While my day job/career is being a nurse (soon nurse practitioner), I have an almost autistic passion for trading and investing. I've been doing well at it (I do agree that most do lose money though) and living pretty frugally.
One thing I like about this versus other forms of self-employment is that it's truly international. With my setup I can live anywhere in the world and do what I do. Another thing I love is how asocial it is, maybe that's the autism talking. Other businesses force you to put on a smile and cater to the whims of often shitty clients while the financial instrument market is simply almost like a game between you and the securities.
It might not be sustainable but I'm up an average of 15% each year the past few years. I'm living so frugally that my wealth is increasing pretty fast. If I can become a funded trader and manage other people's capital soon in the future, I think I have a legit chance of being a part of the jet-set new-money international class, a far cry from my rural ohio redneck family background.
>. If I can become a funded trader and manage other people's capital
Inb4 op has a bad year and is never heard from again
Nolan Martin
if you're up 15% each year as a result of some heavily calculated thesis on extremely liquid securities (eg., forex, nasdaq: AMD, nyse: BAC, etc.), then congratulations you future hedge fund manager
but 15% is nothing at all if you're just going by "feel" or some surface fundamentals and you're working with only a few hundreds thousand dollars. every single day, there are small cap stocks that move anywhere from 50% to 300%, and the rare 1000%+ over the course of 1-5 days that sophisticated individual traders can grab hundreds of thousands or a few mil from every year.
Gavin Ward
What do you trade in?
Dylan Butler
Business > Investing
The truth is when you invest, your only opportunities available are what the market throws at you, and you need to practice due diligence to get superior returns.
If you own a business, you can use your own labor to add value and you get to keep the proceeds of your labor. In fact, you also get to avoid much of the taxation that comes with investing in a large corporation and you can structure your business in a way that works for you.
There's millions of entrepreneurs who became multi millionaires, but only a handful of investors who did the same, (Usually by opening a fund, which is a business in itself).
I see tons of idiots who started successful businesses, and I bet most of them couldn't tell you what a DCF model is.
Dylan James
> if you're up 15% each year as a result of some heavily calculated thesis on extremely liquid securities (eg., forex, nasdaq: AMD, nyse: BAC, etc.), then congratulations you future hedge fund manager
Yes to everything. I'm actually about to get funded by a prop firm so this might actually happen.
John Smith
Mostly Forex and Commidities. I'm sure there's other good instruments but I got used to those. My main approach was to get very, very good at a small group of strategies and stick with them rather than try to do everything.
Camden Kelly
teach me senpai
William Adams
You have a good point and I often am considering whether or not to try a business venture. Once thing though is that as great as business can be, I'm definitely not a people type person. Ironic considering my current job I know, but in general I'm so cynical (maybe it's me just being an edgelord or latent autism lol) I don't think I can handle running a business catering to the general public's tastes.
But I'm definitely willing to handle wealth management if I ever become a fund manager. But I like the nature of that business more than one having to cater to the 'murican public's tastes.
Hunter Phillips
You might miss people though OP, unless you really can't stand them after their various frailties were made available to you. I could understand.
You should try to see if you can get that 3 days of work deal, FRI-SAT-SUN then you can trade the best 4 days of the week. Don't go up to Practitioner yet, just utilize that schedule.
Caleb Martin
Male nurse? Tell us more about shitty life choices, seems you are good at making them
Nah, not really. It requires more talent to run your own business successfully than to do some research and long some stocks and cryptos. It all comes down to boom/bust cycles anyways. Your startup may be good, but it will fail nevertheless if the economy is in bad shape.
Christian Lee
You might have a point. Eventually I probably would miss the interaction. I'm definitely considering doing a 3-day schedule. Some of my former classmates do this and they love the 4 days off. And honestly once you're up, ready, and at work there's not that big a difference between an 8 or 12 hour day.
Nursing is actually a pretty good gig. I make six figures and yet only work an average of 40 hours per week. Especially as a male nurse my job opportunities are endless and I'm strangely given more slack.
