20 years old, shooting for ER in the next couple years

[jadd806]

Hey all, I found this forum recently and thought I would register to start contributing. I'm 20 years old and finishing up my third year of engineering school. I've already had enough of the rat race in my short "career" and I want to enjoy my time as I see fit instead of spending my best years working. None of my peers understand my goals, so I am glad I finally found a place with like minded individuals.

It seems the standard approach here is passive investing, but that is a tad too slow for me. I've spent the last few years learning everything I can about the Forex market in my free time. Through hard work and dedication I have managed to develop a strategy which yields in two weeks what the S&P 500 does in a year, with a better Sharpe ratio too. Hence I'm planning for ER and FI shortly after I graduate from college.

If there are any other traders here I would love to hear from you.

 

[brewer12345]

I shall go pop some popcorn now...

 

[jadd806]

I shall go pop some popcorn now...

Thanks for the relevant and thought-provoking reply.

 

[brewer12345]

Thanks for the relevant and thought-provoking reply.

No problem. Good luck with your forex strategy.

You might search for a lengthy thread by (IIRC) dixonge, something along the lines of "insane emergency ER strategy" is the thread title.

 

[jadd806]

No problem. Good luck with your forex strategy.

You might search for a lengthy thread by (IIRC) dixonge, something along the lines of "insane emergency ER strategy" is the thread title.

Lol. Thanks for the laughs. Just goes to show what happens when you play with financial instruments without your oven mitts.

 

[Bestwifeever]

Why are you wasting your time in college if you are planning for er and fi shortly after you graduate?

 

[MuirWannabe]

College. The worst years of ones life. No wonder you can't wait to retire.

 

[brewer12345]

Lol. Thanks for the laughs. Just goes to show what happens when you play with financial instruments without your oven mitts.

Indeed.

Seriously, if you are going to try to ER/be self employed as a trader and you don't have a big capital base, make sure you have plan B, plan C, etc.

 

[jadd806]

Why are you wasting your time in college if you are planning for er and fi shortly after you graduate?

I have a full scholarship and I have more free time than if I was working full time instead of going to school, so it would've been silly not to.

 

[jadd806]

Indeed.

Seriously, if you are going to try to ER/be self employed as a trader and you don't have a big capital base, make sure you have plan B, plan C, etc.

Yeah, I like to think I've got my bases covered. If I don't have enough capital to achieve ER right out of the gate (reasonable possibility) I'll apply at proprietary trading firms. If they don't want me I'll suck it up and get a job in engineering for a couple years.

If I get to the point of needing a Plan D, then I messed up big time somewhere along the road...

 

[jadd806]

College. The worst years of ones life. No wonder you can't wait to retire.

On the contrary, college has been the best years. I've had a couple internships so I know what's waiting for me after though. Doesn't seem very exciting.

 

[Bestwifeever]

I have a full scholarship and I have more free time than if I was working full time instead of going to school, so it would've been silly not to.

But you cannot invest your scholarship, can you? Wouldn't you want to earn as much cash as possible to invest it?

 

[jadd806]

But you cannot invest your scholarship, can you? Wouldn't you want to earn as much cash as possible to invest it?

Working a minimum wage job out of high school wouldn't have really left much to invest after living expenses.

Not to mention I wasn't totally sure this trading thing was going to work out when I started college.

If you want to get technical, I've invested my scholarship in a back-up plan... Let's put it that way.

 

[Bestwifeever]

I can see where you are coming from.

 

[brewer12345]

If I get to the point of needing a Plan D, then I messed up big time somewhere along the road...

Unfortunately in my adult lifetime, this Terry Pratchett chestnut has been very apropos:

"Million to one chances seem to pop up nine times out often."

 

[M Paquette]

Meanwhile, back on Earth, FOREX market maker brokers are warehousing retail orders internally to the point where 60-65% of non-hedged volume is handled in-house.

In other words, FOREX market makers find it more profitable and less risky to just bet against retail FOREX traders with their own money than to bother with external hedging.

There's money to be made from folks with sure-fire systems in zero-sum games.

