I Took a Couple Years Off of Work to Swing Trade. Here’s What Happened
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Re: I Took a Couple Years Off of Work to Swing Trade. Here’s What Happened
#2Take it from experience: the odds are 100:1 against you.
Re: I Took a Couple Years Off of Work to Swing Trade. Here’s What Happened
#3> A few years into swing trading, and I can say I learned a lot. I’ve made more than I’ve lost. I’m up about 16% ROI year to date.
The article was published December 15th 2017, so he made 16% since January 1st.
If he had bought the S&P500 on January 1st 2017 (2276.98) and sold on December 15th (2675.81) he'd be up > 17.5% (and who knows how much he paid in commissions).
Re: I Took a Couple Years Off of Work to Swing Trade. Here’s What Happened
#4> A few years into swing trading, and I can say I learned a lot. I’ve made more than I’ve lost. I’m up about 16% ROI year to date. The article was published December 15th 2017, so he made 16% since January 1st. If he had bought the S&P500 on January 1st 2017 (2276.98) and sold on December 15th (2675.81) he'd be up > 17.5% (and who knows how much he paid in commissions).
Not to mention how much it cost in time to do all that work. Index funds don't incur any opportunity cost overhead in terms of your own time, they are fire and forget.
Re: I Took a Couple Years Off of Work to Swing Trade. Here’s What Happened
#5> Being frugal, I still wanted to dabble with money-making opportunities at my disposal.
That... does not sound frugal to me. Frugal is working some part-time job during your time off, keeping your expenses low, and maintaining your savings, not gambling in the stock market.
Re: I Took a Couple Years Off of Work to Swing Trade. Here’s What Happened
#6I read an analysis of technical trading that demonstrated that the theoretical best return is buy-and-hold in a bull market, and only do technical trading in a down market.
Re: I Took a Couple Years Off of Work to Swing Trade. Here’s What Happened
#7> A few years into swing trading, and I can say I learned a lot. I’ve made more than I’ve lost. I’m up about 16% ROI year to date. The article was published December 15th 2017, so he made 16% since January 1st. If he had bought the S&P500 on January 1st 2017 (2276.98) and sold on December 15th (2675.81) he'd be up > 17.5% (and who knows how much he paid in commissions).
He also may have lost quite a bit on taxes.
Re: I Took a Couple Years Off of Work to Swing Trade. Here’s What Happened
#8I read an analysis of technical trading that demonstrated that the theoretical best return is buy-and-hold in a bull market, and only do technical trading in a down market. [1] http://www.philosophicaleconomics.com/2016/01/gtt/
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Re: I Took a Couple Years Off of Work to Swing Trade. Here’s What Happened
#9> A few years into swing trading, and I can say I learned a lot. I’ve made more than I’ve lost. I’m up about 16% ROI year to date. The article was published December 15th 2017, so he made 16% since January 1st. If he had bought the S&P500 on January 1st 2017 (2276.98) and sold on December 15th (2675.81) he'd be up > 17.5% (and who knows how much he paid in commissions).
Author waits until almost the very end of the article to say this:
> Put another way, if I never did any swing trading and invested all my money into a handful of diverse Vanguard or Dimensional funds, I would have gotten 8%-14% ROI from sitting on my butt!
Re: I Took a Couple Years Off of Work to Swing Trade. Here’s What Happened
#10> Being frugal, I still wanted to dabble with money-making opportunities at my disposal. That... does not sound frugal to me. Frugal is working some part-time job during your time off, keeping your expenses low, and maintaining your savings, not gambling in the stock market.
Being frugal has nothing to do with one's income. Your advice to work a part-time job is no less irrelevant to frugality than his to engage in other ventures.