This forum's

[john_1]

She Trades in Russian brides and invest's the profit.

[#2]

Well chaps last year May I took a little nock, remember the market dropped about 10% in one day and lost well basically the value of my house (PSG trading Platform but it doesn't matter). I stuck in there and recovered about 135% .One thing I've learnt was that you have to stick to your original game plan and if you've lost then you have to go back to the drawing board to try and find out what went wrong and to prevent it from happening again but I can also so that you have to know when to cut your losses and move on without looking over your shoulder and only experience can teach you that. Forget all these fancy trading programs they sell, they cant predict the future relative to the past performance. Gud luck (on average I've made about 100% - 250% p.j.)

[Brazen]

Hi kariba, primarily an investor. Most of my capital is in shares, some date from the the late 90s, and I hardly ever do anything to that account. I use my Standard Bank account for geared instruments. Mostly instalments and some SSFs. I've only been actively trading for just over 2 years, and have made some massive, and expensive blunders. I do think there's money to be made trading, it's just surviving that initial idiocy that's really hard. I think 90% of your capital should be in blue chips with good fundamentals (PEs, Divi yields etc) and 10% in trading. Simon has it down, he invests and then trades so that he can drink better wine. Or is it more wine?

[SimonPB]

well brazen if the trading goes well it is more AND better wine.

[#5]

Hey Kariba: just to point out, trading does help yous with investing - it does teach market skills the way plodding along with shares can't. Anyway, trading teaches you to sniff the market winds like a fox with a pack o dogs behind. It teaches you about market volitility, liquidity, finding the right entry level, and when to walk away. All the picky details that keep traders awake at night. Eventually, it pays off across the board, I figger. What you learn trading, and if you survive the lessons, applies to property, business, investing. Kinda like goin to college: a darned good, but expensive education.

[zn]

Hi guys, last year in March i was in a serve car accident and still have alot of memory lose, what had happened was all my Warrants expired whilst i was still in a Coma, losed about 125K, but i had a supper year in 2005 when i turned my 30k into about 250k and then a took that loss, still losing money though, on my way to recovery, and every lose has been one big lesson, and learning curb all over again, thanks.

[Kat_1]

Tango I'd like to echo Johns sentiments. Good on you for sharing your story. I have not as yet invested - Busy studying this - will invest when Im confident enough. Going for these face to face courses which is really assisting me when it comes to my assignments etc. Good luck for the future!

[Tango]

no problem. I'm glad it seems to have struck a chord for a few people. I'm pretty sure that for every story like mine there are a dozen more about people who burned out and didn't come back. Trading theory is only half what you need to learn - the rest you will learn about yourself once you have real money on the line. As soon as you have a bit of confidence put 2 or 3 trades on a couple of plodding blue-chips and sit tight for a while. You'll learn a lot just by having money in the market.

[#9]

Tango. Regarding the ALSI, Im not sure about the future itself, but I do know that the TOPI has increased by a massive 7000 points in just 1 year. Anyone with the ALSI chart can tell us what the outcome would have been if you took 1 contract a year ago ( = 4 Contracts) and held each up to say 1 week before expiry, took the profit and rolled over to the next one. That would tie up with the theory of buying and holding onto call waves until expiry, except off corse theres no barrier on the ALSI.

[CAB]

Lost my first two trading capitals before I started trading with the rules in place: target; stop loss; correct capital allocation per trade. Learnt a lot on Simon's courses on warrants, the SFM TA courses and also Colin Abram's 3 courses. I reckon the worst thing for a newbie trader is to have your first trades as winners! Think you're King Kong and then place all your trading capital on one "GOTTA" win trade. To remind me of my idiocy I keep the sms on my cellphone from SFM I received when 370,000 ECO WAVES hit the barrier....extremely painful. I can tell you exactly where I was and the feeling in the pit of my stomach, disbelief, pain etc!!! Now, smaller trades (10% of trading capital), slightly deeper stop loss in place, hit the predetermined target and sell half, leave the other half to run on a very tight stop loss. Sense of calm as well, especially after reading Trading in the Zone. Best thing for newbies - have early losses!

[Tango]

But it's only with the benefit of hindsight that you can say that... When I entered the market the index was just hitting 16k - at the time people were saying that the market looked too hot. Then it climbed 4000 points in the next few months, and lost 3000 of those in the following couple of months. If anyone was certain that we would hit 26k then it would be an obvious strategy to just go long and forget about it.

[BABYBOY]

now why would anyone think im out....lol

[Preston]

Zn- I know a guy who had a similair experience ..At least you have recovered both physically and financially, which is great.This dude , his heart stop beating for a few minutes (not to sure how long) ,but now he has no short term memory. Despite his setback, i have yet to see a guy with such a positive outlook in life.

[#14]

I also share your sentiments, I also had a nice profit on warrants and thought I was the man and when the market started falling earlier this month hoped it would be better the next day but alas it just kept on going down. I was overcome by greed and also fear of losing too much. Eventually i threw the towle and now those warrants are nicely going up again. I'm now trying my best not to let greed overcome me and am sticking to my rules. One thing we can't do is predict the future or else we'll all be millionaires but we can learn from our mistakes even though we make them over and over again. Reading you experiences made me realise I'm not alone and makes me more optimistic.

[john_1]

Please change your nick to richguy!!!!

[zn]

Thanks for sharing that Preston, hope his short term memory gets better, tell him to try the Brain Wave program it has helped me to remember alot of Short-term things, Thanks

[Preston]

Will do ! Thanks

[BABYBOY]

very nice story tango. i've got alot of respect for you. thanks for opening my eyes and others in the forum.

[Tango]

No problem. I hope others can learn the tough lessons without it costing as much!