My Trading Journey - How & WHY I Trade?

Hi all.

Had a rough week since I last posted. Did a bad trade hence took some time off the market to clear my mind & reinforce my trading knowledge & psychology.

At times, over-analyzing a trade is tiring & confusing, the best thing to do will be to detach oneself from the market & charts.

Once back with a refresh & neutral mindset, market will still be there with its tons of $$ opportunity!

While I'm away from the market, have been receiving encouraging mails from my blog readers, from various backgrounds.

Many had been asking why & how did I left engineering field & took the trader's path/ became a stock dealer. Some would like to learn more about trading, to make that much needed extra income in this low pay-high living cost society.

Glad to know that many have been exposed to this lucrative business through my blog! :)

So, today will share a bit on my background, & how I've come about to be a trader. Hope that ordinary Tom, Dick, & Harry out there will be inspired by my trading journey.

Those who has the best interest to learn more about this business will find that any ordinary people can acquire this money making skill, provided that they have the determination & persistence to learn & practice.

So....

After my graduation...

I went to teach in Monash, School of Engineering......Work hour was flexible & light, a work week in Monash is almost like a 2-day work at my current job as a dealer. Plus, my pay was as lucrative as u CAN'T imagine a fresh degree grad can possibly get at his/her first job.

That was 2010 when everybody was into forex trading, all major markets were in a magnificent bull run after bottoming out from sub-prime plunge.

Being super-free, I started to look into FX trading which mainly focus on all kinds of macroeconomic news around the world & also, CHARTS.....

I dig into all kinds of free info online & offline about FX trading, online tutorial, online chart school, forum, FX books, free preview, paid course.....almost ANYTHING I can find in the market. I started trading on demo accounts on MT4 platform, foreign brokers from dunno-where.

Got to know a dealer from a local broker house dealer since my Uni years, I started to trade on stocks, instead of FX. Due to FX higher starting cost & troublesome account opening procedures.

For about 1.5 years, I trade stocks in & out, most of the time doing contra, using purely charts, while I tried very hard to understand those financial reports.....I basically match each & every figure to try to find out how the EPS or PER, etc was calculated & hence, what they really mean or represent.

I trade stocks using charting techniques meant for FX trading, just to find that I keep on win-lose-win-lose, & eventually back to square, or worse, had my account wiped off.

In the end, almost all my salary from Monash was donated to the market, or to the various trading course organizers.

Then I started to wonder whether there's something missing in my trading. I began to look for ways I can get myself into the financial industry itself, thinking that I will learn more being in the heart of the industry.

That is how I signed up for a prep course for the licensing exam which partners the industry players for job opportunities. That, together with a failed tuition center business, cost my very last portion of 'reserves' from my first job.

Finally....I got myself into one of the local Investment Banks, IBs, as a company dealer. I was so excited about this new job, I hardly even cared about the low-low-low salary I will get. I thought, well, I'm working for my passion, not for the money....

A new industry, opening the door to more knowledge from the 'inside'! That was my very initial feeling when I first started this job.

Then....

It dawned on me that I've probably OVER-IMAGINED the greatness of being in THE industry. I found to my shock that I can't really find the knowledge I'd like to learn from people working around me. I suddenly realize that MOST of them in dealing are WORKING FOR A LIVING.......

If you haven't get what I mean, they hardly have the heart to learn more about investing/trading, they work 9-5 & talk about 'hot tips' for speculative counters, they do marketing to rope in more clients.....Don't get me wrong, they didn't do anything wrong, but they are merely working for their rice bowl! I'm not saying they aren't good, but most of them are just ordinary people who will hardly give up a steady paycheck to become a trader with no 'JOB SECURITY"......

But to me, there's no such thing as a 'job security'..... I'll come back to this later .....

I know I might offend many people by saying that, but it suddenly snap on me that I'm a TRADER, & that's TOTALLY & COMPLETELY different from being a DEALER, I've just spent tons of money getting into a job that don't seem to help much in my trading!!

Last thing I know, I'm passing cheques for clients, & discussing the index movement with some them, while they ended up buying speculative counters! ... ... -_-///

I almost died crying the first few weeks at my new job.....

