Farewell to IT!!!!

Well, I finally made my decision today that I'm going to keep IT as a hobby, but nothing more. I'm still going to go for my CCNA though because I put too much work into it, and I'll still keep IT as a background choice and continue to learn net technologies and such. I just decided that my frustration within the field had reached a new level. Hehe, I guess I'm just not one to work and sweat for 8 to 10 hours a day and only make $20,000 to $30,000 a year. I know I'm worth alot more money then that, and one of my goals was to have alot of money, so that I can do alot of traveling, etc....But the main reason I'm doing this is because I've been doing very well with stock trading lately. I've always been okay, but for example in July I had good 23 trades and only 6 bad ones(really good month), in August I made 26 trades and only 9 bad ones, in September I had 29 trades and 9 bad ones and so far I'm doing really good for October.
I've spent alot of time reading every possible book I could get my hands on regarding trading, especially books on the psychology of it. Whoever says that technical analysis doesn't work in stock trading obviously doesn't know what they are talking about because to me it's been much more reliable than fundamental analysis has ever been. I'm still a beginner as far as cash goes,in that I've only been averaging about $1,000 a month.....
My yearly goal is to be able to make $5,000 a month in trading with my 5 year goal set at $10,000 a month.....Of course those are just averages. With the everchanging market conditions, I'm sure that will vary from month to month. I have to trade all small-cap nasdaq stocks though due to the low amounts of cash I have at the moment...I also stay away from OTC listed stockes. I'm interested in swing trading though, and using other technical indicators for short term trading. I'm not interested in day-trading. Only about %5 of daytraders succeed, and I don't have the stomach for doing that kinda trading. Unfortunately, unless I get really lucky with a couple of good picks, I'll still have to work at least for awhile though. I may want to keep working at some job. Although, I'm looking at something like grocery store work or warehouse work or something similar just enough to pay the rent on the apartment, and I'll use my trading cash to pay the rest. Plus, I'll feel better if I have some type of job just in case another recession strikes(although you can still make money trading during those times as well). I'm not going to do IT work though, because my brain will be too tired to do IT work anyway if I spend my nights researching stock plays for the following day. So I think I'll need a no-brainer job... Fortunately, most of my trades are placed first hour of trading and that works out perfectly since whatever job I get, I'll probably have an hour to and hour and 1/2 of trading before I have to go to work, although I'm also looking at the possibility of getting a job which late morning and afternoon hours....Much more potential for trading money that way

....
Anyway, I've proven to myself that I can do it through both good market conditions and bad and that's the main thing. I sat down and asked myself, "What do you have a passion for doing like nothing else?" and stock trading was the answer I gave myself. I can sit at the computer for hours and stare at charts the way a child would stare and look at a fireplace. I find them fascinating. It's kinda like looking at a puzzle. I'm just mad at myself that I didn't start this earlier. I've done it fairly well off and on for the last fear years, but I never had much money to play with and didn't really know alot of the time what the heck I was doing, even though I still did okay, just not great. I've always had an big interest in it. Plus, like everyone, I made some big mistakes in the beginning, and I learned from them. My father has made just over a million in both trading and investing, but he started really early in life, but I still learned alot from good old pops.
If anyone is ever interested in it, the best thing to do is read as much on it as you can. Try to learn on your own and develop your own style. Read, read, and read some more. Just like Sales, trading isn't for everyone, and it does require intuition, alot of work and researching, studying charts and past historical behaviors, and also a bit of luck thrown in. What I mean by luck is that any stock can go any direction. Even when educated, all you do is play the game of probabilities....Sure there is risk involved, but as they say, "no risk, no reward".
Okay, sorry for rambling on about this, but I just love to talk about what I'm so passionate about

.........
Well, back to studying for my CCNA. I paid for it, I might as well take it

...The good news is that you no longer have to listen to me whining about how bad the IT market is anymore,(even though it's probably improving), because it's not something I'm going to pursue anymore, UNLESS things get alot better and salaries also improve...It's just not worth it to me anymore.....I'd rather just have a regular job and live off my salary and trading capital....To heck with it....
Dusty
"live with passion"!!!!!!

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Comments

bellboy

maybe by the time you complete your ccna, things could be much better in your area.

cheeblie

Well, since you're going into the market, I suggest you look into a company with the ticker of FARO. My parents have made $200,000 off of it in the last 2 months, and it is expected to grow rapidly (It's a small-cap). Once my shares of Cisco reach the point I want them to ($25 a share), I plan on investing my money, about $8000, in the company. This stock is definitely a long term one, however, many analysts have projected a 300% increase within the next 5 years. I too plan on doing a lot with investing, as my father has become very good at this over the last few years. I'm glad that I will be able to start at a young age (19), and hopefully will be able to amass a large fortune. I would consider investing fulltime, but until I have a large nest egg to work with, $300,000+, I think I'll be working in IT. From the sounds of it, you are a day trader, so I guess our strategies would not be similar. I wish you luck with your trades, but hopefully you will realize that you should have some form of considerable income aside from you gains. Even the best traders can have years where they lose 20% - 30%. You have to be sure that kind of setback wouldn't immobilize you. I have one question for you: What broker do you use? Good luck with your investing.

