Is the Stock Market a Good Fastlane Road?

[IceCreamKid]

where is the best place to learn more on stock trading?

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0984358102/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20

Read the book. It'll pay more dividends than any stock out there....if you take action on it, that is.

 

[M&A]

Maybe I can offer you a bit of insight since I have made a small nest egg from trading which I am using half to finance to a business venture.

It is definitely possible to make a lot of money trading but it requires a massive amount of talent, long hours, gruelling work and a bit of luck.

Ive also had an obsession with trading, watched all the wall street themed movies read about 20 books took advice from other traders but all that meant nothing. I only started learning when I dove in and started trading and losing/making money.

I realised a bunch of things:

Find out what your good at fast - I trade currencies (majors), metals, oil/gas and equities because I feel I have a natural ability for trading them. I don't touch bonds, options, bitcoins, binaries, ETF products and exotic currencies. Most of the people who have made big money in this business (which I will mention at the end of this post) stuck to a small group of asset classes.

Always have a large upside little downside - If I am willing to lose $1,000 I should be profiting $2,000+
Example I buy 500 Shares of ZAGG @ $9 I get out a 7$ at $1,000 loss but I will only take profits at $13+, obviously you have to analyse the volatility of the stock you don't want to get stopped out and find out you are right later on.

Don't let the past haunt you - I shorted €200,000 @ 1.35 and it has went as low as 1.04, about €60,000 profit could have been had but I took a small profit of €4,000. You just have to treat each trade as a singular event in your career with no future consequence. Getting emotional about money is the reason most people lose $1,000 and give up.

Bet big when you are sure you are right - VERY FEW TRADER FOLLOWS THIS RULE BUT IN MY OPINION BUT IS THE ONLY WAY YOU WILL EVER MAKE TRADING FASTLANE OR ATLEAST MAKE YOU FASTLANE MONEY. YOU HAVE TO TAKE LARGE CALCULATED RISKS.

If you think the road to riches in trading lies in "low volatility, minimal drawdown, risk adjusted returns" you are wrong my friend leave that to large funds trying to please investors.

You are a lone wolf eating what you kill and you can't live on 20% a year. Stanley Druckenmiller said it best " you will make 95% of your money on 5% of your bets" so you might as well bet big on those 5% you think will pay off. Look at John Paulson a large part of his 11 figure net worth was derived in 2 single years 2010 and 2007 if I am not mistake $5b and $4b. From gold and housing bets respectively. And he has been in the business 20+ years.

When your wrong your wrong - Admit when you are wrong, don't throw good money at a bad trade, cut your losses quickly enough before it stings. Bad trades on your portfolio affect your objectivity and judgement.

This is a game of risk and odds - At the end of the day its all about analysing the odds, risk management and emotional management. There isn't much else to it, whether you trade fundamentals, technicals or both it is still about odds and risk.

BEWARE OF HIDDEN RISK BECAUSE IT WILL RUIN YOU - Always account for hidden risk, just because something stays within a certain range and is in an uptrend doesn't mean it won't drop 40% the next 2 minutes. Just look at the EUR/CHF chart. It dropped something like 30% in 5 minutes imagine being 10x leveraged on the wrong side - which isn't unheard of in even institutional traders.

Put your a$$ on the line - Conventional wisdom will tell you don't risk what you are not willing to lose, that is BS. Imagine playing a game where there is no prize, imagine if average NBA salaries were $50,000 would kids bust their a$$ every day training trying to get drafted for $25,000 ? You have to go ALL IN as they say, I remember reading a thread about that concept on this forum.

When I started I put 95% of my money in my trading account and that made me pay attention to every detail and work meticulously 12 hours a day. I would not have done that if I was playing with a couple 100 dollars that didn't mean much.

Here are some examples of guys (non hedge funders) who have parlayed small sums of money into fortunes:

Dan Zanger - Turned an initial stake of $11,000 into $42,000,000 in 2 years - 381,818% - Equities

Michael Marcus - $30,000 prop trading account to $80,000,000 under 20 years - 266,666% - Commodities

Richard Dennis - $400 to $200,000,000 in about 10 years - 50,000,000% - Commodities

Jesse Livermore - 1000$ to $100,000,000 - 10,000,000% timeline unknown - Equities

Marty Schwartz - $100,000 to $5,000,000 annual income - 25% per month for years on end. Resets account every year. - SP500 Contracts only

CIS (Japanese Day Trader) $10,000 to $160,000,000 - 1,600,000% - Equities

Takashi Kotegawa - $13,600 - $153,000,000 in 8 years - 1,125,000% - Equities

Rakesh Jhunjhunwala - $250 to $1,900,000,000 in 29 years - 760,000,000% - Equities

Don't let anyone else dissuade you, if you think you are more likely make big money trading than building a business try it, unlike starting a business you will find out quickly if you have what it takes.