 

[racy]

... thought I would register to start contributing. ... I've spent the last few years learning everything I can about the Forex market ... I have managed to develop a strategy which yields in two weeks what the S&P 500 does in a year, with a better Sharpe ratio too.

Hi Jadd,
Welcome to the forum! A 20 year old that aims to retire early fits right in. Please, contribute by sharing your insights on the Forex market and your strategy.

 

[heeyy_joe]

I look forward to reading your book.

 

[brewer12345]

I met a neighbor who seems like a really nice guy. He asked what I did for a living and I said that I am taking some time off but did a bunch of things in the financial industry. He said, "oh, so you must do a lot of trading." Awkward. Evidently he went to some trainings or something and claims to make 20% a year. Um, nope, I have spent my adult life around this stuff and my speculations are 1% of my portfolio and tend to be outgrowths of some of my long term investment ideas. Did not really know how to politely deal with this one.

 

[Walt34]

Through hard work and dedication I have managed to develop a strategy which yields in two weeks what the S&P 500 does in a year, with a better Sharpe ratio too.

I too eagerly await the wisdom of a 20-year-old who knows how to avoid work and retire early. Dang, I wish I'd have thought of that.

 

[jadd806]

Meanwhile, back on Earth, FOREX market maker brokers are warehousing retail orders internally to the point where 60-65% of non-hedged volume is handled in-house.

In other words, FOREX market makers find it more profitable and less risky to just bet against retail FOREX traders with their own money than to bother with external hedging.

There's money to be made from folks with sure-fire systems in zero-sum games.

Lol. You're not telling me anything I don't know. The average trader loses. Only about 25% are profitable. From the brokers' perspective it makes complete sense statistically to bet against their clients. That much should be obvious.

There's no such thing as a "sure fire system." There is such a thing as having an edge such that over a large sample size of trades you come out on top. Traders like Kovner, Seykota, Dennis, Paul Tudor Jones and many others have all proved that they have an edge. Posting consecutive years of triple or even quadruple digit percent returns is no accident or stroke of random luck.

 

[Walt34]

Posting consecutive years of triple or even quadruple digit percent returns is no accident or stroke of random luck.

I beg to differ. Consider an example stolen directly from The Investor's Manifesto. Picture a stadium full of 10,000 coin flippers. Heads you remain standing, tails you sit down.

After a given number of coin flips three or four will remain standing. Are they the best coin flippers or just lucky?

 

[jadd806]

Hi Jadd,
Welcome to the forum! A 20 year old that aims to retire early fits right in. Please, contribute by sharing your insights on the Forex market and your strategy.

Thanks. I watch about 40 different pairs and trade only the Daily charts. I trade a system based on Mean Reversion Theory that restricts entries to value areas. The entry is discretionary using price action at logical support and resistance areas.

 

[jadd806]

I beg to differ. Consider an example stolen directly from The Investor's Manifesto. Picture a stadium full of 10,000 coin flippers. Heads you remain standing, tails you sit down.

After a given number of coin flips three or four will remain standing. Are they the best coin flippers or just lucky?

And after double that given number of coin flips, 1 or 2 will remain standing. Double that, 0 or 1.

In your example, that given number is slightly higher than just 11 flips for 4 to remain standing. A statistically worthless sample size in most applications. What about after 200 flips? 2000 flips? If anyone at all is left standing the odds are of the order of magnitude of 10^-600. Any logical person would conclude that they had to be cheating, maybe using a loaded coin. In other words, oh look... they have an edge.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

And after double that given number of coin flips, 1 or 2 will remain standing. Double that, 0 or 1.

In your example, that given number is slightly higher than just 11 flips for 4 to remain standing. A statistically worthless sample size in most applications. What about after 200 flips? 2000 flips? If anyone at all is left standing the odds are of the order of magnitude of 10^-600. Any logical person would conclude that they had to be cheating, maybe using a loaded coin. In other words, oh look... they have an edge.

If I had an edge like that I wouldn't broadcast it on a financial forum and invite competition.