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Strategies & Market Trends : Are you considering quitting your dayjob to daytrade?! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SpongeBrain who wrote (21)	1/17/1999 8:13:00 PM
From: Dave O.	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 611

< I'd like to hear what types of jobs people are willing to give up in order to do this > You wonder why people might "give up" decent jobs to trade? I was in engineering for 18 years ... had a really good job ... good $$$ ... but I despised corporate politics, rush hour commuting, long hours. I spent 4 years planning for my transition ... eliminating all debt ... having only the "normal" bills to pay each month (utilities, food, property taxes, ..) and finding that I could live on less money. Some people here seem to think that you need to make as much, or more $$$ than your job paid to make it worthwhile. That's not necessarily true. Take away the daily commute, the cost of new suits, lunches out, and trade that off with the commute time now being yours to do with as you please. No dress code for trading. My commute is about 10 feet from my bedroom to my office. If I'm up enough $$$ by noon I can take off, shut off the computer and go enjoy the day. Now can someone in a corporate position do this? Do they have the freedom? Not likely. Dave

To: SpongeBrain who wrote (21)	1/18/1999 1:47:00 AM
From: SkyDart	Respond to of 611

All types quit their jobs to daytrade. I recently read "The Electronic Daytrader". Can't recall the author's name at this time, but I did call his trading firm in New York and HE ANSWERED the phone. [Another good book, Secrets of the SOES BANDIT by Houtkin, McGraw Hill 1999]. Both these books are MUST READS for the aspiring daytrader IMO. Had a very nice 40 minute conversation with him. He trains people to do SOES trading and Level II at his firm. He basically said that without a level II, I was destined to lose all my money and FAST. They have a 21 yo kid that has a talent and makes 1,000,000 yr doing SOES daytrading at his firm; but he was quick to point out that the majority of daytraders lose big their first 6 months. He also said that to do it well, one needed to do it full time with Level II etc. They have a doctor who quit his internship to trade. Had the opportunity to speak to him a few days later. The doc told me that one needed an acct size of at least 50 to 75 K to take training at their firm. And wd need to commit at least one month to learning the basics. the doc told me as well that daytraders without level II are destined to lose ALL their trading money...Just a matter of time. The doc said he was hoping to make 200 K this year if all went well. But that meant being glued to the monitor screen all day and making 20 to 100 trades per day. Sounds like alot of work to me. The Dart. BTW. Recent polls show that many, if not most lawyers, are VERY unsatisfied with their jobs and wd not recommend their kids go become attorneys. So basing your decision on the fact that lawyers are giving up their jobs to daytrade probably isn't sound.

To: SpongeBrain who wrote (21)	1/19/1999 8:27:00 PM
From: John Koligman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 611

I started investing right out of college in the mid 1970's. Picked up my trading in the late 1980's. Back in 1995 I went to my manager at IBM and told him I want to try expanding my trading and work part time (programming) evenings. He said yes!! Did that till 1997, at which time both I and my wife left IBM (she was an 18 year engineer, I spent 16 years fixing operating system bugs). I guess you could call me a 'hybrid', as I will hold positions in what I consider high quality techs for significant periods of time (Intel, CPQ, Applied Materials, etc), but I also trade to make 'eating and living money'. I find that discipline is key. Tim Luke's advice on the internet stocks is important, I also stay away from those kinds of stocks. I tend to trade high quality techs. One does not have to day trade either, I find that I make better money staying out and getting in big during a tech wreck (such as last fall). Good luck, John PS - All that said, you probably could have done better than the vast majority of traders by simply buying and holding 'big tech' over the past few years, but hindsight is 20-20!!!