90% of new businesses fail within 3 years because they don't follow the CENTS principles outlined in MJ's book, if you follow those principles in businesses your odds of success dramatically improve.

In trading 90% of people lose 90% of their money in 90 days, I know that is a much tougher reality to deal with but if you create you own trading system/philosophy following a set of basic rules in addition to your own rules you drastically improve your odds of making it big. Good Luck, I Hope You Start Trading By Monday, No Point Pondering Wondering What If.

 

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[GlobalWealth]

It is not fastlane. No question. Certainly there are exceptions but by and large the stock market is ONE of the ways way to grow wealth and preserve it.

A fastlane plan involves creating value. Aside from a little more market liquidity, what value does a trader offer? A trader is a money chaser. That is not a fastlane path to wealth.

I personally made a lot of money in the stock market, esp in 2008-2010. But it was because I had money to invest. And that money came fromy businesses.

Those businesses created value. I sold in 2007 and 2008 and was flush with cash. I thought the market was high so put most of it in US treasuries. The market crashed and UST went thru the roof. When I felt the market was at or near its lows, I went into stock market.

But again, I did it with money made from fastlane businesses.

Nowadays I have a couple of businesses that create value. I also invest in the stock market. But if I earn 8% per year in the markets my yield on my businesses is virtually infinite due to exponential yields on one time investments.

You can find wealth in the markets but only after you have created value.

 

[bringitnow28329]

For the 95% of people that fail, (yes it's more than 90%), I agree trading is gambling. To say that it is 100% gambling for everyone involved is a straight up lie because one person wins and one person loses on every single trade that get's placed. I've been consistently profitable for 11 years and I certainly wouldn't be if I was gambling. I found a process that works for me and I repeat the same process day in and day out extracting small to medium profits, while limiting my loses.

The first 2 years I traded I lost thousands, because I had no idea what I was doing, tried to follow others, didn't utilize a trading system and completely underestimated what it takes to be a profitable trader. I also tried to trade illiquid sub penny stocks and all the bs that most new traders get involved in. The only reason I made as a trader was because I didn't give up after losing a lot of money. Most people get involved and then quickly lose all their money and write it off trading as a losing game because they realize it is more difficult than they expected and it's not a get rich quick scheme in any way, shape or form. The truth is in trading the way that most retail traders make money is by capitalizing on the influx of get rich quick seekers that have no idea what they are doing.


A hedge fund manager is different from a day trader. Running a hedge fund is very stressful because you answering to your clients. When you are an independent trader it is also stressful but you only answer to yourself. I can take vacations anytime I want, in fact last year I went to Asian twice once for 4 weeks and another time for 5 weeks. A hedge fund manager's goal needs to be make big money for 3-5 years and then retire and be set for life. Most hedge funds fail or the managers live a lifestyle that requires them to continue working (private jets, houses in the Hamptons, etc) which is why it becomes a tough job.

Its just glorified gambling

 

[Esquire]

Why not just buy a shitload of lotto tickets ...?

Or go to the casino and chase down the progressive jackpot ...?

Both options sound as "fastlane" to me ... as the stock market.

Instead of betting on cards ... you are betting on other people's businesses.

Your only contribution being ... capital.

Of which ... there is no shortage of supply.

No ... the stock market is NOT fastlane.

Not even close.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Lets give examples....

Let's don't.

Listen man, this is starting to get old.

THIS IS AN ENTREPRENEUR FORUM.

99% of us aren't interested in using stocks for wealth, unless it's stock in our own company.

This isn't the appropriate forum for what you are indirectly trying to promote. There are better forums for it.

Please stop.

 

[jesseissorude]

Obligatory: https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/is-this-fastlane-uh-no-it-isnt.58554/

Plus, dude... I don't want my business decisions tied to a "rush of adrenaline" or any other emotional response. Strategy shouldn't be a reptile brain decision.

