Ask your friend for advice for another person. This person says: Hi, I have made outstanding trades using this one swingtrade system. Money managers around the world would stand in a long line to give their left nut to achieve my results. Should I quit my job and start daytrading with the other folks (of whom 90% blow out), even though I have zero expectations of my achievement? And, while we are at it, should I beat my head against a brick wall until I pass out? Swing trader != daytrading. Good grief, this isn't some freaken game for crying out loud.
"Your friend' certainly has sufficient capital. "Your friend" certainly lacks conviction. You ask for an opinion: keep your job, trade as a sideline just as you have been, and keep your job. Not many are able to command a fleet, and many are not able to take the oars in a one man rowboat.
I hate to be cynical but trading for a living is much more demanding than swing trading casually. However, it would appear your friend has been very successful. My suggestion is to put up 30K of the 250K and leave all other money to his usual swing trading style..... $30K is more than enough to test whether he will be profitable within a month. If he is not profitable within the first month then he needs to refine his trading strategies to accomadate his new trading style. I think he should build his active account with 30K and leave the rest of the money alone. If he is good this should more than enough to generate 250K quickly. To me there is a boudary that will need to be overcome. Traversing from longer term targets to shorter term targets will require new techniques. I strongly recommend using a simulator for at least 1 month. After all your friend has accumalated a nice size account. Trading short term with improper risk management will widdle those gains to nothing. Good Trading
keep the 75k job and continue swingtrading on the side. to match the 75k plus benefits he will need to do about 100k a year just to break even.its a lot different when you have to make money to pay your bills. the emotional freedom a job to fall back on can be a big help in trading success. in this market there are very few who can add value over swingtrading by daytrading.
This reply comes from my friend and not from me. I am only typing it in for him. He has me on the phone. He has enjoyed all the replies so far and they have been helpful and appreciated. He wants to clarify that for him to go full time is about not just daytrading full time. Its about pursing the dream he started out with 8 years ago. Its about being able to increase his opportunities for real time swing trades coupled with being able to begin daytrading strategies. He does not intend to reinvent the wheel by stopping what works, that being swingtrading. He agrees that having an account with 50K for daytrading and 4-1 gives him 200k bp intraday while having a second account for 200k gives him 400 overnight bp for swingtrading would be a logical split as some here have mentioned for the most part. Furthermore he has been around 8 years doing this and is aware of daytrading strategies he just can't add this strategy to his repertoire effectively while working full time along side maximizing his swingtrading strategies with real time information while still at a full time job. Hope this helps further. From what he is hearing so far though he is getting the sense that 250K is more than enough for him to earn well above 75K a year as I have told him many times before as well.
this has reached the point of absurdity... Anybody got the number for the psychic hot line? Good grief...
Thanks for the update, Speakingout. It would be neat if you could report here one year from the day your friend goes daily, on how he is faring. I'd guess 3:1 odds on him succeeding at DTing (which are higher than normal, BTW). Tomorrow a proctologist with a flashlight will show you where these odds came from. What would be really interesting (but a lot of work, unfortunately) is a journal. But, regular updates would be really nice as well.