When your dream is a whisk away from becoming a complete failure ......

[TimeToGrowUp]

Man where would I be without some sort of major struggle in life. I feel like since a young teen I've never had the opportunity to sit back and enjoy life without feeling the intense pressure of stress and struggle.

 

It just so happened to be that while I was working at a bank(financing), I developed quite a passion for stocks. I became a member of multiple stock sites. I studied up on my own during all my free time. I became very adept at what is known as "technical analysis" or in other words "charting". I even went on to start a personal trading blog on a particular site that became one of the largest, most followed blogs there. It's averaged around 2,500 views a day. I really grew a name for myself among the online community as I adequately put together profitable lists of stocks. I never really had that much extra money to try and invest/trade with so I mostly "paper" traded (aka practice) to keep growing my skill set. Many people made a lot of money off of my teachings. It wasn't just "here's stock ABCD", I actually taught charting on my blog.

 

Then came my chance. A have a very wealthy family member who is not only a very generous and giving man, but a man I truly idolize .... a man who truly created his life and enjoys the fruits of it everyday. He gave me the opportunity to present to him exactly what I've been working on and decided to give me a little start up capital. Wasn't a ton of money, just a little feeler and initially I was up 20% on his money. I started getting very over-confident. My uncle wanted to give me additional capital ... about 3 times the original amount, but stubbornly I turned him down. I wanted to grow the money on my own.

 

Since that moment, it's been nothing but a struggle. I cannot tell you how much I felt like I was finally where I was meant to be. ...... But right now the results do not match the drive, the desire, or the dream. It's hard to stomach. I'm feeling the intense pressure of it all. My finances are struggling horribly. I feel like I'm letting my uncle down and my parents down for all the talking I've done about where I thought I was going with all of this. I've attempted to reach out to my uncle via phone and via email the past couple of months. He told my sister he was going to give me a call, but that was a couple months ago. Keep in mind the money is peanuts to him, but yet I still haven't heard back from him. He's a busy man (runs about 10 different business), has his family, his mom just came down with thyroid cancer. I know he's busy and I don't want to bug him to death. I thoroughly explained in the emails what I've learned, some of the difficulties I've encountered, and how we might be able to remedy them.

 

I am really feeling the heat right now. I never for one moment thought I'd be where I'm at. I thought by this time (6 months later) I would have finally built something and been able to enjoy some of the fruits. I feel like this is an education and most of the time education isn't free so the cost has gone to serve a purpose. I know I can really good at this, I just know it ..... I put so much time into this ..... but strangely and duplicitously I'm getting scared that my dream is about to fall out of my grasp. It's that close.

 

The part that scares me the most is the job market out here has been awful. Prior to day trading I had applied for hundreds of jobs and no matter how well I interviewed, I constantly found it a struggle because of the fact that my credit is suffering and the stereotype of the industry I previously worked in. I'm a fighter, but I cannot imagine having to go back to something like waiting tables. I worked in that industry for 5 years and it burned me out both mentally and physically. This is nothing against those that are in the industry .... but to go back to it would represent the ultimate failure to me. I actually dread it. It really made a mess of my anxieties.

[GotMyLifeBack]

You're in a tough spot. You had a great deal of day trading success when trading paper. You developed a successful blog. When you used your uncle's money, things started to go south and you were not successful at day trading. Yet you still believe it's within your grasp to pull it off.

 

I don't know what your solution will be. You may have to piece together a few things. Could you earn some income from your blog? Could you reduce your risk exposure in day trading for the time being? Keep looking for a job - maybe even a part-time job will hold you over while you get your day trading straightened out, and perhaps turning your blog into a money maker.

[TimeToGrowUp]

You're in a tough spot. You had a great deal of day trading success when trading paper. You developed a successful blog. When you used your uncle's money, things started to go south and you were not successful at day trading. Yet you still believe it's within your grasp to pull it off.

 

I don't know what your solution will be. You may have to piece together a few things. Could you earn some income from your blog? Could you reduce your risk exposure in day trading for the time being? Keep looking for a job - maybe even a part-time job will hold you over while you get your day trading straightened out, and perhaps turning your blog into a money maker.

 

Obviously there's a huge different between paper trading and trading with real capital, specifically "psychologically" ...... that is part of what I wasn't able to learn until my uncle presented the opportunity. It's real easy to look at a chart in hindsight, see that the stock was up 30% that day and think that you the trader would've gotten every penny of that. It's simply not the case for everyone most of the time, perhaps for the seasoned veteran. For the rest of us the goal is to get a slice of that and do this consistently so as to stack the gains. They add up in the end.

 

I should also mention that I'm not presently able to trade "enough" .... My opportunities per month are greatly limited. The average trading month has 20 days in it. Because I only trade out of "cash" account, I have to wait 3 days for any trade to settle. Think about how that reduces the amount of times I can use that cash in those 20 days. Puts me behind the eight ball. I have to be too perfect all the time and if there's anything I've learned is that it's virtually impossible to be bullet proof. Sometimes you're gonna take a loss, but you have to keep them managed. Yet, profit or loss, again I always have to wait on settlement. It's hard to juggle that and be able to produce both income for me and returns for my uncle with such limited opportunity. I found a way to remedy this by joining a trading firm (where I wouldn't have to wait on settlement times). Alas, the difference I need in order to switch over there, I just don't think I'm going to be able to build in a quick enough amount of time.

 

As for the blog and perhaps starting something where perhaps people would pay a monthly membership fee, I dunno. I've considered it, I really have. Once you've done that though there's no going back. Your reputation is really on the line. I've been approached about being paid for doing live technical analysis on a soon to be website, but I still don't know when the guy is going to finally get around to putting it together. I am actively looking for some part time work. It's just so hard to find anything because I'm not available during the day because of the market, so that mean only at night .... and that means serving/bartending jobs. Never had any bartending experience and the serving thing, like I said I just shudder thinking about it.

 

Really at a crossroads here.