I'm not going to get into actual $$, but my account is up 128% YTD. I also think that just mentioning your profit alone is meaningless without mentioning your worst YTD drawdown. This is a fair way of assessing how much risk & volatility you incurred while making whatever was your return. My worst YTD drawdown was 9.2%. Anyone else care to add their drawdown #?
I made alot in 1999, lost it all in 2000 and 2001. I have lost everything on 4 different occasions. What really helped me was moving to day trading from investing/swing trading. I've made some money in my long term accounts this year, but overall i have a bad track record. I think long term trading is a gamble and far more risky than day trading. In order to be profitable swing trading you really need to be able to get infront of the analysts and funds. And that i hard for the individual to do. Day trading the sectors seems far easier once you understand how the mkt works than trying to guess what market will do tomorrow or the day after.
Day trading about 3 1/2 months, up about 6k. Lots of learning. On a sidenote, those not marked to market and dealing with wash rules, read below. You can avoid the mess... Look at the section on "Burning Bridges". Wash Sales Under the wash sale rules, if you sell stock for a loss and buy it back within the 30-day period before or after the loss-sale date, the loss cannot be immediately claimed for tax purposes. This rule is designed to prevent you from selling stock to claim the loss and then buying it back within a short period of time to retain ownership. Note that the rule applies to a 30-day period before or after the sale date, to prevent "buying the stock back" before it's even sold. This might sound outrageously unfair to you. After all, if your money was plunked into the stock, and your dollars were lost, how can it be that you're not allowed to claim the loss? You do get to claim the loss -- just not now. Although the loss can't be claimed on a wash sale, the disallowed amount is added to the cost of the repurchased stock. So, the loss can be claimed when it is finally disposed of, other than in a wash sale. Example: Larry Laundry buys 500 shares of ABC Corp. for $10,000 and sells them on June 5 for $3,000. On June 30, he buys 500 shares of ABC for $3,200. Since the stock was "repurchased" within 30 days of loss-sale date, the wash sale rules apply. Larry can't claim his $7,000 loss. Instead, he must adjust his basis in the repurchased shares. His basis in his "new" 500 shares is $10,200 -- the actual cost, plus the $7,000 disallowed loss. Larry would also be in violation of the wash sale rules if he purchased his "new" shares on June 1 and then made the loss sale on June 5. Remember, the rule is 30 days before or after the date of the loss sale. But, also remember that if Larry had waited the required 30 days before he "repurchased" his shares, there would be no wash sale. Buy Fewer Shares But, how about if you repurchase fewer shares than you originally sold for a loss? Is all of the loss disallowed? Nope. Only the portion of the loss attributable to the "washed" shares will be disallowed. If you only buy back a portion of the stock sold, then only that portion of the loss is disallowed. Thus, in the above example, if Larry only bought back 300 of the 500 shares (60%), he would be able to claim 40% of the loss on the sale ($2,800 under the facts above). The remaining $4,200 of the loss disallowed under the wash sale rules would be added to Larry's cost of the 300 shares, and Larry's basis in the new shares would be $6,120 (the cost of the original 300 shares of $1,920 plus the disallowed loss of $4,200). As you can see, if you're doing a bunch of trading in a specific stock (not very Foolish, by the way), the wash sale rules can really jump up and complicate your life. Buying and selling, different numbers of shares, different prices, gains, and losses, basis adjustments, yada, yada, yada. Whew way too much work for many people. Burning Bridges But, and this is a very big "but," the wash sale rules really become moot if you close out your entire position in the stock prior to the end of the year... and then stay out of the stock for the required 30-day period before or after the date of the loss sale. Let's look at Larry again. He certainly has a wash sale in the example above. But, let's say that Larry tires of his position in ABC Co. and sells his 500 shares on December 20th of the same year for $4,000. Larry's adjusted basis in the shares is $10,200 based on his wash sale computations, and his overall loss would amount to $6,200. But, if you break down the two separate "buy" and "sell" transactions, you see that Larry generated a loss of $7,000 on the first transaction, and a gain of $800 on the second transaction -- amounting to a "net" loss of $6,200. This, amazingly, is the same amount of loss Larry computes when taking the wash sale and basis adjustment rules into account. So, since Larry closed out his entire position in the shares prior to the end of the year (and stayed out of the stock for the required 30-day period), the wash sale transactions actually become meaningless, and Larry can compute his gains and losses as he regularly would. So, remember: the wash sale rules really only apply when the transactions bridge two tax years. You can trade all you want throughout the year, but if you close out your position prior to the end of the tax year and stay out for the required period of time, the wash sale issues are really not important. But, if you hold on to just one little share into the new tax year, you can look forward to making a bunch of wash sale computations. One final note: while the wash sale provisions work on shares that you sell for a loss, there are no corresponding provisions for stock that you sell at a gain and then immediately repurchase. So, while wash sale losses can't be claimed, gains can't be avoided. That is, if you sell stock for a gain and buy it right back, you must still report the entire gain -- no special gain deferral rule applies.
I primarily daytrade, occasionally I'll have a multi-day swing trade. I use IB and keep just 100k in the account and sweep out the rest. I've tried to keep higher and used to have 150k, but I find that my comfort range in just around the 100k level. One of goals is to increase that without skewing my risk profile. To put things in perspective, I do have significant drawdowns. My largest ever would have to be in early October when i dropped 75k in one day trading the eminis(I talked about this in another thread somewhere). A daily drop of 5-10k is not uncommon for me.
Schindler Trading is up 47.0% through October (net of fees) with a 17.3% drawdown in March. November results will be out next week -- PM me with your email address if you want the update. We trade the NQ's, Dax, and T-note and use a short term inter-market system.
A little ahead on strictly trading. Somewhat behind after commissions. Behind quite a bit after fees, expenses, data feeds etc... I just hope I "get it" before I have to go back to work. My back is pretty much healed, and I am running out of excuses not to have a "real" job.
Still learning this game, started in October w/ $30k, and am at around $26.5k now (-$3500) ... but $2500 of that was one @$!$@ trade in MIK back on 11/7 -- went long on an MOO order, got filled at $36, then I blinked and the specialist moved the market to $31. That hurt. But luckily this was a rarity (a stock doesn't usually move 10%+ in a single tick, does it?), and I learned my lesson about playing in low liquidity. Onward and upward!
This is my first year: down -8,000 Lost 5,000 on my first day June, July, August, September consistently 5,000 a month profit In the middle of September woke up and Sears was down 8 points, and now I am scared. I miss you Super E or Doogie H or whoever you are.
I am a swing trader and up 25% since the begining of march. I starded trading in march. The worst monthly drawdown was 4,5% on cash. I go long and short but do not use margin.
I agree. Many say daytrading is a gamble, but I find that long term investing is the real gamble. With daytrading, I can monitor and react to the slightest movements in the markets that put dollars in my account. BOLT