When it comes to charting, the most common practice is to ask the clients to look at MACD....

Buy when MACD cross-up, Sell on cross-down

I bet you have all heard that....But the statistic shows that if you follow that, PURELY that & nothing else, you will lose almost 70% of the time, & profit only 30% of the time, or even an '80lose-20win'!

I have to SOLEMNLY tell each one of you reading this article, THAT IS NOT CHARTING !!

Being ignorant enough to signed a 1-year contract, given the fact that my current employer did not ever spend a dime on training me, whatsoever, I was forced to stay with the company until the contract ends.

However bad was the decision, no doubt I found some comfort from my new circle of friends in the company.....After accepting the fact that I'll have to stay, I manage to look at this job from another angle & try to influence as many people as I can to learn more about this trading business....I enjoy helping those who are willing to help themselves. Being a salaried dealer is really an unfair position as you see a big chunk of your sales being reaped off by the Bank while you only get to keep a tiny portion of it, that is if you hit the sales target they assigned on you.

I am willing share as far as I could, as I probably had mentioned somewhere before........fresh grads at entry levels of various industries in our job market is barely surviving under tough environment with low pay & high living cost......That's why CONSCIOUS youngsters are ALWAYS in pursue of additional income sources....be it MLM, second job, overtime, or FX trading.

I, though still not an expert, do have some knowledge to share & I really enjoy helping people to achieve their financial goals....if they would really SERIOUSLY like to learn more about TRADING....especially COMMODITY/FUTURES trading...... That's why I started this blog, I would like to share, & at the same time ATTRACT like-minded friends to form a TRADING COMMUNITY, one complement another in this trading business.....LEARNING never ends.....

Coming back to JOB SECURITY.....

One of my colleague recently got promoted (up a step on the corporate ladder), after 4years of service in the company.....A rough guess is he probably got about 1k+ or a 30% increment, over the last four years......

As far as a can remember, a loaf of white bread was selling at 1.70 (4 years back), now they cost you 2.40/loaf. Let's take that as a benchmark to say there's about a 40% inflation in food prices.....I bet you can decide which one grow faster, the salary or the living cost??

.....there's NO security.....

One of my more senior colleague has been in the industry for 20years, earning 5-figure/month, can hardly forked out money for the family when there's an emergency need......& at last check, the bank does not cover family medical expenses, no matter how senior is your position.

......there's NO security.....

Anyway, to me, working for a corporation, & diligently climbing up the corporate ladder, does not guarantee any FINANCIAL SECURITY........

I'm not someone who will sit in the same office for 20 years, only to move from open cubicle to a private room.....I don't see how that's a SUCCESS? If you hardly have time for your loved ones, or could hardly provide for them when they have a need?

To me, SECURITY is knowing that I have the knowledge to make a living WITHOUT having to depend on a corporation, or a never-coming increment, or whether my boss liked me or not......& at the same time, I have time to provide for my loved ones/family/friends/society.......That's my SECURITY!

I know I will be able to provide for those I care for, faster & more realistically, through TRADING & other businesses, not by working for a corporation for 20 years or more.....

Anyway, I'm not advocating that each & everyone of you to fire your boss right away on Monday......I'm just presenting an option for those who are interested to find more security, psychologically & financially, from whatever I have to share in this business. Remember, this skill can be learned!

For those who will spend an extra effort to learn more, let's start you with some SHOCKER entrees:

Knowledge is money, below is some interesting facts about the world financial system which average malaysian hardly know/ don't give a darn about. Hope that they will open up ur eyes & your mind & gives you a new perspective about money:

Goldman Sachs control the world?
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-20100405

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC19fEqR5bA&feature=player_detailpage

SUB-PRIME CRISIS - Why & How it happened?
INSIDE JOB - http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi751502873/

Last but not least,

A real full-time trader - what he does & how he do it?
www.conradalvinlim.com

A special thanks to Conrad, for his kind coaching, who has inspired me & many others to come into this business, that it's possible to make a living from trading....

I WILL be able to help more people like him in future.....:)

Have an UNFORGETTABLE weekend! Gracias! Will post more on my bad trade in my next post, learned a lot!