Regarding the "lifestyle that comes with trading stocks" that you mention, what do you envision that lifestyle is? If I were you, I'd go find someone who is a stock trader that makes a living doing that. The overwhelming probability is that he doesn't make money for himself making trades. He makes money on the fees he gets from trading other people's money for them.

Seriously, if you want that job, go find someone who is doing it and test your assumptions about what you think they do.

 

[Ninjakid]

Please don't tell me you're one of those who saw The Wolf Of Wall Street and now you think the stock market is the shit

Edit: Fastlane is about control, which almost zero exists in the stock market

 

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[bringitnow28329]

Some of this is good advice. This part below is TERRIBLE advice:

Put your a$$ on the line - Conventional wisdom will tell you don't risk what you are not willing to lose, that is BS. Imagine playing a game where there is no prize, imagine if average NBA salaries were $50,000 would kids bust their a$$ every day training trying to get drafted for $25,000 ? You have to go ALL IN as they say, I remember reading a thread about that concept on this forum.

When I started I put 95% of my money in my trading account and that made me pay attention to every detail and work meticulously 12 hours a day. I would not have done that if I was playing with a couple 100 dollars that didn't mean much.

------------------------

NBA kids would bust their a$$ because the average person makes $50k working 40 hours a week, and the average uneducated, lower income person would not even come close to making $50k a year in most available jobs.

If you put all your money into a trade you risk losing everything and won't be able to continue trading. If you have very little money then you have to put it all in to each trade, however you must do so with the understanding you can afford to lose it all. The fact is you can't start out with a small amount (less then $10k) and expect to be successful. It is possible but highly unlikely to turn $1k into $1 million. Now if you start with $50k and you know what you are doing, there is a higher probability that you will be successful, although no guarantees of any kind.

If you put all your money into a trade and are expecting a home run then your gambling and luck is your only hope. Successful traders don't EVER expect to be lucky and don't shoot for home runs. Traders sometimes experience luck, but this is just a byproduct of following defined trading system day in and day out, in other words windfall profits are bound to occur at some point. Successful traders take small to medium size profits and compound their returns over time. They also manage their trading capital by only risking a small percentage on each trade. This insures that they will never end up in a situation where lose all their money and can't continue to trade. As their account size grows, so does their position sizes, and their profits multiply as well.

I've traded for a living since 2002. What you left out is your have to have some sort of edge in the market. This could be very simple or very complex, but you don't make money if you don't have a positive expectancy. This means finding a system which defines how you find trades, where you enter and exit, and how you manage your money to prevent blowing up.

Trading is not for everyone but if it suits your personality, it is one of the greatest careers in the world other than a professional athlete or movie star. It's not glamorous but it beats working a 9-5 job working in a cubicle for an ungrateful boss for $25.00 an hour. Day traders have to spend many hours in front of a computer. I spend at least 10-12 hours per day during the week and another 3-4 hours on Sundays. When I am in a trade I can't leave the computer no matter what. Yup this means if I have to go to the bathroom I have to use a bucket. That's the negative part of trading but the positive side is I have no boss, I can take time off from trading anytime I want and I can trade from anywhere in the world that has a high speed internet connection.

Trading is hard work to learn. Most people think the stock market is a get rich quick scheme but this is so far from the truth it's not even funny. It takes time to become a consistently profitable trader. It took me 2 years to learn and during that time I lost thousands of dollars. There is no EASY way to learn to trade. It takes direct experience and with this sometimes comes loses.

DON'T EVER try to follow other peoples trades. Stock alerts do no work because you have to understand the reason you are buying and selling. You can make money following someone else in good times, but when shit hits the fan and the market deviates from what the statistics say it should, you have be 100% confident in your reason for trading a stock. You will never be 100% confident in some guru's reasons because you aren't using their system.Not to mention almost all people that sell their trade alerts do so because they can't make money themselves. Instead they can make money by acquiring paying subscribers who don't realize that the reason the guru makes money is because they can trade off the volume created by their subscribers which is also known as front running.

----------

Bet big when you are sure you are right - VERY FEW TRADER FOLLOWS THIS RULE BUT IN MY OPINION THE ONLY WAY YOU WILL EVER MAKE TRADING FASTLANE OR ATLEAST MAKE YOU FASTLANE MONEY. YOU HAVE TO TAKE LARGE CALCULATED RISKS.

