Good at investing - how to turn this into a job?
Staying in Idaho, you could pursue some additional degree and try to get a job with a bank in the area as an investment advisor of some sort. However, I have doubts as to whether or not you'd be able to employ your creativity and test your own instincts in that sort of a position. If you really want to get into the big-money investment sector, I'd suggest a move to a financial hub (Chicago, New York, San Francisco) and getting a job programming for a big firm. After obtaining some experience there, you may be able to transfer to a more investment-oriented position (at the same firm or another) and from there to a position where you can unleash your talent (assuming you have some). Putting a degree in finance somewhere in the mix would help too. Consider the following. You want to make $50,000/yr (low) by running a fund with a 1% expense ratio (high) investing other peoples' money... you're dealing with at least $5 million. That's a good chunk of change. To be entrusted with that kind of money is kind of a big deal, and you'll need to get some people to believe in your capabilities. You're not likely to get that kind of trust working out of Boise. Even if you're just doing research for some fund manager, you're not likely to find too many of those in Boise either. You need to do a few things to analyze your results. First, look at the timing of the deposits, and try to confirm the return you state. If it's still as high as you think, can you attribute it to one lucky stock purchase?  I have an account that's up 863% from 1998 till 2013. Am I a genius? Hardly. That account, one of many, happened to have stocks that really outperformed, Apple among them.  If you are that good, a career change may be in order. Few are that good. Joe Step 1: Get a part-time job in sales.  Perhaps selling appliances at Sears. Step 2: If you are great at that, then look into becoming a stock broker/investment adviser in Boise ... which is a sales job.   Step 3: If you are great at that, then you might be able to become a portfolio manager, perhaps a hedge fund manager for the clients you collected as a stock broker/ investment consultant.   That seems to be the steps I have seen from reading the bios of a number of professional investors.   The other method seems to be an MBA from a top 10 business school.
Why does it matter that 400 people were put out of work? Why does business have to be about giving people jobs? This frustrates me to no end.  Our quest to put people in jobs is not how we should see things. Trying to justify jobs is backwards thinking honestly. Look at government systems like NASA. The space shuttle turned out to be a disaster in terms of costs, and same thing seems to be happening with the new SLS program.  Why? Because congress was more concerned about keeping jobs than actually doing the job at hand. I really want to believe that the world of business is not going to devolve to that level.  I realize this is a rant, so feel free to report/downvote me. Paul supports multiple competing currencies, not just gold backed dollars. From his standpoint and predictions about the governments actions his investments are predictable and have quite certainly turned him a very nice profit. The fact that he doesn't have bonds is a no-brainer. He doesn't support facilitating increased US debt and spending even if it's to his own benefit. I think the fact that he doesn't hold bonds is actually pretty honorable. He also was one of the few people to predict the current economic situation we're in and he invested accordingly. The article talks about how he's lost some money in the last few months but that's a terrible way to look at it since he's held most of these positions since 2006 and gold and silver have skyrocketed since then.  Yes this is a less diversified portfolio than most would have, but it just further solidifies my opinion that Paul really believes what he says. He put his money where his mouth is in the face of many doubters screaming that he's a crazy idiot and was not only proven right but made a good bit in the process. And how is that even an argument?   So...the fed needs to raise rates, is what you seem to be saying. I'm not sure that now is the time for that, considering the weak jobs numbers recently, but it's possibly a good idea for them to announce that a hike will come soon instead of actually raising the rate.   Either way, to say that having a low interest rate for a decade is a bad thing sort of obscures a harsh reality. It's certainly not something that you *want*, but what's the alternative? Would the US have been better off without the Feds balance sheet expansion? Very few economists would say yes.   In fact that exact line of thought likely turned a financial crash into the Great Depression of the 30's. "I would personally beware of the Motley Fool. Their success is based largely on their original investment strategy book. It had a lot of good advice in it, but it pushed a strategy called ""The Foolish Four"" which was an investing strategy. Since it was based on a buy-and-hold method with 18-month evaluation intervals, it was not a get-rich-quick scheme. However, its methods were validated through data mining and subsequently turned out to be not so good. At least they admit this: http://www.fool.com/ddow/2000/ddow001214.htm" Over the long run, you can expect to do about as well as the market itself. Depending on what time period you view, the stock market has typically provided returns of approximately 10%. Some years it is up, some years it is down. You may think you can get better returns, but you are mistaken. You may be able to do better over a short time period if you take on vastly more risk, but you won't be able to do so long term. In order to make $2000/month, then, you will need approximately $240,000 to invest. And even then, you won't make that kind of return reliably. Some months, some years, you'll make more. Other times, you'll lose money. If anyone tells you they can double your money in a month (which is what you are hoping for), walk away. Because it is either illegal or a scam. The only way your plan can work is if you are reliably able to predict stocks which will go up by 10% in the next two days. You cannot do this. You can't even predict which stocks will go up by 10% in the next year. "Surprising that you have a ""finance background,"" but don't know what a cold-calling broker does - he calls people he's never met and tries to bullshit them into buying stock or making some other trade.  You can call people from contact lists obtained from marketing firms, people who hopefully fit a certain income and age bracket best suited to investing.  For some people it's ok, for others it's complete hell.  If you fall into the latter category, your salary being based on how much trading you generate every month can make it even worse.  If you want an idea of cold-calling, call 100 people today at random from the phonebook and try to convince them that they need to buy something." A hedge fund is such a broad term as to not mean anything in practice. What do you find interesting in finance? Research that, understand that. Then go find the guys who are doing that and ask for a job and take it regardless of how much money it offers. The money is the yardstick, not the goal So a interesting note is that this doesn't seem to take into account cost of living arbitrage OR investments. The reason it's so good to make that money isn't so you can spend it on sports cars and cheap (read: expensive) women. If you invest you can put away like 50k/year, which will probably net you at least 5% return per year (more if you're risky) . So you make 100k for like 5 years, put away 250k and get like 20k from doing nothing.