Tell us a little bit about yourself and or your trading experience

[Eric]

I'm already buying over 100 gallons of gas a month just for my commute... That's a lot of windshield time. I actually have a prospect that's about 1/5th of the distance and 1/3rd of the windshield time.

I will gladly trade for a living once my brokerage account is sizeable enough to do so comfortably.

[SOL]

I'm already buying over 100 gallons of gas a month just for my commute... That's a lot of windshield time. I actually have a prospect that's about 1/5th of the distance and 1/3rd of the windshield time.

I will gladly trade for a living once my brokerage account is sizeable enough to do so comfortably.

I sincerely hope that prospect pans out, as your boss seems better suited for the position of sanitation engineer.

[SOL]

I was thinking along the same lines. Why not trade options for a living?

Options have to be approached with discipline. Using SCSP and SCC is quite safe; I have seen individuals lose discipline and allow their emotions to take over, and 7 figure accounts have been obliterated. With discipline and patience using these techniques and custom debit spreads of which I have discussed in the past, one can do very well, but one needs to be an advanced student in the areas of self-discipline and patience.

[harryg]

I was thinking along the same lines. Why not trade options for a living?

{...} one can do very well, but one needs to be an advanced student in the areas of self-discipline and patience.

This also applies to 'Trading for a Living' in the general sense. It's not my intention to put anyone off, far from it, but there are considerations.

When you are totally reliant on your trading profits to pay the bills, it's a very different situation from when you see them as a handy extra source of income.

Even more so if you already have a family and other responsibilities. It can create a lot of short-term pressure, which can lead to avoidable mistakes or bad decisions. Also, in many cases, in the beginning you aren't really playing with money you can afford to lose, which is an added constraint.

I have always been self-employed, so I've never had (or left) the 'security' of a job. Most people I know claim to dislike their jobs but they certainly wouldn't want to be without them. They are happy to have paid holidays and sick leave, health and pension benefits, sometimes company cars and pointless but quite enjoyable jollies where you stay in hotels without having to pay for it and so on. (Don't misunderstand me, I'd be quite happy to have all that without paying for it as well!)

Socially, having a job is far 'easier', since there is a career path, a job title to announce, promotions...

When you trade for a living no one you speak to has the faintest idea what you are doing. If you start explaining it to them you can actually see the onset of coma behind their eyes.

It's just you and your wits, bobbing about on the vast unpredictable oceans of the markets.

I can't think of anything better.

[houstonremote]

What other platforms do you use, and why so many?
Why do you like IBKR the most?

Currently IBKR, TOS, TradeStation, Schwab. The reason I use so many is for different functionality. TradeStation is excellent for charting. TOS overall has plenty of bells and whistles. Schwab? It's an IRA account.

For TI, I would stay away from TradeStation unless you plan on day trading. In the past I've had a few others but it's been to long to comment on them.

IBKR has an excellent desktop platform. The only complaint is, I find the charts lack indicators, are difficult to navigate and I don't care for their appearance. The web site is very intuitive with extensive portfolio analysis tools.
They actually have customer service that answers the phone in a reasonable time (most of the time). I've been on hold for over two hours with TOS. They offer trading in just about every instrument globally. One of the programs I like is you can elect to have idle cash buy short term treasuries. It's on a monthly basis. Not sure what the current rate is, but it's 1000's% over the minuscule amount of interest brokers and banks pay.

[Budge]

“War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking into the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent.”

Damn dude! My cynical-pessimism meter was already pegged this week. I almost walked out of my job less than 10 minutes after showing up this morning (I ducking hate this place now), and then you drop this little nugget that I wholly agree with but haven't read since high school. Actually it feels a little like my cynical-pessimism meter just shattered and relieved a little pressure.
*Ducking autocorrect... I do 98% of my TI forum reading and posting from my phone.

A tenet that needs to be etched into the psyche of every company/corporation: "Run your company so the best people love it."

[SOL]

I am of the mind to quit their VPN service but at least in that area, they appear to know what they are doing.

May I recommend Backblaze for backup and ProtonVPN.

I will definitely look into it. I assume they have vpns all over the world. The only reason I like nordvpn is they have a huge list of VPNS but i heard that hidemyass is also good lol

[SOL]

A tenet that needs to be etched into the psyche of every company/corporation: "Run your company so the best people love it."

If companies just did this one thing, performance would soar, costs would drop and customer would love them, but they have to hire the dumbest knobs on the block to screw it up

[harryg]

May I recommend Backblaze for backup and ProtonVPN.

I will definitely look into it. I assume they have vpns all over the world. The only reason I like nordvpn is they have a huge list of VPNS but i heard that hidemyass is also good lol

I've been happy with Surfshark for nearly 4 years. I chose them just to try it out, never left yet. Perhaps not the fastest, but lots of servers & options.