---------


This is also completely untrue because there is no such thing as being SURE in trading. Trading successfully has to do with probabilities. Any one trade means very little on it's own.

Maybe I can offer you a bit of insight since I have made a small nest egg from trading which I am using half to finance to a business venture.

It is definitely possible to make a lot of money trading but it requires a massive amount of talent, long hours, gruelling work and a bit of luck.

Ive also had an obsession with trading, watched all the wall street themed movies read about 20 books took advice from other traders but all that meant nothing. I only started learning when I dove in and started trading and losing/making money.

I realised a bunch of things:

Find out what your good at fast - I trade currencies (majors), metals, oil/gas and equities because I feel I have a natural ability for trading them. I don't touch bonds, options, bitcoins, binaries, ETF products and exotic currencies. Most of the people who have made big money in this business (which I will mention at the end of this post) stuck to a small group of asset classes.

Always have a large upside little downside - If I am willing to lose $1,000 I should be profiting $2,000+
Example I buy 500 Shares of ZAGG @ $9 I get out a 7$ at $1,000 loss but I will only take profits at $13+, obviously you have to analyse the volatility of the stock you don't want to get stopped out and find out you are right later on.

Don't let the past haunt you - I shorted €200,000 @ 1.35 and it has went as low as 1.04, about €60,000 profit could have been had but I took a small profit of €4,000. You just have to treat each trade as a singular event in your career with no future consequence. Getting emotional about money is the reason most people lose $1,000 and give up.

Bet big when you are sure you are right - VERY FEW TRADER FOLLOWS THIS RULE BUT IN MY OPINION BUT IS THE ONLY WAY YOU WILL EVER MAKE TRADING FASTLANE OR ATLEAST MAKE YOU FASTLANE MONEY. YOU HAVE TO TAKE LARGE CALCULATED RISKS.

If you think the road to riches in trading lies in "low volatility, minimal drawdown, risk adjusted returns" you are wrong my friend leave that to large funds trying to please investors.

You are a lone wolf eating what you kill and you can't live on 20% a year. Stanley Druckenmiller said it best " you will make 95% of your money on 5% of your bets" so you might as well bet big on those 5% you think will pay off. Look at John Paulson a large part of his 11 figure net worth was derived in 2 single years 2010 and 2007 if I am not mistake $5b and $4b. From gold and housing bets respectively. And he has been in the business 20+ years.

 

[M&A]

Awesome! Thank you for your tips and advice. May I ask what your favourite books were so that I can read them? And yes, I would start trading on Monday but I have school so I get home half an hour before the market closes, so that kind of sucks. But great advice and I will definitely use it in the future!

All the market wizard books by Jack Schwager, they are basically interviews with the best traders and a couple of billionaire hedge fund guys before they got big like Bruce Kovner, Paul Tudor Jones and Stanley Druckenmiller.

But then again reading about these guys and how they made millions/billions is like reading a Richard Branson book about building a multi billion dollar business empire, it doesn't mean much your the one that has to pull the trigger and develop you own trading style/methodology.

 

[Charmander]

Let me post something here: http://theconservativeincomeinvestor.com/2014/01/26/how-did-warren-buffett-build-his-fortune/

It shows that Warren Buffett DID NOT become rich just by investing in the stock market. Basically what made him rich, was some fund, that he used to run, by making people join it based on his successful track record, he then ammased capital, which he used to make more PERCENTAGE GAINS (for example 25%), yet payed the people who gave capital to it just 20% and kept the 5%...

Fastlane...

But if you want to know what made him really, really rich, then you have to look to the cash generators.

A potential lesson from Warren Buffett’s life is that it is important to own something outright that gives you money to invest. It’s one thing to be saving $500 per month and putting it into blue-chip stocks. That’s very nice, and it builds wealth. But if your ambition is to use blue-chip stocks as part of a strategy to get really rich, then you need to have an asset under your belt that gives you lots of regular income to deploy. Imagine someone owning a $3 million apartment complex that spins off $300,000 in annual income. If you owned an asset like that, you’d have life made. You could enroll in the DRIP program of your 15 favorite stocks, and have $1,000 invested into them every month. Wealth starts to get built very, very quickly when you have a primary cash-generating asset that gives you regular money to invest.
But if you study Warren Buffett’s life, the important lesson is to get your hands on an asset generator—it might be real estate, it might energy MLPs, it might be the local car wash—own it outright, and then taking the constant flow of funds to start buying blue chip stocks. Charlie Munger talks about “drowning in income.” Well, that’s the lesson from Buffett’s life. You work your a$$ off to own a cash generator, and instead of treating that money as a windfall to upgrade your lifestyle, you use it exclusively to purchase blue-chip stocks. That allows your life to become a perpetual wealth-building machine. If you reach a point where you have a system in place to invest thousands of dollars per month, you can’t help but win and get wealthier with each passing year. In the game of life, you’ve won.

