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I want to quit my job but still need a solid source of income. Some friends of mine have suggested trading stock options, but is this really possible to make enough to replace my normal income or my job?



Business coaching Atlanta (http://www.marianmassie.com/)

No.

Yes. But my advice is to trade forex and not binary but actual options with long terms. They are easier to predict.

And you have to invest at least 5 grand on forex with leverage at least 1:100 and

****IMPORTANT****

You have to register an ECN (electronic communications network) account, because there is no intermediary between you and the market. Otherwise you'd get scammed.

****IMPORTANT****

Basically there are three types of accounts - Dealing Desk (scammers), STP (faster execution, but basically the same) and ECN which is a professional level account.

Best brokers are Dukascopy and Oanda. They are actual banks and you know they won't scam you.

But as I said - you have to invest at least 5 grand in order not to lose. It's basically the margin call not the single possition loss that puts you in risk.

Regards,
Teodor

No.

No.

yes it's possible.

You could replace your income by releasing ebooks on amazon for the kindle. 1 book per month for 12 months then releasing the paperback and hard cover the following year should easily replace your income. Depending on your income levels. I seen a blog about this a few days ago now I am writing my own book. The blog was www.shuckabuck.com (http://www.shuckabuck.com)

If there is one thing history has taught us, it is that actual banks won't scam you.   :o

Is it possible? Sure. But possible and easy are two very different different things, and you'll crash and burn if you don't know what you're doing.

Yes and No.

In my experience, if you put in the right amount of time and effort you can make good money on stocks. theres two main practises that are best used in combination based on your risk/reward:

DIVIDENDS (LONG TERM): These are the backbone of the market. stocks that pay dividends give you a small fraction of the share price every quarter (3 months). The best companies constantly work to improve these payouts to attract more shareholders. Most dividend stocks range from 0.5% to 5% per year, which alone beats a bank account's interest. Then you also have the fact that the stock itself can gain value. (generally, big dividend corps are very stable or growing, but not always)

      Examples:  Intel (ive gained 8% in the past 2 months, plus it has a 4.1% yearly dividend)
                  :  McDonalds (lost about 1% in the past 3 months, but pays ~3% yearly dividend)
                  : Carnival Cruise Lines (Gained 4% in last 3 months, also pasy about 3% a year in dividends)

SHORT TERM: These are stocks that are at a pivotal moment, or on a noticible growth pattern from a recent product demonstration or TV spot. Generally, these are purchased with the hopes of quicker, but riskier, gains. With good research of a company, you can make large profits from frequent buy/sell orders.

     Examples: RIM (within the past 3 months, this company has gained nearly 100% with the upcoming BB10 series, and IMO theres still space to gain another 10-20% in the next 2 months)
                 : MEDBOX Cannabis dispensing (This is a wildcard company that stole the spotlight following the US law changes, going from $2-$3 to $215, and then collapsed and rose again rapidly several times in the past 2 months)
                : AVT Inc. (AVTC) (This company recently shot from $1.50 to $6.50 upon its association with Medbox as a producer of the patented vending systems)


In my opinion, with the right tactics, and balancing long and short-term investments, you can easily make 5-15% per year on your investments. So if you want to live off the market, you really need to have >$500,000 to invest with.

Absolutely you can be a private, professional trader of your own assets.  However, its a good idea to really know your sh#T, and even then you can get scalped.  Personally, I wouldn't recommend touching retail FX with a ten foot pole.  Institutional FX requires some serious knowledge of global macro (economics) as well as very good handle of G12 policy.  Institutional (guys trading pension funds and retirement assets for huge companies) can get clobbered when the market moves, and the needle moves just slightly.  Basic finance understanding discusses triangle arbitrage and that is nearly impossible to pull off because the markets are highly liquid.  That being said there's a good number of highly skilled and successful pro's in FX, and they make a lot of money for themselves as well as The Bank or The Hedge Fund.  Now RETAIL FX is a completely different ballgame, this is a new territory for retail (compared to equities) that is unregulated and enormously small compared to the institutional size of the market.  The retail companies spend a huge amount of money marketing themselves as, almost almost get rich quick, but they cover themselves with more lawyers and terms and conditions that your at the complete mercy of them.  In addition all their products are highly levered with mandatory stops.  What this means is that when the market moves 0.001 and "hits your limit" they will automatically cash you out of your trade for a loss.  This is even if you have enough to cover your position, it will still be closed with you losing money.  The leverage serves this purpose so that tiny moves in the market will force a close on the trade.  The song and dance is that the sales guys urge you to put more and more money into your account, otherwise you won't make money.  Then sell you on whatever garbage tactic they are using for that month, then your trade gets closed out and you will call and complain and they will transfer you to someone who says, the market moved, we initiated a stop, but here's another sales idea, why don't you put more money into your account so that you can really trade better.  No one makes money in retail FX, except the brokers.  Your better off going to Vegas.  And unfortunately the rest of the retail side of wall street is at a significant disadvantage to the institutional side.  But many people make decent and good sums in Equities, Equity Options, and even sometimes on Futures.  Futures are leveraged, risky, and require posting margin that can make them risky if you are only doing directional trades.  The same goes for options.  And options on individual equities are risky too.  You could read strategy books, etc, but remember there's entire teams of algorithmic traders that feast on the trading styles of retail investors.  And your not going to get as good of prices as you would if you were trading institutional.  And as a rule of thumb, the shorter the holding period, the more difficult it is to make money and beat the market.  And there's a lot of investors who put their money with the market index because the lower feeds will exceed the returns of active managers after fees are taken out.  But, if you have the money to learn, then try out all of these.  But the best way to invest is by having a steady stream of cash flows on one side and your investments on the other.  That's how Warren Buffett does it, and to a certain degree successful mutual funds, hedge funds, that have steady and consistent inflows into their funds....but that's also how the market goes up as well...and another topic entirely.

Let me expand. Despite the people here saying this is not possible there plenty of people that trade for a living. So it's possible. That being said in order to trade successfully in the long run you'll have to be risk averse. Risk aversion means your expected return won't be very high so, in order to make a livable wage, you'll have to start with a lot of money. Assuming you want to make 50k a year and your expected return is a conservative 10% apy you'd need 500k start up capital. You can reduce your capital requirement by increasing leverage with the caveat of increased sensitivity to market fluctuations.

If you are really serious about trading for a living I'd suggest you trade with a small amount of money for a year and preferably across different markets so you can get a feel for each one and pick whichever suits you best. It's important to trade with real money because one of the hardest parts about trading is learning to make decisions without emotions. No demo account will get your emotions riled up as much as when real money is on the line.

Good luck with your en-devours and don't ever listen to the naysayers.

Possible? Yes. Probable? No. Bad idea? Definitely. Options trading is not for inexperienced investors. If you don't know what you're doing (and if you have to ask how much money you can make, you certainly don't), you will likely lose your money. The safe way to make money on the stock market is to just buy a bundle of shares in a diverse range of industries and then sit back and collect the dividends. Talk a (competent) financial advisor, not your friends or strangers on an Internet forum, and they'll tell you the same thing.

I know people that have traded for their only income for the last 5+ years, it can definitely be done. You need alot of initial capital and some good mentor jedis imo. And there is an increasing amount of algo bots imo

The problem is how the system works. I'm a successful amateur investor and I can explain everything to you. But the stock market? That's expensive. Send me a PM and we'll talk. My fee is 5btc/hr, first hour is free.

Especially if madoff is the CEO