About Me/Why Trading

I have always been fascinated by the world of stock trading.  My first introduction to the stock market, like most, was in high school.  However, this was before the integration of computers and it was a whole different animal.  I was hooked.  But I had very conservative and "safe" parents who told me not to think about a career on Wall Street.  Unfortunately my guidance counselor told me the same thing so there ended my dream.

Once I became an adult, I saw an Ameritrade commercial and I realized my interest in the market was still there.  By now, the computer and internet was beginning to get popular so I opened up an Ameritrade account with a little bit of money and quickly lost it all.  Then I remembered what my parents, grandparents, and guidance counselor told me, "you'll lose your money son"!  So again, I gave up the dream.

Fast forward 10 years later and I'm watching CNBC or a channel like that and I see a guy ranting and raving about starting with $12,000 and turning it into a million and he had a student that started with $1500 and turned it into a million.  My adrenalin started pumping again.  If you haven't guessed it by now, the guy was Tim Sykes.  I applied to be one of his Challenge Students.  I was selected but there was no way I was sending him $5500 so I joined his Pennystocking Silver service in January 2014, purchased his DVD packages, and opened a Suretrader account with $1500. I learned a lot about the market and level II, but didn't make much money and was never comfortable with OTC's.  Then when a stock I was in, I think it was NEWL, was halted by the SEC, I said enough of this.

I had always heard about Nathan Michaud and the Investors Underground service as well as his new Textbook Trading DVD.  I felt NASDAQ stocks were more suited for me.  Since I am a teacher and summer break was coming up I felt this was the perfect time to study Nate's strategy and join the InvestorsLive chat. My world was changed.  I learned so much over the summer.  I traded small and learned how to recognize patterns and set-ups.  I made it a point to be patient and not blow up my account while I learned.  Summer was over before I knew it.  My quarterly subscription to InvestorsLive was over as well.

I didn't get to trade much the first months of school but I studied charts, watched Textbook Trading DVD, and kept up with Nate on Twitter.  I started trading some in November and I felt I was a better trader and more prepared to attack the market.  I also bought Nates new DVD Tandem Trader and my world was changed again.  I started practicing scaling in and out and instantly became more profitable.  It was then I decided to just focus on textbook longs and get that strategy down first.  I have had my best 2 months since I have been trading.

I started this blog to help me document what I have learned along the way so that if in the future I do loose my way I have something to help get me back on track.  I also wanted to share my trials and tribulations so that it may help others who may be in the same boat as me.  Well, that's enough for the first blog.  Time to go eat more leftover tamales!