 

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[jsk29]

Not much to add to M&A's post.

A couple of things though.

If you're getting into trading for the adrenaline rush, it's one of the absolute worst reasons for doing so.

Why?

1. Trading for pleasure means you'll be chasing action rather than chasing profits. Jesse Livermore said, “It was never my thinking that made the big money for me, it always was my sitting.”

2. If you're trading for profits, you should be in a calm, cool, collected state managing calculated managed risks with little emotional investment in the outcome.

There's quote from a famous rock climber that Jack Schwager used in his book Hedge Fund Wizards. It went something like this, "You don't want to feel the adrenaline when climbing - it means something has gone horribly, horribly wrong."


I was interested in going into trading myself - and still have phases where I go back and forth between entrepreneurship and trading in my mind.

The reason I got interested in trading is because of the parallels between trading and poker. I played poker online for a living for 3 years before the legal issues struck the U.S. sites.

One last thing I'll add is that a common trait of great traders and poker players is that they're all independent thinkers and tend to be extremely selective about who they listen to. (E.g. Probably wouldn't start a thread like this.)

Here are a few sites I'd recommend:
www.trendfollowing.com - trading equivalent of MFL?
Why Speculators? - The value of (legitimate) traders in society
Mikael Syding's blog - A retired hedge fund manager's eccentric views

 

[M&A]

If you put all your money into a trade you risk losing everything and won't be able to continue trading.

I never said put all your money into a trade but if you are going into trading you should put enough money in your trading account and if you lost it all you would feel bad about it and if you doubled it, it would mean a lot of money in your pocket, not a couple hundred bucks.

You don't want to feel the adrenaline when climbing - it means something has gone horribly, horribly wrong."

There is another quote from George Soros about adrenaline "If investing is entertaining, if you're having fun, you're probably not making any money. Good investing is boring"

But then again he said "when you have tremendous conviction go for the jugular"

So who knows

Also - never use leverage, ever.

I am assuming OP wants to go fastlane (grow his net worth exponentially not linearly) in trading well then leverage is 100% necessary no other way to do it the market doesn't move 500% a year and your not going to pick some penny stock that goes up 100x times.

Your going to have to leverage up on certain trades and I don't mean dumb retail traders going 50x leverage. 4-8x currencies/commodities 2-4 equities is my personal favourite and quite common among institutional traders.

To the OP you will read in the market wizard books that most of the guys started in the futures or options market because they knew they would have more leverage than stocks and leverage could actually get them rich fast.

Marty Schwartz started with $100,000 and at the end of 12 months had $600,000 because he was trading leveraged SP500 futures contracts making thousands per point, the SP500 didn't go up 600% in one year.

Bruce kovner had $3,000 and one trade later had $40,000+ in his account, why ? Because he picked a stock that went up over %1000, NO. It's because he leveraged up on a futures contract, corn or coffee if i am not mistaken.

Like I said all traders are different. Find out what works for you.

Stock market is draining as f***, I would never go down that road again.

Building a $10,000,000 business from nothing is no walk in the park either, I doubt anyone around here is looking for an easy fast painless way to wealth.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

so you are saying not to discuss stocks anymore

You've started multiple threads. None of them are being discussed and no one responds. I'm saying the community DOES NOT want to discuss stocks.

 

[Esquire]

Awesome! Thank you for your tips and advice. May I ask what your favourite books were so that I can read them? And yes, I would start trading on Monday but I have school so I get home half an hour before the market closes, so that kind of sucks. But great advice and I will definitely use it in the future!

... for those of you at the Fastlane conference:

Remember what M.J. said about confirmation bias and selective perception ...?

Exhibit A.

