Throughout my life I have always been fascinated by the stock market and i have spent countless hours playing stock market simulation games such as the former Etrade Game in order to teach me valuable trading skills. I did excellent in every fake endeavor that I undertook. Finally, I was going to turn 18 years of age and had been saving nearly $10,000 for the past two years in anticipation of this legalized pseudo-gambling world that I can now partake in.

I opened up an account with Ameritrade and deposited my money. Within two weeks I was actively pursuing my day trading dream. After a non-stop first week of “work” I was up almost $1000 and was very pleased with myself and progress. Then, I began to get risky and try unchartered maneuvers that had previously been unavailable to me in a gaming scenario. My stupidity and irrationality caused me to lose nearly $5000 in less than two weeks bringing my portfolio to frighteningly low levels. My thinking then became warped and I moved into riskier and riskier trading with hopes of making my money back.

Three months passed by and my portfolio was down to $0, so just like an alcoholic or gambling addict I submitted another $5000 to Ameritrade, but this time my plan was to just put the money in a safe company. Well, again after two weeks I was up almost $1000 and decided to day trade once more.

Currently, my portfolio is sitting at $3000 with an initial investment of roughly $14000. I am holding my current positions for long periods of time as to never day trade again. I can only hope that I will make up the money I lost before I need it for school in about 2 years from now.


Words of Advice: Even though I lost a ton of money I gained valuable experience that will allow me to personally invest better than most normal humans. When I am older in life and have the money to invest, I feel that my knowledge gained now will give me a huge advantage over the traditional investor, therefore my money lost now was not in vain. I have learned to be more responsible and not to ever day trade again with foolish hopes of getting rich quick. I can only hope that someone will learn from my experience and not be an irrational fool like I was these past 6 months. It was fun though, I must admit!

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.