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

[Sparkie67]

Mate, I think you'll find this is the wrong forum for you. Most here have 'retired early' in their early 60's or maybe late 50's. People at that age have had the luxury of riding one of the biggest debt fuel growth periods in history - for 40 years or so.

Buy and hold, passive investing has been a no brainer, and it would have been just about impossible to fail aslong as you stayed the course and plugged away. Forex taxing doesn't really fit with the general experience here, so you will be met with sarcasm / 'reality checks'. That's understandable given the successful experience most have here has come from something very different.

I don't think you are really talking about retiring early. More just working for yourself doing something you enjoy / get rewards from that suit you. I say good luck to you. You are young enough to have a go, and hopefully it works out. If not, then so what. Do something else.

 

[jadd806]

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

Yeah, I'm not nor do I plan to give out specifics.

 

[nash031]

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.

Wow! How come no one told me such a vehicle existed?! What a bunch of suckers we are.

Good luck.

 

[nash031]

Mate, I think you'll find this is the wrong forum for you. Most here have 'retired early' in their early 60's or maybe late 50's. People at that age have had the luxury of riding one of the biggest debt fuel growth periods in history - for 40 years or so.

Buy and hold, passive investing has been a no brainer, and it would have been just about impossible to fail aslong as you stayed the course and plugged away. Forex taxing doesn't really fit with the general experience here, so you will be met with sarcasm / 'reality checks'. That's understandable given the successful experience most have here has come from something very different.

I don't think you are really talking about retiring early. More just working for yourself doing something you enjoy / get rewards from that suit you. I say good luck to you. You are young enough to have a go, and hopefully it works out. If not, then so what. Do something else.

You're right. He's not talking about ER. He's talking about speculating. Nothing wrong with that, except that it's extremely difficult to be successful.

 

[jadd806]

Mate, I think you'll find this is the wrong forum for you. Most here have 'retired early' in their early 60's or maybe late 50's. People at that age have had the luxury of riding one of the biggest debt fuel growth periods in history - for 40 years or so.

Buy and hold, passive investing has been a no brainer, and it would have been just about impossible to fail aslong as you stayed the course and plugged away. Forex taxing doesn't really fit with the general experience here, so you will be met with sarcasm / 'reality checks'. That's understandable given the successful experience most have here has come from something very different.

I don't think you are really talking about retiring early. More just working for yourself doing something you enjoy / get rewards from that suit you. I say good luck to you. You are young enough to have a go, and hopefully it works out. If not, then so what. Do something else.

Thanks for your post. You're right; I kinda figured that given the tone of most of the replies I've received so far. I considered it ER as my trading only takes about half an hour per day. Tons of other time for activities.

I really have no desire to continue arguing statistical probability and the feasibility of Forex trading with the folks here. I'll just move on back to my trading forums.

I'll come back to this thread every couple of months and update on my progress. If for no other reason than to show the naysayers that it can be done. If I crash and burn then you all get a laugh at my expense.

Until then...

 

[CaliforniaMan]

Another bright 20 year old with a way to beat the market. Where have I heard this before? Sorry, but I think you have some lessons coming. A lot of engineers and others here on this forum, people who have been there, done that. You can learn from them or learn from the market. I really wish you good luck, but humility has a way of seeking us out in the end.

 

[HawkeyeNFO]

Best of luck. See ya later.

 

[Walt34]

I'll come back to this thread every couple of months and update on my progress. If for no other reason than to show the naysayers that it can be done. If I crash and burn then you all get a laugh at my expense.

Until then...

Hey, no one is wishing you ill or that you will fail. Perhaps you're really on to something. But two or three years, or even ten years, of successes isn't going to cut it. That's just luck. And once in a great long while even people who buy lottery tickets get lucky.

Let us know in 25 years. Best to you.

 

[REWahoo]

I'll come back to this thread every couple of months and update on my progress. If for no other reason than to show the naysayers that it can be done. If I crash and burn then you all get a laugh at my expense.