Unless you have a much better career I don't see how you can knock a male nursing gig.
Zachary Cruz
>My main approach was to get very, very good at a small group of strategies What are those?
Thomas Rodriguez
I know this isn't relevant to your strategy query, but I'm guessing OP is involved in spread betting Forex and/ or involved in CFDs for for both commodities and Forex. Take a look into that.
Evan White
BRRRRRRRRRTTTT
Camden Wood
Good luck opee
We have the same goals
Jose Bell
Which books do you recommend?
Jeremiah Richardson
Investing, trading, and Forex are such a waste of time and money. Unless you're a millionaire (10M+) with enough capital to risk, it's literally impossible to make a living off it.
Honestly the best form of self-employment is doing whatever wont make you want to kill yourself by the end of the day, which varies per person. That said: owning a decent business >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> trading
All these stocks / Forex investing scammers on the internet making young adults think they're going to make it are literally no different to a shitty religious cult. Go to any wannabe trader's Instagram and it's just one big circle jerk of motivational quotes, photos of shit they will never own, and a bunch of people trying to sell you something or asking you to join their "trading team". It's so cringey, and the worst part is they'll spend their whole lives in an endless struggle to get rich.
OP, get out while you can and focus on something else. Trading and investing is absolute cancer.
Isaac Ramirez
You can make a lot of money in the forex market! I'm involved with a company that teaches me how to trade, sends out signals so I literally have to just copy and paste and make money, and I have professionals that trade my money for me....literally so so easy!
Kayden Lee
>Unless you're a millionaire (10M+) with enough capital to risk, it's literally impossible to make a living off it.
Absolute horseshit, you're projecting.
Josiah Sanchez
>Nursing is actually a pretty good gig. I make six figures and yet only work an average of 40 hours per week.
Why does it seem like every job in the US (I assume you're in the US) is a six figure salary? I have a friend who is an NHS nurse in the uk and she only makes £22k (or $27k)
Jaxon Hughes
If you want 50k a year, and you can pull 15% on it, you need 300k to throw around. That's with no capital growth and assuming no bad months.
50000 / 0.15 = 333k
Maybe you want 100k to live on allowing for some fluctuation, ok, then you are throwing around 666k.
How much money is a nurse going to have in savings to throw around? Probably not 600k.
Logan Fisher
Healthcare is so bizarre here. Its why international people needs to stop comparing us to them, our healthcare is so ridiculous its basically like this constantly overdemanded place where gunshot wounds are normal so nurses are crazy in demand.
Eli Jackson
Who're you using bud?
Sebastian Carter
you need at lease 60M to be honest
I know because I trade bitcoins and have made around 740k last year mom
James Perry
it is possible but highly unlikely to go from part time investor to fund manager but it has happened
for example 'Karen the super trader' who has quite likely just been lucky not to blow up selling options:
I think trading, as a self employed person, was fantastic a decade ago. I did it as a young grad in London - got taken on by an arcade set up by an ex local, backed with their money, initially got to take a small draw from the account essentially as a basic salary but after that it was simply a profit split and you eat what you kill... plenty of discretion to chose what markets you trade as long as you could argue the case with the manager you'd be given limits for whatever futures exchanges you wanted to make use of... - obviously very small limits to begin with but ramped up quickly when you showed consistent results.
Jeans and t-shirt environment, you want some software, data feed etc.. then you can have it - the cost gets deducted from the pnl prior to the split. Payout each month and you're a partner in an llp. Of course once established you may chose to self fund and set up your own ltd company elsewhere but generally if you want to be able to thrown a few thousand lots at the bund then you'll tend to want access to other people's money!
unfortunately HFT firms have made that sort of trading much less feasible, people still do it and still have those arrangements with clearning firms but the holding periods are longer, the size they trade is smaller and they're making only a fraction of what people used to make - no more 7 or 8 figure years for the top boys... more like a couple of hundred k max..
