LOL, I did it other way around, I became modest from not learning from mistakes on how to day trade. I learned how to long term trade when I was in Army making $500 a month, Commissions were $125 per hundred shares, thank gawd I couldn't day trade. Got out of Army and got government night job making decent money of $35k in 1981 and kept doing very well in long term till family back home told me to get into S&P500 and Pork Bellies futures day trading, I was broke all the time after that. I started small businesses and built them up so I could sell them to make more money to blow in day trading, I tutored college kids in Math so I could pay the mortgage, LOL, any money I made longer term stocks and commodities, I couldn't wait to throw into the air. Most people learned after couple times doing it wrong, I wanted to go for the record of how many dumb and stupid ways I could lose money. Cousins were cleaning up day trading Pork bellies, I was cleaning the floor at butcher cause I burned out another account, LOL Least with butcher I took meat home for my family. I took so many side jobs caused by stupid loses, I was always going to one bank to get a loan to pay the monthly mortgage, LOL. I got real good at making house repairs, instead of hiring others to make repairs at rental houses the bank owned and I was paying more mortgages, I did 95% of the work. LOL, one year I made $75k working for money and lost $90k in my lazy ass losing at day trading. All the guru's, books, videos of the 80's, yea baby, I was gooooood at losing, ROFLMAO, I was so lazy, I didn't want to learn how to program, why spend couple thousand on testing software and data when I could do manually? I slept at school, worked 2-3 jobs cause I was going to show my friends and family I was smart too. Programming was for those who didn't know how to trade like losing ass me.LOL, I was near bankruptcy when banks wouldn't loan me more money in 1991 and yet I was doing very good long term trading. All those dummies learning to program, LOL. I was spending more money buying computer parts and drywall when I would threw computers into walls, fire department had to take me hospital once when computer somehow bounced back and hit me in head, LOL, that was a good one, they dropped me on the way out as I am big guy, LOL. I would hock jewelry to buy keyboards only to see if I could actually throw thing into wall. 1992 I learned to program, I concentrated on journals, learned to test before risking a dime, did a lot less trading, first profitable year day trading. In twelve months recovered all day trading losses from previous seven years of day trading. I quit my government job in 1999 to trade full time and ever since. I am now much more tight with a buck, need all the stats going back ten years. So I have gone completely opposite of the idiot I was then, though I am still an idiot some of the time, but at least now "idiot" can program, LOL. Yea, you can accomplish almost anything if you believe in yourself, work very hard and perseverance.
I have a distant relative who traded ag futures successfully into a low 8 figure amount. He was a farmer as well, but most of his wealth was made via trading. Of course, he was not a day trader, trying to churn out 20%/wk using 400-to-1 leverage on a small amount in order to pay his bills. He traded well before the computer age and in passed away over 15 years ago, in his 90's.
Well maybe send him to ET. We have had many users here claiming to be pulling fortunes out of intraday futures markets with never a losing day!!! Maybe he can start a "journal" and then get some "mentoring" from them LOLOL!!!
As a farmer, he had knowledge, and parlayed that into trading expertise. John Henry had his roots in farming as well, learned to successfully trade agricultural commodities with longer term trend following, then took it to a whole other level by managing money.
Its not a total myth. The odds are small but they are not zero. Traders can only make millions from small sums only when trading conditions warrant it. Otherwise trading is just grinding out returns in the 10 to 50% range. You not going to get far with a 10K account when the most you can make is circa 50% most years. The trend following traders made millions in the 70s from small amounts, rich dennis is famous for turning a few hundred into hundreds of millions. The crazy market in 1987, larry williams turned 10K into over a million. Plently of traders made millions in the dot com nasdaq bubble , Dan Zanger is famous for turning 10K into 18million. Odds of doing so may be less than winning the lottery because the lottery provides the conditions every week, the market maybe once every 10 years. Still if you are a trader who can grind 10 to 50% returns most years, with moderate drawdowns, then you can get rich by managing other peoples money. I have made 200K from binary options (starting with just 2K, the early days when they were new!!, you cant do that anymore) and 400K (starting with 40K) in the crash of 2008 and rally of 2009 trading futures directionally. Those are GBP figures btw. I currently aim to make just 30% a year on my own money. I and nobody else can make 100%+ returns every year.
Well I just signed up here at EliteTrader... but here is a short version of my story.. Ive been a full time trader for 9 years and loving it... It is my sole income. I got into a car accident almost 10 years ago and was unable to walk for 2 years.. So I tried to pick a job that I could do online and I was always interested in the stockmarket, so I started to read everything I could on the subject. I had no money so I took out $3,000 cash off my credit card and I started to trade Penny stocks with my new Interactive Broker account.. I made consistent money right away and in a month or two paid back my credit cards. I have had many brokers over the years as my funds grew and till a few months ago I was still trading penny/pink/otcbb stocks.. 2014 was my biggest year $$.. But this January I decided to leave the little word behind and start trading the bigger stuff...(heres my reason for the move: My strategy trading in the small stuff is not scalable, im always stuck taking small positions... I can never seem to make more than $1,000 a day with a few exceptions. My biggest day in 9 years has been $2,400... Also here in Canada I will be able to trade bigger stocks out of a TFSA Tax Free!!.. I could make a living tax free!! I have to figure out a way to take advantage of that..) So I have been spending all day and night trying to work out a trading plan, but its not going very well. My old tricks don't seem relevant in the bigger stuff. I have been reading tons of books on options (John Carter, Chuck Hughes, etc) and im quite overwhelmed with it all. Im biting my nails because im not used to not making money everyday, and I keep fighting the urge to just return to my easy money days in pennyland I need direction.
Where I come from, starting out with $90K and living expenses is not beginning with "modest means." So basically you're just here to brag about your success. Congrats but this thread isn't about people like you. It's about those very few traders who started out with a few grand (90 doesn't qualify as "a few" in anybody's world) and built it up to a sizable amount, say $90k or more.
Ok. I might be misled. You stated that you trade with $150,000 and roll the profits into long term investments, right?