Until then...

We look forward to your updates - no matter how they turn out.

However, I am personally very doubtful you'll come back and admit your plans didn't work out [-]when[/-] if that turns out to be the case. Airing your failures isn't part of human nature and very few of our posters have the intestinal fortitude to fess up when things go sour. The few that do - like VaCollector and Dixonge - have earned my respect for their honesty and willingness to share where they went wrong.

Best of luck!

 

[AnIntentionalRoad]

Welcome to the forums. When I was in college I worked as a trading assistant for an off the floor prop bond trader. Then I went to work as a trading assistant for a firm that did both prop trading in index options and various commodity options (corn, wheat, etc). They also were market makers, or "locals", on the floor of several exchanges in Chicago and Kansas City in index options and futures. We had no clients. We traded the money the firm's limited partners had invested.

I worked my way up to being a local in the wheat and index option pits. It was great fun. Every day I would go to work and stand in a pit of other screaming A-types and battle to make a living by capturing the bid-ask spread on hundreds of trades a day. Each trade, on average, only amounted to about a $5-10 profit but if you could get at least 50 done per day, you were making a good living.

The key for the locals, and what my boss beat into my head, was to be directionally agnostic. Trade only for the spread. Don't go home at night with a position. Be aggressive and always alert to the flow of orders coming in to the various brokers.

The traders that survived long term followed those principles. The others blew out, often spectacularly. I have many stories of those people. Most of them thought they had figured out a system or edge. Maybe they did, but even then, things can go bad quickly and edges can evaporate. And holding positions that are going bad can cause severe emotional decisions to be made at the worst times.

A decade later my company that I founded was building software for prop trading firms. They would invest millions of dollars to build systems to exploit some theoretical arbitrage or other edge. Even with those firms, the profits come and go. They can go bust almost overnight.

My advice to you is get a job with a prop firm in Chicago or NY and learn from the inside how the pros do it. They love hiring top engineering grads as assistant traders. Then when you get promoted, make your money trading the house's account. If you are good you can make as much as 50% of the profits you generate. Then, if it is still what you want, start your own operation or trade solo. You'll have much more chance for success.

But beware retail "systems" that various pundits are pitching. It is a universal truth that if any of those systems had real merit, they would never be sold or shared with anyone other than to raise money to trade with the system. The prop trading industry is absolutely the most insular, secretive industry I've seen because those rare trading edges are so valuable.

 

[splitwdw]

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.

Welcome. I'm not retired yet I'm here to learn. You are like many of the people here, where their family and friends do not understand their goals either. There are also a lot of retired engineers here too.
You're young enough that if your plans don't work out you have time to recover. Life, does have a way of getting in the way sometimes so it does pay to have a backup plan. In the mean time, learn what you can about Forex trading and enjoy.

 

[haha]

Is this character being trolled by some of our esteemed members?

Ha

 

[Bestwifeever]

Is this character being trolled by some of our esteemed members?

Ha

Trying to be helpful but point taken, post deleted.

 

[Ready]

Every once in a while someone like jadd806 comes along to our forum with some ideas on how to get rich doing trades, and we descend like a pack of wolves waiting to attack. While I would not choose to do this myself, I like the fact that the OP knows what he wants to do with his career and has some aggressive plans to get there. Maybe it will work out, maybe it won't. But think of all the people out there who ignored the naysayers who said it couldn't be done, and then went on to become brilliant leaders who changed the world.

If that is what the OP wants to do with his career, I say best of luck and go for it!

 

[brewer12345]

Is this character being trolled by some of our esteemed members?

Ha

Nope. Almost through my bucket of popcorn, though.

 

[Gumby]

It is admirable that you are thinking about your financial future at your age. When I was 20, my thoughts generally revolved around girls, cars, beer and music.

