Year 1
(or Unit 1)

• Sign up for the services on my Top Recommendations page. Brand new traders, you will want to choose either Mr. Swing's Charting Software or Worden's TCNet Gold membership. Start learning everything you can about charting, espcially moving averages, stochastics, bollinger bands and candlesticks.
• Check the RESOURCES page, Education, and purchase as much of the educational materials as you can afford.
• Download QUOTETRACKER and start learning how to use it. If you choose TradeStation as your broker, you will not need it ... but with any other broker, it can be a valuable extra resource (and free)
• Open an account with an online brokerage: see my information on brokers under Resources. Choose one with very low commissions or you will be scared away from trading actively too soon. (and / or will deplete your account)
  **one thing I "wish" I had been told to do:
  
• After 3-4 weeks of learning the very basics, subscribe to Phil's Gang and plan to stay for at least 6 months to learn all about his "W", very important for a new trader. He is a a bit of a 'wild man' and you'll need to get used to his style of talking, but he will teach you invaluable information about how the markets really work that I have not found anywhere else. I have subscribed to services costing 5 times as much that do not offer 1/10 what Phil does.
• Start trading slowly, allow yourself no more than 1-2 trades a day. AND no more than 5-10 shares at a time! My biggest mistake was "jumping in" with full sized trades
  You should only swing trade for the first few months, no daytrading even if your account is large enough. Short term (1-7 day) swing trading with small share sizes!! Your goal for now is NOT to start making money, (man! I wish someone had made that clear to me when I started!!) it is to learn how to enter & especially exit a trade without LOSING money.
  You should be watching the 1 day to 1 week charts when you trade. Do not watch the intraday charts, or if you do, do not use time frames of less than 15 minutes. Phil will teach you how to use the 15 minute charts effectively.
  
• After 6 months, or 1/2 your time 'unit', try a subscription a couple of "stock picking services' like China Profit Strategy or Mystwerld. You can now take the other half of your trading account out of the CD & use it to trade these picks using the formula I gave to determine share size.
• At this point I also suggest investing in the Bonsai Waverider course. Yes, I know, funky name .. but this is the best I have found and I found it way too late. By the time I purchased & read this excellent course, I had already made the decision to give up trading equities. Had I read it a few years earlier, it would have made a huge difference in my trading results. That is why I am recommending it to you as soon as you are ready for it, which should be after a few months general orientation. This is not the cheapest course available, but should be the only one you need, if you learn & study what it teaches, you should see excellent results. Click for information.
  
• Keep good records of all trades!!! Write down each trade and WHY you got in and WHY you got out. Be brutal & honest with yourself if you made stupid mistakes (which you will, trust me)!!
  
• Stay out of live trading chatrooms, Do not pay attention to financial channels on TV until you are trading successfully, and if you listen to radio financial shows, do not try to 'chase' the picks that are mentioned. Do not trust any "stock guru" your first 2 years or until you know enough to make your own decisions based on your technical analysis of the charts.
  Check out this WARNING about what can happen on public message boards & chatrooms.
• If you have questions email me: love2trade@traderstar.com and I will be happy to help if I can.

Year 2:
(or Unit 2)

You should be gaining confidence in chart reading, and if you can now look at a chart & "see" what is happening without thinking about it, then you are ready to start increasing share size to 50-100 shares per trade. (but no more than 5% of your account size on any one trade).
You may even start making money .. but you will probably lose it again during times when the market pulls back. If you are losing too much, return to trading 10-20 shares until you get better.
You might want to try shorting stocks now, so you can take advantage of down markets. Phil's Gang will be teaching you how.

If you are still using free charting services, now is a good time to 'upgrade' to something more useful like Mr. Swing's Swing Tracker, especially if you like short term swing trading.

Also, if you don't have it yet, now is the time to purchase and thorougly read the Bonsai WaveRider: Surfing the Waves trading course (click link for info).

• You should be really really really good at interpreting candlestick patterns now. If not, keep hitting the books until you are! Click for a good course in candlesticks.
• Focus on learning more about the market itself, why does it move, what does it react to? Study the index stocks like the INDU, NASDAQ 100, SP500, SMH, BKX etc. Phil will show you how to 'read' the market each morning (and this will start making more sense as time goes on) and Eric will help you understand the bigger picture including the global markets..
• Using your personal stock lists, zoom out a lot to see how patterns develop on weekly or even monthly charts. Practice with line charts, candlestick charts, charts with bollinger bands, and different moving averages. Pros usually "eyeball" 100-200 charts every night. This is more important than it might seem at first.
• Paper trade some stocks using the weekly charts only, to get an overview of how trends develop long term. (If I had been taught this early on, I most likely would not have missed the stupendous moves in TASR and HANS to name just two!)
• Start familiarizing yourself with basic fundamental information, like P/E ratios. Watch how earnings reports, upcoming split or dividend announcements affect the underlying stocks. If you are really mathematically inclined, you may want to try some back-testing of stocks.
• Also start making notes on how the market reacts to the various months of the year. The "January effect" is well known, did it happen this year? What happens in the summer? "Sell in May & go away-- would that have been a good idea in 2006? In 2007? What happens in October? Is there always a Santa Claus rally?
• How do stocks react to the cycle of news, like FOMC, CPI, PPI, interest rates, when or when the President or Bernacke speaks?
• Now is a good time to subscribe to China Profit Strategy or other advisory services mentioned in Resources, if you haven't already.
  
