you win or lose. They get brokerage fees for every trade made through their tastyworks brokerage platform. Trading options and futures is really expensive and they are making a killing, which has led to glitzy new office digs and a lot of new employees, all paid for by people trading those options. Options and futures often trade on a "net" basis, meaning that people who buy and sell them often do not see the real brokerage markups on the trades.
What tasty is doing is nothing new. For decades there have been slick sales people trying to present their options and futures strategies as the next great way to make money fast. Tasty just happens to be really good at selling it. What has also helped them take this gimmick to a new level is that they are able to accommodate options trading on really small accounts, which historically couldn't be done without much larger numbers.
Running a high turnover options trading strategy is like being a hamster on a wheel, with most of the benefit going to the people who own the wheel. And sure, you might get something from it for a while, but one stumble and the wheel is going to punish you.
The real path to long-term asset growth in investing is to let good companies work for you, like Zofia indicated above, and the power of compound earnings when you reinvest your profits back into the same good companies.
Re: Day trading swing trading and passive investing
For anyone looking to go into the stock market but has little knowledge on it I would highly recommend Think Or Swim Papermoney account. Basically it gives you a lot of fake virtual "money" to trade with- options included- and mirrors the realtime stock market exactly. Hands on learning experience without risking your actual money.
Re: Day trading swing trading and passive investing
We started using MotifInvesting. Its a "buy and hold" brokerage that lets you trade entire portfolios of up to 30 stocks you pick, just like building your own mutual fund. You can also trade partial shares, so you don't need $2000 for a share of Amazon, you can get a piece for as little as $25.
By holding about 300 positions spread around 10 "motifs", we haven't really had a bad day yet. Everything slowly grows with sector rotations. Whereas hubby was making (and losing) up to 5k/day with options, this has been a slow and steady +$100/day average since we started.
On their plan, all trades done before market open each day are free, including individual stocks and entire motifs.
Every position is small, so you have plenty of time to trim the big losers before they start to hurt by just shuffling their percentage over to the winners.
To me, this is the first time we felt like we were really getting ahead of things, and hubby can still spend hours and hours tweaking everything without doing any damage. The platform is not really built for day-trading at all, but for investors, so that also helps preserve your money.
There is an affiliate program where you can get 3 months of free trading if you PM me, but its good enough that I'm not looking for any credit for pimping this. It has been a real help.
Re: Day trading swing trading and passive investing
^^^ this sounds awesome! For fun, I have an etrade account. And I'm tired of not making much money from it. I think I will maybe try this out instead of etrade for my play money. Thanks!