 

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[bringitnow28329]

I give advice from 12 years of experience. I've earn hundreds of thousands of dollars in the market because I've dedicated literally all my time to trading and I've read 350 books on trading. You can't compare an average person to George Soro's or Marty Swartz, or any of the other people you read about. These people are anomalies and almost nobody will achieve their success. For the majority of people there's no fast lane in the stock market until they learn how the market works and that takes years and a lot of effort just like becoming an expert in most other fields. It's more difficult in the stock market because there's zero guarantee you will ever succeed and you can't go to school and learn how to be a trader since they only teach you theory and not real world tools in school. Not to mention the academic world believes technical analysis is hocus pocus when in reality the only hocus pocus is the junk that the guru's spew out in their trading books on classical technical analysis which no longer work.


You either gamble and get lucky (which will result in failure 99.999999999% of the time, take small to medium profits thousands of times until those gains become significant, or you start out wealthy (with $1 million+) and manage that wealth by investing for the long term receiving returns of 7-10% nominal returns.

I never said put all your money into a trade but if you are going into trading you should put enough money in your trading account and if you lost it all you would feel bad about it and if you doubled it, it would mean a lot of money in your pocket, not a couple hundred bucks.



There is another quote from George Soros about adrenaline "If investing is entertaining, if you're having fun, you're probably not making any money. Good investing is boring"

But then again he said "when you have tremendous conviction go for the jugular"

So who knows


I am assuming OP wants to go fastlane (grow his net worth exponentially not linearly) in trading well then leverage is 100% necessary no other way to do it the market doesn't move 500% a year and your not going to pick some penny stock that goes up 100x times.

Your going to have to leverage up on certain trades and I don't mean dumb retail traders going 50x leverage. 4-8x currencies/commodities 2-4 equities is my personal favourite and quite common among institutional traders.

To the OP you will read in the market wizard books that most of the guys started in the futures or options market because they knew they would have more leverage than stocks and leverage could actually get them rich fast.

Marty Schwartz started with $100,000 and at the end of 12 months had $600,000 because he was trading leveraged SP500 futures contracts making thousands per point, the SP500 didn't go up 600% in one year.

Bruce kovner had $3,000 and one trade later had $40,000+ in his account, why ? Because he picked a stock that went up over %1000, NO. It's because he leveraged up on a futures contract, corn or coffee if i am not mistaken.

Like I said all traders are different. Find out what works for you.



Building a $10,000,000 business from nothing is no walk in the park either, I doubt anyone around here is looking for an easy fast painless way to wealth.

 

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[jazb]

Its just glorified gambling

 

[quanttastic]

I spend my life studying capital markets and those that invest in them. It is what I do. It is not a "fastlane" career. On average you will be way better off following MJ's advice and starting a business.

There have been people that have made it but they are statistically very, very rare. It is MUCH harder to succeed as a trader than it is as a business owner.

Do you know that index funds beat over 90% of managed funds? And managed funds on average do much better than daytraders.

Once again it IS possible to succeed, but it is really hard and really rare. You are much better off starting your own business IMO.

 

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[arcola]

Mj flat out says in the book it isn't fastlane unless you start with a ton of money

Which is the point of cashing in an asset like a business

 

[M&A]

I recall reading a post by MJ saying that it is not fastlane the way people traditionally do it as it invest in mutual funds, maxing 401k's and buy and hold.

Thousands of businesses fail every year because they don't fill any profitable needs and don't grow exponentially. They daydream about getting X sales in X time and selling by X multiple.

Thousands of traders fail every year because they think they can look at a few charts and candles, risk 2% and think they are going to be rich within a year. They daydream about X returns per month for X time leads to $XM.

Its all about progression in my eyes, if you have a business that has been making 1000-2000$ a month for the past year, I guarantee it is a dud and it is not going to change your life. If you have a trading account with $5000 growing 2% a month it won't change your life.
If you are fat and lose 100 grams a month, its not going to change your life.

Great companies usually take off quickly. Similarly a great trader will take off right out of the gate, all the market wizards took off quickly once the hit their stride.

Look at your bank account if it has not been growing by leaps and bounds your not in the fastlane, lets be honest you are just self employed.

IMO fastlane is about exponential growth in wealth no matter what field its in. I just don't like when people knock my craft.

 

[bringitnow28329]

Most of what you said is nonsense.

Hft is irrelevant unless you try to compete with hft if i buy a stock at 50$ and plan to sell at 55$ do i really care that i could have bought it at 49.98 but i was front runned by someone ?

