u/killenvy

I'm a teenager who recently got into trading and I'm still in the process of building a solid foundation. I've been studying technical analysis and going through proper trading books/theory rather than just watching random YouTube videos. Still developing my base but it feels like I'm learning and heading in the right direction.

I'm mainly interested in swing trading. The pros from swing trading seem to be strong - no need to stare at charts all day, more time to actually think about setups. I know that day trading also has its pros and I get why people prefer day trading, but looking at my day to day life and character it just seems that swing trading is a better fit for me.

Currently my goals are simple. Learn everything properly, build a solid foundation, and eventually start trying to generate some profit. I'm well informed and acknowledge that trading isn't a get rich quick scheme, and that I'll really need to dedicate multiple hours a day to studying and practicing. Time is certainly not a problem for me since summer is right around the corner.
For people with actual experience in trading I have a few questions:

• What should I actually be doing at this stage to set myself up properly?
• How do I know if swing trading is genuinely the right fit for me?
• What advice would you give someone my age who is serious about this and wants to do it the right way?

I'd much rather to hear honest and direct answers as opposed to motivation or people telling me I'm doing great.

This semiconductor market run is insane!! MU, AMD, SNDK have been growing like crazy and I genuinely don't know what to think anymore. Kind of sad I didn't get in earlier, but still have gotten some sweet returns. But I've been starting to wonder if people are just buying because everyone else is buying, because that's what it feels like right now. Nobody wants to be the guy who missed this huge opportunity and bought right before the dip. Since all the AI bubble speculation started I've always believed that it won't happen. The dotcom crash happened because those companies had no revenue. These chip companies have massive revenue and the AI demand is real and still growing. So basically It's not the same thing all over again. So I don't know what to make of it. Is this a legitimate multi-year run, or is is this all just a crash waiting to happen?

• What do you guys think?
• Also, i understand the reason this is happening, but maybe someone could explain it to me in detail. I'd highly appreciate it!

Over the last few years every other guy on Instagram and TikTok is a "trading guru" with a Lamborghini in the thumbnail promising you'll quit your 9-5 in 3 months. TJR, ICT, Thomas Kralow are all gurus just selling their courses/product.

And the worst part is the people who see this and trust and listen to them. Multiple people my age who are still in high school, struggling to pass their classes, genuinely convinced that they're going to make a living trading by the time they're 20, while not even having a high school degree. They're not learning how markets work, they're not learning about risk management, they're just buying some guy's $300 course and waiting to get rich.

The people who actually do trading for a living went to MIT, Stanford, Oxford. They have math and CS degrees. They write algorithms, they build models, they think in statistics. They're not sitting on YouTube explaining fair value gaps to a camera.

People see a prop firm account payout, not realising that a coin flip strategy with zero edge, just with optimal risk management, passes prop firm challenges about 45% of the time. So even the "proof" these gurus use to show their strategies work means basically nothing.

Trading has turned into this fantasy of achieving "financial freedom" and sells really well to people who are uneducated and don't know the reality. And the gurus know exactly what they're doing, because they're not making money trading. Instead they're making money selling the idea of trading to people who don't know anything.

Personally I've found long term investing to be way better. You don't need to spend months studying. You can just simply put money into the S&P 500 every month and forget about it. Or if you want to be a little more active and have a higher risk/return, copy what politicians and hedge funds are buying, the information is publicly available and people consistently beat the market doing exactly that (I've found this to work really well). $300 a month at a 15% annual return over 15 years gets you to around $175k. All it takes is time and consistency. These kids trying to make a living from trading would genuinely be better off doing that instead. No hate to the hustlers though, just stating my opinion.