Thanks everyone for your input! I'll definitely introduce myself in the Beginner's thread too.
I've read Nick's unholy grails and his WTT book, and have read a number of books regarding systematic trading (e.g. turtle traders, market wizards, algorithmic trading, etc as well as the more traditional buy and hold books that people that want to live a FIRE life use (re: financial independence, retire early) - eg barefoot investor and peter thornhills motivated money). I did message Nick and he said 50K should be enough as long as I use a deep discount broker, but the small account size means I would have a lot of drag on my account.
In terms of learning Amibroker and systematic trading:
I work full time (and even more overtime including weekends), so I understand I have time constraints when learning Amibroker AFL. I don't think I can be a discretionary trader due to emotions, so systematic trading seems to call out to me more. I have the trial version on my laptop and have been following youtube videos to learn. It seems you have to write it up in a way that ensures you only have the one signal (and not recurring buy signals) and hence there is room for error. Given the steep learning curve, I was thinking it may be easier to cough up the 990 bucks, though I am aware of the opportunity cost it costs me not to mention I don't learn anything on my part. (Cheapest norgate data is 270 bucks a year, and costs 600+ if you want historical delisted data from 1992 required if you were to test your system). The risk is that it takes me too long (e.g. years to learn and by the time I get the hand of it, might as well have started early in buy and hold ETFs or the turnkey code). Time is of the essence for compounding to work, so its hard to know which is the best step (read: cost effective, more bang for buck way) to start.
In terms of brokers:
Selfwealth does have a flat fee of $9.50, and have no account maintenance costs. However, say with at 100K account at 20 positions, each trade would be $5000.
Selfwealth = $9.50 per trade
IB = $6 per trade or maintenance fee of $15 bucks (10 USD) whichever is higher
I read somewhere someone said the WTT trade frequency is around 36 trades a year? I don't have the data to back it up so hard to tell so hard to know which is cheaper in the long run. In massive account sizes though, it seems like selfwealth would be the way to go if its just a flat fee... please let me know if my thinking is wrong.
I've also been following Skate's Dump it here thread - solid gold for beginners like me!