$10 000.00 - What am I doing?

[search1ng]

Hey Sosuave brothers,

I've got $10 000.00 to my name that I managed to earn through forex trading over a 6-7 month period. I'm not kidding myself into thinking I'm good at trading either, because prior to this I'd lost $4000.00 over a 3 year period trying to make money through forex and it's only been recently that something clicked and I've managed to see consistent profits.

Regarding the trading, I enjoy it, and I believe that over a long enough period of time I'd be able to increase my trading capital and in turn see some serious money, however, forex is like driving while seriously drunk. Predicting market movement is more often than not a hunch and it feels like murphy's law is just waiting around the corner to fck me in the ass (for anyone interested I mostly use Fibonacci retracements and lots of line trend resistance and support. Just basic, simple stuff). As such I want an alternative means of income.

At the moment I'm currently a 23 year old university student going through a quarter-life crisis (currently studying a medical imaging degree). I'll hopefully graduate at the end of 2013 (provided I survive the coming apocalypse and manage to pass all my courses). All things considered, IF I can manage to keep my GPA/work ethic/etc. up and score well on entrance exams, I plan on going into graduate medicine, however, failing that I plan on getting a job as a medical imaging professional and being bored with life pressing buttons.

I need an escape route. I don't know how to describe this feeling but I'm restless. If i were a doctor (or one in training) I'd be satisfied with my lot (I've shadowed and interacted with numerous doctors as a student on clinical placements and the like), but that train is getting further and further ahead of me and I've no idea whether I'll ever manage to get on. Medical imaging in the real world is mind-numbingly boring to me. Studying it is great! Real life makes it robotic and mundane. So I'm ultimately looking for a way to further engage myself (if life takes the boring track).

Towards that end, is there anything, at the moment that I could use the $10000.00 for, apart from further forex trading, that could potentially lead to a field/career other than medical imaging?

I was thinking online-business, but I have no idea what service I could provide for the general public and my creative juices are at an all-time low.

Further investing in precious metals or stocks doesn't sound viable with only $10000 as capital.

Properties sound interesting but the risks are huge.

...

At the end of the day - I've no idea. I was hoping one of you guys would.

 

[sageproduct]

I have no advice, just a question:

Medical imaging, as in a Master's in Biomedical Visualization?

 

[search1ng]

Nothing that crazy, diagnostic imaging, like x-rays, PET, things like that

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

You might want to give Investors Business Daily a try. They've got a good system that can easily earn you 20-30% per year. You could turn 10 K into a nice sum over the next ten or twenty years.

Not nearly as exciting as Forex, but you'd still be in the game. AND it wouldn't nearly take as much time. Maybe a couple hours on the weekends, and that's about it.

 

[Bible_Belt]

I used to day trade stocks with company money a long time ago, before computers took over the bulk of intraday trading.

Danger, those indicators are oscillators and Fib lines are for trend traders, so no wonder you don't like them. Oscillators are great when there is no trend, but they get you killed when there is one. Oscillators are also based on price action only, so what you're seeing is just another way of looking at a chart. With enough practice, a basic candlestick chart with volume at the bottom should tell you everything that an oscillator can.

A friend of mine got set up with the reins to a doctor's stock account, who instructed him to trade a system he had devised. What he does is buy low-priced stocks that have been much higher before, but have now gone sideways for a long time and are starting to go back up. I'd look for stocks in about the $5 range, consolidating just off a 52-week high, volume of at least a million shares a day, and that had been higher-priced 1-3 years ago.

My girlfriend was finishing her bachelor's and took an elective course in "stock trading." The professor was a "random walker" who told them that picking stocks was all random. To demonstrate, he had everyone paper trade for a month with $100k of fake money. They used www.wallstreetsurvivor.com to track the fake portfolios. After the month was over, everyone's simulated account was still just below or just over the $100k, except for my girlfriend, who let me pick her stocks. She had $112k. The professor told her she was just lucky.

 

[\O/]

Good work on making a profit through forex trading. First, i would suggest you take that return and stay away from forex trading, no matter how fun it is. Basically it's an investment with negative expectations given that it's a zero sum game with costs connected to the trading. You either have to be smarter than everyone else or know something that they don't to come out on top in the long run. Or just be extremely lucky

With all the money being pumped into economies all over the world these days, i would invest my money in something that has a value on it's own. Real estate, metals, raw material commodities etc. Even though inflation is low today, you'll never know if it's yet another black swan in the making.

I dont have any business ideas these days, so i invest my money in a variety of assets. Mostly in real estate, funds and as a spice to the portfolio, I invest in stocks that has dropped significantly and now has a low P/E. Those stocks will either go bankrupt or multiply x times, so it's very high risk. That's why it's just a small part of the total investments.

It's all a matter of risk aversion basically, but in the long run i think that sound investments are better than chasing short term high profits.

Good luck!

 

[LiveFreeX]

Easiest way to double your money in just one year:

Buy an RV and live out of it AND get a part-time job. Save yourself the rent money per month.

or you could work hard with all that other investing stuff.

 

[Bible_Belt]

When the value in the band falls to a certain level, I look to buy, and vice versa when it approaches a height of a certain level.

In the 90's I made a living by doing the opposite. Your trading is the essence of overbought/oversold trading with oscillators. I suspect that is the main theory behind the computer programs that put me out of a job, and it may be those same programs which make that style profitable for you. (and hell yeah good for you ). Unlike computers, humans have emotions and do foolish things, and back when most stock traders were human it made the endeavor an easy exploitation of humanity. But the computers now realize when humans are being irrational, and that puts a cap on the extent to which human emotion can run the price up or down. That's why the oscillator traders like you are still in business and the trend traders like me are a thing of the past.

 

[search1ng]

That's scary... I enjoy trend trading, hopefully it's not too outdated!

@Danger, where can i read up on your style of trading? I think I've found something that clicks with my mentality but I'm always looking to learn.

I wish I could come up with some creative e-business to use this money on!

 

[OzyBoy]

Easiest way to double your money in just one year:

Buy an RV and live out of it AND get a part-time job. Save yourself the rent money per month.

or you could work hard with all that other investing stuff.

I like the idea, but i would keep working full time. You would also save on many other costs too. :moon:

 

[search1ng]

Cheers, I'll go through those links you gave me.

For anyone else interested, babypips.com was a good starting site for me.

 

[goundra]

I recommend that you use part of it to build all; the credit (via credit cards) that you can get, up to 1/2 mill $ or so. that will take 2-3 years, but then yu will have a very fine 'disasster" insurance, for medical, legal, or get out of dodge money.