Cheeblie

Dusty0463

Cheeblie
Thanx for the stock tip!

....Wow, 19 years old huh? Yep, I wish I would have started at your age. I had the interest, but I just did alot of paper trading. Actually, I'm not a daytrader at all! If I was a daytrader, I probably would have lost my butt by now. Daytraders are the ones that sit at their computers all day, staring at the screen and throwing $5,0000, $10,000 etc, on each trade, and they often sell on 1 to 2 cent moves in a stock. As far as I'm concerned, it's an easy way to lose money, and I'm not interested in that. Although I've held a few of my positions for a few hours, mostly I hold them anywhere from a couple of days to as long as 1 month, depending on how long they take to make their move....I use Ameritrade(10.99 commissions), and when I buy a stock, I immediately put in a stop loss limit order around 8 to 10%, so that if the stock happens to drop suddenly when I'm not around, my trade will execute when it hits that level, so that way I only get dinged for 10%. When you trade on technical analysis, you try to find stocks that are strong in moneystream, relative strength BOP, etc and are moving up regardless of what the market is doing. I look for key breakouts between support and resistance levels.. Most of the time if a stock drops 10%, then the technical indicators whicha attracted you to the stock in the first place aren't going to work for you, so I have no problem selling and moving on to the next one....I also study and find stocks that have no history of a 10% drop below strong support levels once they've had a breakout. In addition I look at alot of other things. None of this guarantees my success of course, but it highly increases my odds of having success. I try and play is to that I only need one of my 3 picks to do really well in order for me to come out ahead. My success rate recently has been about 75%, but I have put a TON of work into my research. Lately it's been at least 3 to 4 hours a night in research....As far as the possibility of losing %20 a year, I think with my style that won't happen. I can perhaps lose %20 a row for a couple of months in a row, but that's probably about it, especially since I put sell orders to sell a stock if it drops 10% right after I buy it....I also sell my stocks once they gain me 8% to 10%....I usually get that within a month. It's not alot of money when you are starting off small, right now the average is about $1,000 a month, but it will be much better as my account grows....
As far as having a job with income, I do completely agree with you, but instead of waiting for someone to call me up regarding my resume to an IT job(which obviously isn't going to happen), I figure that I'll just get some other regular job, such as grocery store or warehouse....I've been going over and over in my mind what I need to tell them so that they don't think I'm overqualified. I think I'll just tell them the truth and say that I"m wanting to change and do something different....Of course while I'm working there and living off my trades and income from that job, I'll still put in resumes for IT jobs. If I get a job offer then I'll just tell the grocery store or warehouse that it was an offer that I couldn't refuse

...
You have to be tricky in order to secure a job outside of your field. Although I have an advantage, because I did a couple of years of warehouse work in the late 80s and I loved it........
Dusty

KGhaleon

Please, please use spaces between paragraphs.

Mishra

I've noticed this being another problem.. The Last Post column is sorted the wrong way. So users "ahem, KGhaleon" may mistakenly post in a really old post.

KGhaleon

Wait, is it just me or are the above posts from 2003?

KGhaleon

oh...o_o

cough

<_< >_>

This is really interesting.

captobvious

Duhr!

I mean in this economy.....Day Trading??

zen master

I wonder how it all worked out for him.

vincentnyc10

yeah...even with swing trading...the s&p, nasdaq were down 40%-50% for the year 2008. i wonder how he did in 2008? i hope he didn't lose his shirt.

KGhaleon

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1234968&page=20

CCIEWANNABE

dude, not to burst your trading bubble but thats probably the last thing you want to be doing right now. i don't think that the economy is just going to suddenly "get better" because its 2009. I think we have not seen the bottom yet and i predict the stock market to hit about 4000 points this year. i hope i'm wrong but i don't think so. just listen to peter schiff. he was spot on about the economy several years ago and everybody just laughed at him, now they follow him like he's their leader. and who says there's no money in I.T. I know people making 100k plus in the st. louis area, which for that area is "living like a king". so i would pursue the ccna and then see what kind of jobs you can get. also, try to get into the gov't contractor sector, it usually pays more too. sorry again if i offended you, i just don't think it's rational to put any hope in the financial area for several years to come.

here is a link to a webpage i go to which has a lot of good information about the economy that they don't tell you on CNN/FOX/ABC etc..

http://thecomingdepression.blogspot.com/

zen master

Old post. He made his decision 3 years ago.

famosbrown

good time to get in the stock market in my opinion...buy and just ride it out...unless you are just starting and about to retire in a few years. I've got time...I'll buy from all of the panickers selling low and then turn around and sell right back to them when it goes up.

Try not to guage the market based on the DOW and other exchanges as a whole...look at the individual stocks...this is what gets all of the panickers going...they see Green, they want to buy, they see red, they want to sell...I'm usually the opposite.

markk2008

Good point made, with the current downturn I wonder how he is managing now????. I know he made his decision three years ago, but it would be nice to know if he has had any success.