I have about a 34% win ratio. While that seems really low, in the options market you may put up $1,000 and get back $7,500.

If you keep you initial investment at the same level all the time, you can do pretty well.

Where people, including me get in trouble is that we risk $1,000 on a few trades, make a few thousand, feel cocky and then make a real risky bet with like $4,000 and lose it all.

Discipline is paramount

Since 2009 I'm in the hole about $12,000
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Talked myself out of this one after reading their filings. Still don't know if $BITCF is a legit company, but the ****ing thing is up to $0.15 now. Could've made 150% in less than 2 weeks...
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Now it's at $0.27 :-)
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I must be reading this wrong, it seems essentially impossible to have lost money in the stock market going back to 2009. $10,000 put into the S&P average in 2009 is worth about $35,000 today.
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No worries. You can buy it in a couple of weeks when it's back at $0.15.
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MGM Resorts International (MGM)
Undervalued Trading at 9 times earnings
Catalysts -new casinos in D.C. and Macau China next month
Little 2% dividend
Best of breed and dominant in Vegas.
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Have you ever heard of the word "gambling"? :-)
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I think it's pretty commendable admitting your down since 2009.
Those screenshots have that handy 2 roundtrips to PDT threshold warning message at the bottom for a reason :-) and it's not because most people who try to day trade succeed.

In other news, Settlement is moving to T+2 in September so that's nice. Tonight is the House decision on Republicare or whatever the hell it is.. should cause some action


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Personally, I play craps.

On a more serious note, though, you should really stop "gambling" on stocks and throwing your money away since you seem terrible at it. And you should definitely stop posting financial advice for others, and probably stop posting altogether.
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Oh my. Have you ever traded options?
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Oh boy!
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That's terrible reasoning.

He has other investments and this is his "play" money. You won't always be a winner and I am sure he's learning from his mistakes. If you don't want the risk, don't do it, that's my choice. But I understand options stock trading (thanks Scho!) and why some do it.
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Is it worth it for me to max out an IRA for the wife and I or could I get better returns elsewhere?
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Depends on what your returns are. But if you're SE, a Roth is probably a better option. If there is a chance you might need the money I'd keep it out into some other mutual fund.
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In terms of RETURNS, you can do basically the same thing with an IRA as you can with any other brokerage account, plus you get the tax benefits. So unless you're considering something outside of stocks and bonds, an IRA is pretty much always better than a brokerage account.

As Buehler said, the key is whether you need access to the money after you put it in. IRAs are meant to be a permanent deal, so you won't get to pull it out until you retire unless you want to pay penalties (though you can pull out Roth CONTRIBUTIONS early without penalty).
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