Fraud is everywhere not just wall street, im sure there is a little corner shop in ohio laundering cocaine money and falsify accounts.

If someone is insider trading on some report does it really affect me ? There are only 2 sides to the market, the right side and the wrong side. I dont care who rigs or manipulates what, if you are consistently on the right side youll make money.

If the game is rigged what if i am on the same side of the people rigging it ?

Nsa, fed cabal ? Drones ?

You sound like a bitter kid who gets picked last to be on the team in gym class, nobody is out to get you, you just suck.

Bingo. Give this man a metal. This is EXACTLY how you win at a game that is rigged. You learn to be on the same side of the market as the market manipulators, and you scavenge off of those who are less informed about the market, than you: retail traders. I earn a living doing this day in and day out.

 

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[Austin Shelton]

I think you could make a passive income investing in divendend stocks like at&t or 3m but you need a lot of start up capital. Vanguard offers good index funds and us treasury bonds are a pretty safe option. But the richest investor in the World had a fastlane, he bought berkshire hathaway a textile mill and used its profits to invest in the stock market. Warren buffet then turned bershire hathaway into a investment firm. About 15 percent of day traders are successful, most lose thosands.

 

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[Ninjakid]

Haha no I've done a LOT of research on it and I know a lot about it. I was introduced to the stock market when I was around 14.

Okay, fair enough. Now it was you who said that you love the lifestyle that comes with trading stocks. How much actual trading have you done?

Don't get me wrong, your knowledge of the stock market will be useful to you if anything; but the thing is despite all the things you can learn about the stock market, it's unpredictable. And when you're putting your hard-earned money in it hoping to make more money, the risk is high and you can lose a lot more than you can afford to.

If you love trading, and it's what you want to do, then by all means, go for it. But to be fastlane, you need to build and grow an actual business first. It's because of control. You can control your own business a lot more than you can control the stock market.

That said, is it possible to become a multi-millionaire through day-trading? Yes I've heard of it happening. It's extremely unlikely, but I'm of the mindset that a person can do anything they put their mind to.

As for real estate, from my limited knowledge it's risky, but not like day-trading. I remember my uncle lost over a million dollars on a deal that would have made him a millionaire if not for the recession -- which no one saw coming.

 

[Charmander]

Stock market is draining as f***, I would never go down that road again.

And besides, you are often punished,even for good decisions - think about how many "good" traders were shorting the tech stocks during the bubble of 2000 ?
They were making the right decisions, yet they were all losing money! while all the morons who were buying those stocks were banking.
Of course only after it started crashing, were the "good" trades making finally making profit.

Also - never use leverage, ever. (If you decide to go with that road)
Even if you are right with leverage 98 times out of 100, the 2 times you are wrong can break you.

But of course, there is "some" money to be made.

 

[rich_l]

Obligatory: https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/is-this-fastlane-uh-no-it-isnt.58554/

Plus, dude... I don't want my business decisions tied to a "rush of adrenaline" or any other emotional response. Strategy shouldn't be a reptile brain decision.

Regarding the "lifestyle that comes with trading stocks" that you mention, what do you envision that lifestyle is? If I were you, I'd go find someone who is a stock trader that makes a living doing that. The overwhelming probability is that he doesn't make money for himself making trades. He makes money on the fees he gets from trading other people's money for them.

Seriously, if you want that job, go find someone who is doing it and test your assumptions about what you think they do.

You can also check out some "prop trading firms, there will be an upfront investment for you but you can work through the process and possibly see selection as a prop trader. The deal I was given, trade 10k, expected to return 30% month over month, 40/60% split on the capital. Didn't bite, there wasn't enough incentive but the coursework, practice, and mentorship was invaluable.

