We are governed by laws, not by laws, but by people. Government is by people.

We all need a sellbuy-o-meter

• Get the timing just right every time.

• No more missing the tops and bottoms.

• Maximize profits right from the start.

• Be a winner every time.

Sometimes these Clickbait con-tra-prenur social media ads just get under my skin. It feels a little bit like I am being sold a scam by Slippin Jimmy a.k.a. Saul Goodman.

Daytrading: Response to Clickbait Ad

I responded to an clickbait ad on social media with the following.

Daytrading, I would not recommend it for newbies. It’s not for everyone and it’s not something to jump into blindly. With trading in general, start very small, like 1% of your net worth, learn and then build up your position sizes slowly as a reward for success. Other than your ‘play’ money, while learning just buy and hold with the bulk of you invest able $. Daytrading is something to do only when a level of mastery of trading on higher time frames using small money. Trading will cost you money and time until you gain experience, these are the facts, plain and simple. It is part skill, part art, timing and luck. The shorter the time frame, the higher the market noise relative to the signal that you are trying to capture and make trades on, this combined with fees and slippage makes daytrading difficult to begin with (Super quick trades, noise, fees and slippage will eat your $ up.). Is it possible to make money daytrading ,yes, but you will be strapped to a computer to do it, is that something that will be enjoyable in the long run, seriously think about it. Do you really want to sit in front of the computer watching 1,5,15m candles with a finger hovering on the mouse all day. That’s for machines to excel at, really, that’s how the big firms can even make money at all, besides low fees and getting paid for order flow. Being able to code algorithms to trade for you via an API, then you just have to babysit the system to make sure it is working right, less work than sitting in front of charts on PC all day, requires math,coding and fintech type skill however. That might be a path to daytrading for the committed in the long run. If none of the preceding jargon makes sense, time to study up. Knowledge of probabilities and statistics go a long way, I had to relearn quite a bit of this, yeah it sucked a bit, should have paid more attention in those classes. Understand what the Kelly Criterion is, “Fortune’s Formula” the book, covers it. That way you can get a grasp on risk management and don’t blow up your account. A so-so trader with good risk management will make money. A good trader with poor risk management will fail, the account will go up and down, maybe most and more down,boom and bust and potentially fully bust. Works by Ed Thorp, Elder Alexander, Perry Kaufmann, John Murphy are a good foundation to understand trading. Reminiscences of a Stock Operator Book by Edwin Lefèvre Zen, they hand this out at Goldman when you start there. Get to understand the Psychology of trading and money (Morgan Housel), the ups and downs are rough. If you don’t get a grasp on how it impacts you emotionally it will be painful in the gut. Position sizes, watch those, you want to be able to sleep at night, once again we are talking risk management. If you’ve studied the foundations and it still doesn’t make sense keep studying, it might keep sinking in while you practice trade with small money and put a chunk in buy+hold. As you gain experience some of the material you study will start to make more sense, time to reread. If after all this, it still doesn’t work, find a mentor who will help you, someone who has “made it” and is willing to give back to help the next generation. Ideally buddy up with someone from the start, find a club. There is too much hype and charlatanism out there waiting to mislead and take advantage of newbies, pushing a lot of nonsense.

Another Similar Response to an Ad on how to figure out Bull/Bear conditions

You can tell if it is bullish or bearish in a few minutes, why it is bullish or bearish, well that can take much longer to figure out. But, you can learn this yourself or find a mentor. Hang around the right people and you will learn, find a mentor who will help you, someone who has “made it” and is willing to give back to help the next generation. Ideally buddy up with someone from the start, find a club. There is too much hype and charlatanism out there waiting to mislead and take advantage of newbies, pushing a lot of nonsense………But for now, practical wise, an example of figuring out bull/bear bias of an asset. Ichimoku chart is good to use and learn, on it, is the Tenken above the Kijun? Is the price above both of those? Is the price above the cloud? Also is the asset in a golden cross 50 day MA > 200 day MA. Then look at the macro picture, over all market up? Is the sector up? These are Bull signals, the more the better. Better yet, figure out your own method and come up with a checklist. Also, price can always change on a whim, you can’t predict it. Use risk mgmt to mitigate against loss, tomorrow there could be a banking crisis, political crisis, war, flash crash, protect against those as well as you can.