I don't know much about Forex trading. From the little I have read, it seems like it would be difficult to make money consistently, and if news reports are to be believed, the market is possibly rigged by the large banks (see, e.g. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-pro...-234528268.html;_ylt=AwrBEiGc7GZTllsADrfQtDMD )

That said, you seem to have a well-conceived plan, so I say go for it. You're young and you'll have an engineering degree and plenty of time to recover financially if it doesn't work out. Best of luck to you.

 

[FIGuy]

Hi Jadd,

You're obviously a smart guy, but I hope you'll take some advise from a 32 year old engineer.

First off, engineering can be a fantastic career. We create the infrastructure of the future. However, some of the jobs out there are real joy killers. "Megacorp" is a common term here and sums up how many feel about working in a big corporation. Small tech start-ups, where I've spent much of my career, can actually be quite a bit of fun. You risk a lot of layoffs though. I'll also offer that getting a masters (not a PhD!) will open up the more fun jobs than just having a BS in the engineering world. I was actually fed up with engineering at the age of 20 also, but I was going to be a fireman when I dropped out so I could "do something that mattered". So glad my mom talked me out of that one.

Something else I learned the painful way (and probably we all have to) is that any returns more than 2-3x the "risk free rate" usually have some risk that can down the ship. Right now, figure anything over 5-8% IRR is going to have some serious risks. I used to be damn certain I had a no risk ~35% investment and had an excel sheet showing me being super rich in about 5 years. I thought everyone else was crazy for buying nice cars and not investing. I'm not saying never invest in high risk / high reward stuff, but don't bet the whole farm on it. If you haven't figured out how what you're doing can get you, you're going to get burned...

Almost any engineer can retire early by their early 40s and I consider this a good trade-off to the lifetime of an enjoyable engineering career. After that, engineers don't seem to love the job as much. Good luck.

 

[MooreBonds]

Nope. Almost through my bucket of popcorn, though.

If you make another tub, I'll take some with butter and b33ver cheese powder sprinkled on top. Rumor is there'll be a sequel thread (or two). Waaaay too much suspense and unresolved plot at this point.

 

[MooreBonds]

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.

So you're implying that you are using your scholarship money to invest in FOREX?

 

[haha]

Trying to be helpful but point taken, post deleted.

No way would I complain. I'm not a law and order guy.
I'm just trying to join the scrum.

Incidentally, I believe members are extremely polite about what is a low probability scheme.

Ha

 

[daylatedollarshort]

I still don't get the point of the post. I have no burning desire to go to a Forex trading forum and tell them a better way to retire early than Forex trading is to have a two megacorp job household in STEM fields with pensions and LBYM. But maybe I'll do that and let you guys know how it turns out.

If I was making money with FOREX trading I would not try to interest a group consisting of many retired math, engineering and computer science majors with money to invest and time on their hands to add to the competition, unless of course I had some system or ebook I was trying to sell at some point down the line.

 

[ERD50]

I still don't get the point of the post. I have no burning desire to go to a Forex trading forum and tell them a better way to retire early than Forex trading is to have a two megacorp job household in STEM fields with pensions and LBYM. But maybe I'll do that and let you guys know how it turns out.

Yes, it's an odd post, isn't it?

But good luck to you, and may I suggest you read everything that Nassim Nicholas Taleb has written.

-ERD50

 

[Golden sunsets]

We'll this string made for an enjoyable read.

 

[CaliforniaMan]

We'll this string made for an enjoyable read.

Brings back memories. Oh to be young and invincible again.

 

[crtreedude]

One thing you might always wish to think about is that if anyone could do it - why don't they? There is a reason most people end up working for a few decades.

High return almost always means high risk.

You might be able to do this, and you might invent the next must have widget too. Perhaps you went for the wrong major in college if you hate doing it so much. I have been an engineer for decades and though I have plenty of assets, I am still doing some because I enjoy it so much. Of course, I am not entry, either...