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Richmond VA
Posts: 7 since Mar 2013
Thanks Given: 2
Thanks Received: 1
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Hey everyone!
A bit about me:
I want to introduce myself here. I'm a young (just about 20 year old) trader (not full-time, it's just a hobby). I placed my first trade the day I turned 18 and I've been trading actively ever since.
I work with cyber security for a living. I'm huge into programming (mainly low level), electronics, cooking, automation, math, statistics, and basically anything that makes my brain work overtime. I'm a nerd and proud of it.
A bit about my trading (about 2 years experience):
For the first year I did standard long-term safe investments.
For the second year I've been trading options. I'm a recovering 'options addict'. I bought silly weekly OTM options and basically just gambled.
One of my issues is that I don't quite have the 25k needed for day trading and margin so I've been trading cash. Due to the settling time of cash, I was only able to make one trade a day, so I would hold positions much longer than I should have. I wanted to make the best of my only trade of the day. I usually had good entry execution and would make money right away, but throughout the day I'd hold it and eventually exit at a loss (simply because I didn't want to leave the market).
Apart from my day trading account which is more for fun and speculation, I have stable, hedged, long term positions in other accounts.
What I'm interested in:
I've recently realized that what I was doing with options was not sustainable. Now trading is on hold until I have 25k for the day trading margin requirements. For now I just plan on playing around with different trading algorithms (I like automated stuff) and simulations.
I'm also interested in futures, so I'll be doing some sim in those as well.
Questions:
I wanted to just ask some questions right off the bat to get active.
First of all. I'm under the assumption that with a margin enabled account you no longer have to wait for funds to settle. Is this correct? Do you get all your funds back instantly, or just some of them?
Second. At this rate I'll be able to meet the requirements for day trading in a margin account in about a year. Some days I wonder if it would be worth it to get the extra year of experience and take out a loan for the time being. I have a few questions regarding this. First of all, do banks/lenders even issue loans for something like this? If so, are they at higher rates than say, a car loan? Thirdly I want opinions, is this a stupid idea? Right now I have absolutely no obligations and I'm willing to take a few risks.
I hope I can learn a lot from here and improve my abilities as a trader. I don't have massive amounts of experience, but I've had my fair share of mistakes that I hope to help others not make.
Feel free to ask me any questions!
-Brandon
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