Have you or anybody you have ever met made money as a trader in the stock market?

Question

Sometimes when I hear people talk, they make it sound impossible. Other times I hear of guys(and women too of course) earning a comfortable living from it. Which is true?

Answer 1

It's part of my daily business. If you are a newcomer be very careful. It takes time, money and more time to learn the trade. You have to accumulate a lot of information, lessons and training into a strategy that works for you. And you have to keep up with everything that happens around the globe. You can, if experienced, make a good living and even more out of it, but it won't be easy money. There will be losses, know that. Some one telling you they never lose lies. I'm a pro, doing this stuff for more than 20 years now, and still I loose on positions I've taken sometimes. The trick is to minimize your losses and maximize the profits. This way I provide for myself and for my clients a very good result per month, but that result is made out of better and worse days. Good luck and be careful.

Answer 2

I've made some. A couple times, I made more in 30 minutes than I made at my day job in two weeks! But those 30 minutes were pretty intense.

Read all you can about the market, and the investment gurus.
For just starting out, read about the Dow Dividend Theory which is what the Motley Fools guys use.

Don't take tips from friends. Keep a journal on what you pick and why. Learn from your mistakes.

There's also websites that have free "simulators" you can set up an "imaginary" account and pick stocks , then see how they do.
Good Luck.

Answer 3

You really need to understand the market and be very familar with actual placement of of buying and trading stock. I tried it on a very small basis. I didn't make much with it, because I don't that much about it to be on top of trading activities. If you do start, I would suggest a broker that doesn't charge a lot for making a trade or purchase. Schwab is pretty informative, that's the only one I can think of at the moment. One more Ameratrade.

Answer 4

I have known of 2 people who did great as traders for a while, and then got wiped out.

The best way I've found to make money with stocks is to buy dividend paying stocks in solid companies, and then write call options on them. You get the dividends, you get the option premiums, and on the rare occasions your option gets exercised, it means you made a capital gain too.

Answer 5

Its not impossible, it just takes work and discipline.
I know a few people that do it.
The market does not easily give away money, and loves to take money from the foolish and unprepared.

A number of very successful and profitable traders hang out here
http://www.elitetrader.com/

Of course that are also a lot of people that are losing money. You can learn from both.

Answer 6

Since 1999 I have made my living from trading. The key is constant education and mapping out a game plan.


These are some sites that I frequent

http://champs-and-chumps.com/

http://biotech-news.org/

http://oil-profits.org/

http://gold-news.org/

http://mining-profits.org/

They all have good coverage of the major stock market sectors. That can really help you learn and choose companies to invest in.

Best of luck with your investing.

Answer 7

we make a good living off of our investments,if you are willing to put in the time neccessary then you can make money but most people are too lazy to do research and they just want to get lucky like some wild cowboy shoot in his mouth off, if we make 3000 in a week then you can be sure were att the computer ten too twelve hours a day.You can do it.

Answer 8

Yes, I ran $30,000 up to $1 million in the tech bubble, then lost three-quarters of it. I'm still trading, but am a lot more careful -- it's important to have a good exit strategy on every trade you enter.