I read (they did not tell me) that they are merging with ... NordVPN.


My understanding is that this is a good check of the security of your VPN: https://ipleak.net/

[Eric]

I will definitely look into it. I assume they have vpns all over the world. The only reason I like nordvpn is they have a huge list of VPNS but i heard that hidemyass is also good lol

https://www.vpnmentor.com/blog/understa ... s-concept/

ProtonVPN is Swedish in origin and has servers in 63 countries. I typically use servers out of Chicago because they're closest to me but I'm the USA there are servers in at least 13 major metro areas geographically dispersed around the country.... Seattle, LA, Denver, Houston, Chicago, Miami, Atlanta, Ashburn, DC, NYC....

[SOL]

May I recommend Backblaze for backup and ProtonVPN.

I will definitely look into it. I assume they have vpns all over the world. The only reason I like nordvpn is they have a huge list of VPNS but i heard that hidemyass is also good lol

I've been happy with Surfshark for nearly 4 years. I chose them just to try it out, never left yet. Perhaps not the fastest, but lots of servers & options.

I read (they did not tell me) that they are merging with ... NordVPN.


My understanding is that this is a good check of the security of your VPN: https://ipleak.net/

Ipleak.net is definitely a good way to see if your VPN is leaking Many services claim to be good but they leak data. I think the morale of the story is don't use services from a company that migrate from their core strength. In terms of strength NORD was pretty good. I could use it quite well when i was in China they had a protocol in place to defeat the great firewall and it worked.

[harryg]

I will definitely look into it. I assume they have vpns all over the world. The only reason I like nordvpn is they have a huge list of VPNS but i heard that hidemyass is also good lol

https://www.vpnmentor.com/blog/understa ... s-concept/

ProtonVPN is Swedish in origin and has servers in 63 countries. I typically use servers out of Chicago because they're closest to me but I'm the USA there are servers in at least 13 major metro areas geographically dispersed around the country.... Seattle, LA, Denver, Houston, Chicago, Miami, Atlanta, Ashburn, DC, NYC....

I use servers in Zurich mainly, because they (Swiss) have good privacy laws. I'm not so happy about HQ in Holland. I'm sure when I joined Surfshark they were in the BVI.

It's often better, I find, to use servers that are in the same country as the sites you are visiting. You can get different content.

I'll look into Proton and your backup solution. I really need to start backing up to the cloud I suppose. Just had another external backup drive snuff it.

[SOL]

I will definitely look into it. I assume they have vpns all over the world. The only reason I like nordvpn is they have a huge list of VPNS but i heard that hidemyass is also good lol

https://www.vpnmentor.com/blog/understa ... s-concept/

ProtonVPN is Swedish in origin and has servers in 63 countries. I typically use servers out of Chicago because they're closest to me but I'm the USA there are servers in at least 13 major metro areas geographically dispersed around the country.... Seattle, LA, Denver, Houston, Chicago, Miami, Atlanta, Ashburn, DC, NYC....

I use servers in Zurich mainly, because they (Swiss) have good privacy laws. I'm not so happy about HQ in Holland. I'm sure when I joined Surfshark they were in the BVI.

It's often better, I find, to use servers that are in the same country as the sites you are visiting. You can get different content.

I'll look into Proton and your backup solution. I really need to start backing up to the cloud I suppose. Just had another external backup drive snuff it.

Norton 360 is the way to go, besides getting a top notch antivirus (second to none) you also get free 75gb online storage and once set up it syncs all your data on a real time basis

[houstonremote]

I am of the mind to quit their VPN service but at least in that area, they appear to know what they are doing.

May I recommend Backblaze for backup and ProtonVPN.

I will definitely look into it. I assume they have vpns all over the world. The only reason I like nordvpn is they have a huge list of VPNS but i heard that hidemyass is also good lol

I used Nord for 3 years and have no complaints. The huge list of VPNS is bonus. I switched to Surfshark just to try something different. Main advantage, the connection speeds are super fast and it's very user friendly. The disadvantage is lack of VPNS.

[SOL]

May I recommend Backblaze for backup and ProtonVPN.

I will definitely look into it. I assume they have vpns all over the world. The only reason I like nordvpn is they have a huge list of VPNS but i heard that hidemyass is also good lol

I used Nord for 3 years and have no complaints. The huge list of VPNS is bonus. I switched to Surfshark just to try something different. Main advantage, the connection speeds are super fast and it's very user friendly. The disadvantage is lack of VPNS.

The vpn service is pretty good but the nordlocker online storage is pure Shit