• You should have a list of "favorite" stocks now that you like to watch, either as bellweathers, or that you like to trade. Remember, some people make a good living trading just ONE or TWO stocks! Your list will probably be 20 to 100 stocks, you'll be checking it daily on different charts, line, candle, with different indicators. You are honing your chart reading skills & begining to identify your own favorite indicators.
  NOTE: if your charts are starting to resemble the blueprints for the NY subway system including electricty & sewage, you probably need to simplify them .. you do not need 40 indicators on a chart. Most successful traders have 3-4 at most!
• Don't forget to keep good notes in your trading diary.
• Still stay away from live trading chatrooms.

Year 3:
(or Unit 3)

"As long as you keep RISK under control -- you WILL have PROFITS!"
This year you are ready to type or write those words on a piece of paper (backwards) and staple it to your forehead. Then keep a mirror on your desk so you can look at yourself frequently and read it !

This is the year when you feel like you *are* a trader. You are getting the hang of this, and confidence is building.

Making money is no longer a problem .. you can sit down at the computer any given day, you'll recognize the set-ups to go long or short, and most of the time, you will make money.
Unfortunately... you may still pull off some major screw ups ... by not heeding the above and controlling your risk.

If you have weathered two major market reversals & lost little to nothing in your account because you got out in time .. you are making great progress!

• You might want to read some recommended trader books from Amazon, in addition to your ebook courses.
• Keep studying the market itself. Professional traders watch the market each day, not just their individual stocks. The market tells them what to do with their own stocks. You should be comfortable viewing charts on multiple timeframes, from intraday to weekly. Do NOT neglect the weekly charts as they give you the "bigger" picture. Use the Bottom Springer approach to find the stocks that are going to make spectacular moves of 300, 500%, 1000% or more .. they are always out there.
• Now you should also start learning about options if you want to make more money faster. But make sure you have learned & can practice the rules of money management first! #1 Options Trading Course is a good & inexpensive way to begin.
• Learn something about the bond market and how it relates to stock market movement. Learn about sectors and how they rotate. Observe this as it happens during the year. You should be checking the indices every day and you should be able to recognize by yourself when the market is looking "toppy" and ready for a pullback or when it seems "oversold" and getting ready to rally. Phil's Gang will teach you all about that.
• If you do want to trade options or futures, make sure you have already made an extra $10,000 minimum to trade with that you CAN AFFORD to lose! Only do this if you have also weathered at least two major market reversals with very little loss in your account. Be prepared to lose the entire $10k .. but if you study enough before beginning, you will most likely not lose the money and if successful, you will make money faster in options than you ever could in stocks alone.

Year 4
(or Unit 4)

You should now have a trading style that is uniquely your own. You may be an active swing trader, or a day trader. You may have an options account and use it to hedge against yourself. :-) Maybe you have moved to Forex & only trade stocks/options on the side.

• Never stop learning. Read at least 3-4 new trading books a year and re-read your favorites.
• At this point if you want to join the active trader chats, go ahead, but be careful .. many in there are not what they seem. Do not follow their picks, unless you are very confident in your own skills at recognizing what is good AND you know you will honor your stops!.
• Around this time, people may take notice of your trading success (the same ones who have been ridiculing you these past years). Some may even ask you to trade their accounts for them. Interactive Brokers (and several others) have a "family & friends" arrangement that allows one person to trade multiple accounts. Don't attempt this until you are sure you are ready, and make sure you have them sign a legal waiver that will exonerate you in case of losses. But once you have the confidence, it can be a lucrative thing to do. People who manage such accounts often take anywhere from 25-60% of the profits as their commissions.
  Or you might want to manage your kids' accounts or IRA's. As a 'skilled' trader you should be able to earn 50-150% on your own money each year, and 20-30% or better on managed accounts (depending on account size & to a lesser extent, on the market itself) Or more, sometimes a lot more.

Congratulations! Enjoy the 'world's best job' for freedom and financial security.

P.S. You are now ready for 'Grad School".
The learning never stops.