 

[rich_l]

rich I've already been down that road bro. the stock market is a complete waste of time unless you have 100k and up to throw around..and even then i bet you burn thru lots of money and make wall st fat and happy trading if you do get into it

i am telling you. its straight up rigged and rigged to eventually grind you down. the 1% or less of financially apt people who really study it and do well, i bet when you add in all the time you wasted on it, worrying about it, etc...would come to peanuts. the NSA, HFT, everything is geared towards helping this game continue to be rigged and front run without the majority even knowing it.

when I was trading correctly, I spent 0 time worrying about it, it is actually quite boring. It is "rigged" just watch Kramers videos on youtube. Your advantage as a retail trader is moving in and out of a trade without a blip on the radar, and if you want my opinion never touch a stock and concentrate on futures. Close all your trades before the market closes and start each day fresh. There is no need to study the "market" and it is impossible to study and learn all of it. Find one commodity you understand, one trading method that makes sense to you, and execute it perfectly over and over again. While your waiting for good trade parameters start an online business. You are correct it takes a large capital investment to create a sustainable income I agree with the 100,000 estimate, but if you can build your account while doing something else in a couple of years you'll be able to. Worry comes from holding too long, trading to big for your account, making speculative bets, and all the other habits that undermine our best efforts and reinforce our bad behavior, the same mindset that makes the fastlane successful makes those few traders succesful. Either way, all the best and I appreciate your opinion, I'm not currently trading but will return eventually. Best.

 

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[M&A]

I'm telling you, you should avoid trading. it is not really fastlane unless you started the trading firm and employ a bunch of people and systems. It IS RIGGED and not a true market anymore as well. Straight up. If billionaire's can't figure it out why would you bother. The people IN the game WORK at Goldman with fat salaries and comps...of course they are on tv pumping the game. I can show you 50 links where proven fraud is going on and yet no one goes to JAIL. That is the market you want to compete in from your computer? LOL

its the same old song and dance enticing people to come on in , the water is warm

there hasn't been a fed interest rate hike in 15 years... frigging all new people being sucked into this machine and never even dealt with one day that the FED , BOE, ECB, etc..didn't print MONEY to keep this shit going. There is also more and more proof monthly coming out that is exactly why the cloud was created. to interlock everyone into the NSA/FED cabal grid. Not only are they front running reports before they come up, they can make a stock do anything like infinite short squeezes, or naked shorting to zero, let alone snooping on fortune 500 companies for patents, etc. that is the real reason, not to have drones go into your house LOL

Most of what you said is nonsense.

Hft is irrelevant unless you try to compete with hft if i buy a stock at 50$ and plan to sell at 55$ do i really care that i could have bought it at 49.98 but i was front runned by someone ?

Fraud is everywhere not just wall street, im sure there is a little corner shop in ohio laundering cocaine money and falsify accounts.

If someone is insider trading on some report does it really affect me ? There are only 2 sides to the market, the right side and the wrong side. I dont care who rigs or manipulates what, if you are consistently on the right side youll make money.

If the game is rigged what if i am on the same side of the people rigging it ?

Nsa, fed cabal ? Drones ?

You sound like a bitter kid who gets picked last to be on the team in gym class, nobody is out to get you, you just suck.

 

[TennisOrDie]

I'm sorry but I have to disagree with most of the people here. Just because you failed at trading doesn't mean it's rigged. Trading is a mental game with yourself above all. Your deepest emotions will be tested when you watch money evaporate before your eyes or you see more $$$ then you know what to do with.

Trading is fastlane because it's always scalable. To scale simply add more money to your account.

In trading you either know what you're doing and you're making an absolute killing or you don't really know what you're doing and you're losing money.

 

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[James Ryan]

Personally I don't consider the stock market in any way that contains the word 'fastlane'. The public stock market (secondary market) to me it looks like the scavengers that come after the lion killed of the zebra. The big investors already bought everything, the company raised the funds they needed and now the little investors fight and sweat over micro changes to make (most of the time) micro profits or potentially big losses.

Of course it's just my opionion but the stock market cannot even compete with the level of control, power, responsibility and most importantly, returns that you will have when managing your own business. In the stock market you're a follower, reacting to what the big guys are doing. In business you ARE the big guy.

 

[Marcus1811]

I really love the lifestyle that comes with trading stocks. Not the whole get-rich kind of side but I like how you control when you want to work. If you want to take a vacation. Getting an adrenaline rush when you enter into a trade. How you could literally trade in a college dorm before class.

I'm still young so I have time to decide but I need to bounce it off a few heads. Is the stock market a good fastlane road? I know it's risky but I do love the game. I'm thinking of starting businesses or the stock market and every time the market comes to my mind I get excited. Maybe I should invest in real estate because I like that too? Maybe I could do both? Let me know. Thanks.

Also, where is the best place to learn more on stock trading?

PS: This is my first post so take it easy on me.

 

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