Where to begin?

[zarfius]

Hi

I am interested in learning more about short term trading (not day trading, more weeks or months).

I realise that what I am asking can take years of practice and I'm certainly not going to blindly jump in and trust any particular method. I also realise that there is no such thing as 100% certain when it comes to trading.

What I am looking for is some tutorials on the basics of picking, entering and exiting short term trades. I'd like to learn more about how each of the indicators work and how to put a probability on price movement.

This might be in the form of book's or online tutorials, or maybe I just have to keep asking questions but I'm sure getting you guy's to point me in the right direction is better than blindly googleing for answers :)

[doctorj]

At the risk of sounding like a wanky walking cliche, I think the best place is to sit down and work out some goals.

Have a think about what kind of returns you'd like to get, what risk you're prepared to take and what drawdowns you can tolerate.

These inputs will begin to define the what and how aspects of your trading and then you can better direct your efforts toward which instruments/markets/indicators/methods you're going to study. As you study you can refine your goals and at the end of it you should have some sort of workable trading plan.

[zarfius]

I have been thinking about my goals.

Without using the wanky walking cliche "I want to be a millionare" :P lol
but seriously..

Long Term Goal:
By the time I retire (sooner rather than later :D) I want to be living off "passive income". By this I mean, dividends, rental income and income from shares in my own business.

I realise that's a bit of a broad goal since I don't really know how much money I am going to need to live the lifestyle I want.

Short Term Goal:
My short term goal by the end of the year is to have the skills required to make a few trades during the year to increase my return compared with a buy and hold strategy.

In the short term I am only concerned with getting the hang of some strategies in practice mode, playing sharemarket games, watchlists, and backtesting.