Hey speakingout give your friend this advice. 250K is more than enough to trade with full time. I personally don't advocate your friend basing his decision to trade full time with 250k from advice on ET. Heck I would venture to guess that 99% of the people here don't have anything near in capital what he has now available to him. I will say I know a few on this board who have well above what he has and they employ many different kinds of strategies. I will say that I have been trading 10 years now, not all of that full time but when I went out full time i had about 300K(built up from trading) and after that time I was able to generate another 1+ million dollars gross by being able to take advantage of real time swing trading opportunities. So even though he may or may not be successful daytrading I can understand his reason to go for it full time if just to focus more with his swingtrades. I think thats the real issue, not if he has enough capital because IMO he has plenty. The key issue is will he benefit via greater focus by watching the market full time? If so then he should go for it you only live once. Your friend seems smart enough in his approach so far to as to the long wait and build up of capital so his discipline most likely is not going to be an issue (in regards to you getting reckless and blowing up). Good Luck.
tell him to take the 7 and put up 10k and get $200,000 buying power. i have seem crazy stuff happen so why risk $250,000 if you can risk 10k.
Like I said if he had started this thread with a post count of "1" he would have gotten a massive backlash response of this is all B.S. screw you newbie instead of real advice. Awehawk on the otherhand there are always as many opinions as there are you know what so you see it the other way. Thanks for your insightful contribution to this thread by the way.
Speaking out I guarantee you that you are a lying ass. There is no way your going to tell me your friend has made 250K in his account after taxes and yet can't make a decision as to whether or not he wants to try it full time. I'm sure that there is no friend and if so he is probably a piker with 5k or less in his account. statistically speaking, the amount of people on ET or anywhere in the total pool of all traders retail or prop that have 250K capital is probably under 1% and they don't need advice they give advice. Something smells fishy here no way this guy or whoever the hell he is has 250K its total b.s. thats just way too much money bro. Maybe you could have made it more realistic if you had said something like 50K then I would have maybe believed you!
True, 15k into 250k in 8 years and this "friend" needs to ask someone else to make a post on ET, a site where most posters do not even trade. This thread is absurd.
Please don't let this thread detiorate into name calling etc. My friend is the real deal he has made what I have stated. Just assume its real and those who have advice to give please continue on, so far the advice has been very helpful thanks. By the way trade4dollars I see that its your first post on ET and you come to this thread to slam me and my friend. I am sure it is you who does not have 250K in your account my friend is the real deal and 250K may seem like alot but he is just that good!
Your "friend" should read a book on odds and realize that he won't be able to keep up this pace. Trading full-time versus part-time means nothing. Its all about making money. And since your "friend" is on pace to become richer than the Sultan of Brunei, why would he want to go trade at a prop firm?? Actually when you think about it, its quite good comedy. Almost as good as a daytrading firm suggesting to use money set aside for education and dropping out so you can trade whats left for a REAL education. Not implying that anyone would say such a thing.. Just saying..
It is enough to trade with. However, the size of the account is not the problem. The problem is going from earning a steady income and trading on the side (such that the trading "doesn't matter" as much), to having to earn his daily bread by trading. Some people find that psychologically difficult to deal with. I once backed a friend to trade part time and he did ok, but when he went full time he got too stressed by the pressure to earn and couldn't hack it. Another problem is that he may trade more to fill up the time, and therefore reduce his edge by overtrading. Because of these risks, I would recommend he only do it with say $50k, and keep the other $200k aside. Set a stop-loss at say $25k, and trade for 3-6 months full-ime. If he loses $25k, he decides to go back to work. If he is profitable at similar rates to before, he can then move up to the full account and trade full time. This should help reduce the potential for the two risks mentioned above to occur. Finally, I would advise your friend to go for it. If anything he has waited a bit too long already.
He knows that he is not going to compound the money at the same rate as it keeps getting higher. That was stated already. Secondly, I told in the original post that the is not considering prop in house or remote. Both your points addresses issues that were clearly pointed out in this thread as not the case.
Great advice, I would agree that since he wants to start full time by making his salary for the year to transition from part time to full time then yes this also sounds like a great move with the 25k cap on drawdowns. Secondly, I agree entirely that my friend has waited far two long to go fulltime and the clock is ticking he is not getting any younger. Good advice thanks.