Thanks TradStSOX! Pairing sounds like an interesting idea for and I will ponder on whether the benefit to you is psychological or whether there can be a numerical/quantitative benefit to this approach.
2% a day? every day? Does it mean (with closed days) let's say 500% a year? every year? Does it mean those 64% people voting yes can turn 1 million dollar in 3225 millions in five years? How much in ten years? Saying that here we of Elitetrader are somewhat a representative sample of all the traders in the world, we can at 64% make this 3225 millios $. Each one of the 64% of the traders in the world can turn 1 million in 17 415 000 millions $ in 10 years (17 trillions and 415 billions). Did i miss something?
Yes, you did miss something, you ASSUMED something not stated or implied.... Why, I ask again, is it always ASSUMED that these types of returns are compounded? Why can one not just trade a 100K account and sweep once a week or month or whatever? Get over it alreadty.
In one of the posters earlier replies he did state that his challenge was to maintain that 'average' for 3 months. I voted YES in the original poll as I do believe that 2% per day on an average sized day trading account is possible. Initial Starting account size - $20,000 Daily Target 20 YM points (on a 4 lot) - 4*5*20=$400 = 2% I assume your maths is correct, but surely you must know that at a certain size it would become technically impossible to continue compounding! Even if you could, the psychological aspects would be pretty challenging!
I voted YES too since I'm doing it, and I know of couple other people doing it. It's not as bad as some people think IF you have a small account (less than $100k) and employ scalping method. Just withdraw the profit every week/month, so that you basically reset your account balance routinely, but keep cranking out over 2% of your account balance every single day...well just about every day.
Hi, sorry for the newbie question, but 1 handle = 1 ES point? If not, what is a handle? (I know, I know) Jorge
TradStSOX, Part of the trader's life is discipline to a set of rules that produce profit. I appreciate that your goal is to see an equity goal achieved, but I think you set yourself up for failure when you set yourself responsible for results you cannot guarantee, from factors you have no control over. The market is not a machine, it is people, and the greed and fear of millions of traders around the world affect the bid and ask. You have no more control over the price than does any other trader moving small numbers of contracts. In my mind, expecting such a goal of yourself is kin to your accepting to pay a debt that you have insufficient income to pay. You saddle yourself with a load of guilt not unlike overleveraging your account. I don't know you, but I know your goal. We're all trading to at least make a living and at most retire early. You will save yourself grief and anger if you simply take what the market gives you and tally up the wins after the fact.