I have been investing for over 20 years and trading for almost 14, and I have learned that if you really want to make HUGE and FAST money, it is better to short term trade rather than investing, trading can make you turn your trading into a full time business.

If you are investing, you must have already achieved some degree of financial success, long term stock investing and FOREX can help you become much richer than you are today.

My experiences as a Nasdaq Market Maker, head trader of several brokerage firms, and currently as a professional trader and private hedge fund manager, I can suggest you:

Strive to make short term profits on a regular basis. You want cash flow coming from the market you are trading. When you find something that works, keep doing it until it stops working. Do not try and hit and home run on every trade. Just try and get on first base. Do not get emotionally attached to a stock, you are not looking to marry a stock, you are looking to make money from it. Remember, small amounts of money on a regular basis is what you are aiming for.

All stocks are worth nothing.

I do not hold on to any illusion that the stock market will continue to go up and provide a nice retirement for me.

All the great traders don’t care which direction the market goes. It doesn’t matter to them if the market goes into a bull market, goes lower, or even goes sideways for the next 9 years. They just don’t care. The best traders know that stocks are nothing more than three letters and a price written next to it.

You should sit back in cash and only trade when you have a clear advantage. If you don’t have an identifiable advantage then your odds of making money on the trade are no better than playing the lottery. This is the biggest reason why new traders and buy and hold investors lose money in the market.

Learn to trade the first hour. The first hour is an extremely volatile time which means it is the best time for you to make your biggest gains on any given trading day.

Most people sit on their hands during the first hour of trading and do nothing.

You need to be in during the first hour of trading so that you can take advantage of rookie stock traders who are buying on emotion because they saw something on TV last night.