Trading in College
Anyone have any success trading a personal account in college? By success I don't neccessarily mean Tim Sykes returns or anything. Mostly just anough to keep a strong beer fund flowing. Any tips on required starting cash? Best market to trade in?
I did currency trading for 2 months riding that JPY/CAD carry trade. Stopped since you could never leave a position open for more then 10 minutes or the leverage would destroy you.
learn to trade options, specifically debit and credit spreads. paper trade and take courses (trading platform courses and optionseducation websites) before using real money...YOU WILL MAKE MISTAKES AND LOSE BIG at the beginning especially with options. But learn to do it safely (meaning trading intelligently and not just gambling with naked calls) and you will thank me forever. I have been doing it for the past year in college and am pulling in some good cash this way. Also pick just one company, with high options liquidity (AAPL for me) and know their historical trends and everything about them. diversification is bullshit IMO better to know alot about one company than a little about multiple comapnies especially when that precious time can be spent drinking.
Awesome man thanks for the tip. What broker do you use? Also do you have any recommendations for good classes?
i use eTrade and got all my education from their courses but I will switch to IB as soon as my account hits 10k. IB has much better commissions and execution, which really makes a difference especially when selling weekly $0.10 spreads because every penny counts. also im pretty sure http://www.optionseducation.org/en.html has a pretty good educational course.
Index funds and mutual funds or blue chip stocks are considered to be great in the long term, but if you want to short sell then find a company with lots of cash, decent yields, low p/e ratio, and have less then their net assets are worth. Always practice on the websites like scottrade or etrade.
Yes, spot fx. This market is great for smaller(retail) traders who dont have a lot of money(ie college students). If you can manage your risk properly, 2-5k will be enough capital to generate sufficient returns to live a very comfortable life as a college student. You need to run a projected equity model for a specific capital amount that you start with, and you will be able to determine how much money you will be making(under a certain win%, R/R ratio) and how much risk you are willing to take. This is all said and good but the success of this venture, bottom line(psychologically) will come down to whether or not this capital you are starting with is true risk capital(money that you can just write off). You also, maybe more importantly than the last point, need to be experienced in the market in which you are trading to the point where you have developed a consistent(more than 8 mos) strategy that is producing decent gains. If you just jump in and start to trade without much experience, thinking you can make awesome gains, you are very, very(95%) likely to loose a large portion or all of your capital. Any additional queries, PM me for more info.
EDIT: actually the more that I think of it, why would you want to waste your hard earned gains on beer? Why not COMPOUND your gains and make money rather than squandering it, not to mention a great resume and experience point?
hope this helps :)
P.S. Tim Sykes is a complete loser.....
Awesome thanks for all the advice!
Good thread.
I'm so behind when it comes to trading/investing and I'm planning on using this summer to get caught up and hopefully do a little in school.
"Are you smarter than the average professional investor? Probably not"
I don't remember who said it but I find it very true. However if you want to list it on your resume and have something "real" to talk about during interviews go ahead. As long as it's a beer fund you'll be fine.
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