I guess the proper word, the one they used anyway, was seminar. The "seminar" was hosted at the best hotel in town, here that's the Hilton, and was actually very professionally done.
I arrived, not knowing what to expect, but absolutely knowing what I wanted. Them to teach me, in two hours mind you, how I could get rich fast and easy. And to my surprise, they did!! Well, almost. I had to come back for a weekend course, and it was there that I was to be enlightened on how easily I could make tons of money, just like all these guys had, by just clicking the mouse when the arrows turned green.
I was dizzy, intoxicated by visions of wealth. Quit my IBD subscription (I didn't), I won't need it anymore, they told me. Hell, I was thinking, I can even quit my job.
But why then....isn't everyone doing it? How exactly did it all work? Remember "if it sounds to good to be true....". Come back for a whole two day seminar, and we'll show ya. By the end of that two, really two and a half days, I had so much time invested, I may as well give them the $2000 they asked for to get me to subscribe to the web site. So I did. They showed me a whole lot of stuff I already knew from all the books I'd read. So i gave them another five, to teach me about options. They gave me a book, (an online book, and let me watch some guys trade stocks live for a month) that explained what an option was. But...for another $5000 I could learn how to use option strategies. But I'd had enough. Fool me once (fool that I am), fool me twice, but three times. Not you guys, I'll go somewhere else for that. And I did. (To be fair, the website this particular company offered was actually a very useful and valuable tool. I used it for 2 years and once I figured out that the green arrows weren't the fountain of wealth, I made some use of it. Just not $7000 worth)
I went to services, guys that told me what to buy, when to, different methods, ect. ect. All to no avail. I just couldn't make any money. I didn't really lose money, except the money I spent on services, but stayed pretty even in the markets for a year or so. The people at the services were making money, but not me. Why, Why, Why.
What finally got me off the "pay someone else to do the trading for me" train was when I read about Dr. Alexander Elder and then read his book, Trading for a living. Apart from all the other most useful pieces of information, there a section about the harm you can do yourself by blindly following your "gurus", and getting off your....and learning to do the work yourself. And I did. And it worked.
There are books about strategies, books about candlesticks, books about Wall Street and books about anything and everything to do with the stock market. There are good books, useful books, worthless books, just all kinds of books. I read them all. Well, not literally, mostly because they begin to repeat themselves and there are so many of them. Seems if you can't make money trading, you can always write a book about trading. No, that's not fair, I take it back.
Anyway, I read books and developed a sort of style over some months, an evolving style, if you will, but at least I was trying it on my own. The funniest thing happened after that, I began to win more money than I was losing. Not a lot, but more.
By now I'm well into my second year of being in the market, (notice I didn't say trading as I was mostly giving) I've signed up with a discount broker with really cheap trades and I have discovered options. Yes, options. Sure I read about 'em and heard about 'em but had yet to "do it" with them. I had to get it OK'd through my broker and he was willing. Ask, bid, last, open interest bla bla bla. I knew you bought it at the ask price and sold it at the bid price. The first option I bought was one contract of AMX at the money. The very next day was a big day up for the stock, and the option made $100. Did you catch that...One Hundred Dollars on one contract in one day!! Holy crap. My heart was beating so fast, I couldn't push the button on my computer fast enough. $100 in one day. Of course it continued up, up, up directly after that, but no matter. A hundred bucks. Seriously, that was how I felt. Options were the way to go. Granted, I learned my lesson shortly after that and began to study options and try and learn the proper way to use them. And am still learning today.
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