To give you an idea of my personal background, I have a Bachelor in Microbiology and I worked in the pharmaceutical industry for 18 years before I became a full time trader 3 years ago. I practiced and learn continuously for about 2 years before that.

I can honestly tell you that I have only become consistently successful 2 years ago. The key word here is consistently. You might say to yourself, ONLY 2 years? Why should I listen to him? Good question!

Why should you listen to me?

Simply because I have done it without ever working on the NYSE trading floor and was not a star analyst. I am just like you, except I found my way to the finish line. What I want to do is save you hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars in losses.

So where to start?

Right here!

Keep reading and take your time. This is the beginning of the rest of your life. The life you choose to live!

OK but when can you expect to start trading?

This is a very important question. Many traders end up in the statistic I showed you before and fail miserably at trading.

The solution is quite simple. You need to learn the basics first.

Then you need to develop a trading plan You will then want to fine tune it paper trading.

Only once you have been able to consistently reproduce successful trading results should you start trading live.

This is going to be the most difficult thing you ever did, if you manage to do it.

Very few do.

The problem arises when you paper trade and you see that you would actually have made money.

Then you do it again and once again it happens: You succeed!

How many times do you think you’d be able to resist the temptation?

Very difficult indeed.

The problem with this is that when you paper trade there are no emotions. You simply execute your plan. Do you know what happens when you start trading live?

Yes, you guessed it.

You freak out!

You stop following your own rules.

You get in to quickly, you get out to fast or you don’t get out at all when the wheels fall off…

It’s not a pretty sight, believe me!

So what can you do? You need to paper trade long enough to have time to develop good habits. You know how important habits are right? Imagine developing bad habits!

If you don’t , don’t worry you won’t have to deal with them very long because your trading capital will reach 0 and even become negative!

On a more realistic note.

The urge to trade live will be unbearable and you’ll want to do it regardless of all the warnings you hear, read and even feel in your heart!

What I suggest then is to start with a very small trading account, like $5000.

Smaller then that will be difficult because of the commission impact on the size of the gains and losses.

It’s like taking 20$ from an ATM and paying 2$ in commission. 2$ is 10%! If you take out 200%, the same 2$ represents only 1% and so on…

With 5000$ you’ll be able to practice your plan in real life with all that live trading adds to the equation.

IN fact whether you are jumping the gun or not, you should start live with very small trades at first.

You will see; trading live is a whole different ball game! Only once you clearly and objectively noted you were able to follow the trading plan to the letter at ALL time, should you move in with regular size trades.

So the answer to the question about when you can expect to start trading solely depends on how quickly you are able to to develop a good trading plan that you've been able to follow to the letter whilst maximizing the wins and minimizing the losses...

In other words: it's up to you.

Remember that I am offering my own trading plan to save you many many hours of fine tuning so don't hesitate to give it a shot as it's risk free for you. Simply click on thelink below to get it but remember to learn the basics first!

No trading plan can replace learning the concepts of trading!