Right now I'm invested in mutual funds, both from an IRA standpoint and with my savings. I find something that looks good, I buy, I hold.

There's a lot of money making opportunity outside of that. The vast majority of my funds will remain in buy and hold funds, but I'm wanting to learn how to recognize patterns and learn trading theory so I can take a small percentage of my capital and learn. On paper of course, then move to real trading.

I'm not looking for a "get rich quick" scheme, I'm just interested in learning to effectively trade and make some money.

I found a instructional video series by Adam Khoo, and I'm about halfway through it. What strikes me is that he put together a bunch of my assumptions from playing blackjack in Vegas:

1. In the end, the house ALWAYS wins.
2. You want enough buy-in so that you can ride the waves.

So, even though I can go for a long weekend and almost always come out ahead (because I choose to exit on a high point on a wave of wins, AND I'm not doing it long-term), I know that if I would sit and play blackjack for months at a time (or much less) I'd eventually be wiped out.

His theory is to set up all your trades (after you get a solid trading plan) to replicate the casinos... make sure that every time you win, you win more than any time you lose. As long as you don't "over-bet" with regards to your total buy-in, you should never bust, and you should always make money. So, although the house ALWAYS wins, you CAN set yourself up to be "the house."

It seems that you could look at volatile stocks, flip a coin on whether it will gain or lose, and if you have the proper stop-loss and sell points in place, in the long run you should make a profit. Of course I'm not suggesting to do that, I'm studying trend analysis so I can go in with an educated buy-in. The important thing is that you have a solid plan in place, and trust it so that you will stick with the plan. Most people fail because they don't trust or stick with their plan that would work, and end up buying high and selling at a loss.

I'm not looking for a review of Khoo's motivational classes or looking to buy anything off of him... I'm just wondering specifically about the validity of his methods to trading stocks or other equities. I've watched about a half-dozen of the videos in his trading series so far and they make sense.

Here's one of the first in the playlist that explains what I'm talking about: Trade Like A Casino for Consistent Profits

The fact that he has a "system", motivational classes, and uses the casino reference would lead me to assume its all horseshit, but thats just the standard "guru" red flags. I know nothing beyond that.

In for answers.

If you want to dabble in real estate, john t reed has a nice guru rating system with reviews. Lol

That was initially my thought, but he recommends you come up with your own system of trading.

It's basically "how to set your stop loss and when to take profits so in the long run you will always make a profit." The possible profits are much more than the casinos, yeah using the word "casinos" makes people flinch but it's a truth that the casino always wins by design, and that when trading YOU can set up your win/loss differential to replicate that.

Take a look at some of his videos (don't get into the TA ones yet unless you're interested in that, just look at the probabilities and win/loss margins, the overall setup of your capital).

Playing devil's advocate here.

If I need to set up my own system, then what purpose does he serve?

I can mitigate risk and set a strategy. Making money is a whole other deal.

I'll peruse a bit, just out of curiosity, even though I don't trade anymore.

He may eventually have a system. I'm about a half dozen videos in, so basically all I'm getting from it is basic, widely known TA tutorials, and specifically what I'm talking about is how he makes it easily understandable how you can set up your trades so that, in the long run, you WILL make money, based on the statistics. In the same manner that casinos always make money in the long run. Because you control when you sell.

I am gathering knowledge at this point, and, like playing blackjack, I'm looking for "basic strategy."

Betting $1 (max loss) to win $2, or $3 (minimum win), consistently, seems to make sense.

Are you interested in day or swing trading?

80% of the time, I can walk into a casino with $300, and make $200-$250 in the first hour or two.

I just forget to leave.

That's the thing. If you stay like it's your full time job, they WILL take all your money, because they have the odds, and the payout structure, in their favor.

If you stay for short amounts of time, you can ride the waves up and down and choose when to leave... IF you can do it.

Either one. I'm looking at options.

I have cash to play with, but if/when I get into it I want to get into it smart. I'm just looking at basic trading theory right now.

Likely, it would be swing trading, since I don't have the flexibility to be glued to the markets completely while they're open.

Here are the people I learned from Ricky Gutierrez, Connor Pollifrone, Garen Phillips.

Also Tim Sykes videos, I tried warrior trading but he sounded too much like an infomercial.

I mainly do day trading based around technical analysis and momentum.

Investopedia is also a good resource to consult and Finviz.com is good for doing some research.

Reading Material

Also I would recommend opening a TD Ameritrade brokerage account, you dont need to fund it but it will give you access to their ThinkorSwim platform. On ToS you can paper trade using live market data for practice, this will help you practice, develop your strategy, and work out any kinks you might have.