Retail investors and their success?

Hi,

I'm from the UK and currently working as a Personal Banking Advisor in other words I sell products like loans and credit cards. Although I have no experience in Investment banking or the stock market as whole I am an avid stock market investor and amateur analyst [for what that's worth].

I want to manage my own funds invested in the Alternative Investment Market, currency and bonds. I just wanted to know what kind of success individual/retail investors have had [if any] and are there any that are well known?

I ask this because it is something I have wanted to do for some time with money that I have put away and have always wanted a career in investment banking but have missed the boat and have settled for Retail banking.

 
Best Response

It's highly dependent on the investor. Some are successful. Most aren't. It doesn't matter how well other people do, it matters how you do.

Decent article: http://www.fool.com/investing/small-cap/2009/07/01/the-ultimate-strateg…

Know this: the stock market has winners and losers. Most of the winners are spending at least 40 hours per week researching their investments/trades. The more time you put in, the more successful you're likely to be.

There's a catch though. The guys that are doing this as their primary means of living have people teaching them. You won't have anyone teaching you. If you pay to take a course directed at investing, it's not going to be anywhere near the same quality and you won't get anywhere near the same experience as a company that's paying people to invest/trade.

The best piece of advice I got regarding personal investing/trading: take your time (I haven't done any, but it sounds smart). I talked to a pretty damn good asset manager about this. He said if he were in my shoes and only putting in 10-15 hours per week, he'd spend the first year or so making small trades/investments of $100-$200, just to get the feel for what it's like to earn and lose money. After that, you've got a few hundred hours of experience. If you do well, keep going and up the ante. If you don't figure out what you're doing wrong and adjust.

Good luck.

"You stop being an asshole when it sucks to be you." -IlliniProgrammer "Your grammar made me wish I'd been aborted." -happypantsmcgee
 
overpaid_overworked:
There was an article floating around a while back that most of the retail focused forex platforms wern't investing the money, just holding it in money markets. Their thought was that most people would either break even or lose after brokerage costs, so they just took the other side of each bet.
Hah, that's actually a pretty sound business model. I assume that this is compliant with US laws?
 

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