From a trader's perspective, losses are the cost of doing business. When you're starting out, your losses are your tuition. An engineer spends at least $100K+ a

From a trader's perspective, losses are the cost of doing business. When you're starting out, your losses are your tuition. An engineer spends at least $100K+ and 4+ years going school to learn their craft; why should it be any different for traders? (Aside from the fact that there's no school and no curriculum; there's only the library, the market, and your wits.) If you read the Market Wizards series, you'll find a lot of pros saying things that amount to "on average out of 10 trades 6 or 7 of them will be losers - but I keep my losses small and let my winners run." Here's how it works for a casino: the outcome of any given roll of the dice (say) is random. But over a thousand rolls of the dice, the odds of the game are not random. For a casino, obviously the games are set up so the odds favor the house, and "in the end the house always wins." For a trader, your "odds" against the market are determined by your skill. Every individual trade is still essentially random, but if you're good at what you do - if your market analysis, entry timing, risk/money management, and adherence to your trading rules is solid - over a large enough sample size the outcome will be net positive. It's a strange duality for some people to grasp. A good first read: High Probability Trading (Marcel Link) The Bible: Reminiscences of a Stock Operator (Edwin Lefevre) The basics: Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets (John Murphy), Japanese Candlestick Analysis (Steve Nixon - skip the first chapter), Trading and Exchanges (Larry Harris) Good follow ups: All the Market Wizards books (Jack Schwager) Psychology: Trading in the Zone (Mark Douglas), The Nature of Risk (Justin Mamis) Less theory, more practical: Mastering the Trade (John Carter) Putting it all together: How to Buy (out of print) and When to Sell (both Justin and Robert Mamis; slightly outdated but 100% worth reading.) Some of these books are "expensive." But even if you only learn one thing from a book, it'll have paid for itself 10 times over. Take copious notes. Find the commonalities. Filter out the bullshit. Watch the markets; see what "clicks" for you. The trading exercise towards the end of Trading in the Zone is a great way to test yourself without risking a whole lot. (On that note, a theme you'll find, if loosing 2 or 3 thousand is going to be an issue for your current well being, perhaps better to wait to put money up until such a cost is somewhat closer to pocket change...) If that all sounds like too much effort, then perhaps the more typical buy index funds and hold until you retire answer you'll often get around here is more your speed. No shame in it.