yea, forget 20%. big time traders turn 10 million to 500 million. or 100k to 30 million. Bill gates is worth X Billions.....and life is short, so trade tons and get to billions quickly. remember, the first billion is the hardest.
Not sure whether or not that is sarcasm, but I do know that with my few thousands, if I were to waste my time trading for hour and hours, shooting for only 20%, i'd really be wasting my time. I'd be better off firing my money into a few ETFs and forgetting about it for a couple of decades.
+1 10%, 20% and more PER MONTH ... $2000 A MONTH on a 10K futures account is 20%. Frankly that's REALISTIC IN A DAY with that size account, IF the pin action on the instrument(s) traded is there. The trick is to reset your account to it's standard size on a frequent schedule. No worries about bail-in, bail-out, or life in general. Playing for 10-20% PER YEAR?... that's what retirement accounts are for. You rest you rust. Trade On!
Really, what is magical about $500? Explain that magic number and I will provide an answer. The answer may not be what you want, but an answer.
It's definitely possible but not consistently in a liquid efficient market (it's possible in inefficient markets to get very consistent results, but usually those inefficiencies will disappear after a few years). Rather you will make a big profit 20% of the time, and do nothing the other 80%. If you try to make trades every day you will probably bleed money 80% of the time and wipe out the profits from the 20% of days where there's a clear edge on 1 or more trades. My experience is that the best days in any given market have 1-3 really good setups, and most days have NO great setups. So, the way to do it is focus on lots of markets, and trade only the most busy ones that are in play, with news/events/action that will drive big up and down days. Don't try to trade the usually choppy rangy day - even if you profit, it is boring as fuck and distracts focus from the next big move. Example - look at gold during the crash and bounce. That had plenty of action. Anyone trying to grind out ticks in the ES was an idiot when they could have been playing a $50-100 daily range in gold. The edge from the rare great setups is so fat and skewed, that it is almost insane to trade more marginal trades. Just do nothing most of the time, wait for slam dunks, then bet a meaningful but not crazy amount on them. A good daytrade setup like a big gap & crap move after an extended one-way trend, can offer a 75%+ win rate and a 5:1 risk/reward, which is highly profitable. Even just 1 of those every month, bet at a very conservative risk of 1% of capital per trade, will make on average 72.5% return per annum. Juice the risk to a still safe 3% per trade and you get a diabolical 666% per annum, yet your risk of a >10% drawdown is only about 1 in 50 - *assuming* you are right about the trade odds. Now, how do you find and stick to only the very best setups? That's the hard part
I don't see how the average guy can make money everyday , whenever I tried that , I failed . I believe for the the non-pro , in order to make money at this you have to wait for the strong trending days and only place your trades then . Easier said then done , since most people want the thrill of beating the markets. You have to wait for those days when the average directional index is strong , above 40 and D+ and D_ are crossing . On a 5 minute chart ,is your price above or below the 50 moving average . Is your price above or below the ichimoku cloud etc.. That means placing maybe one trade a week , but most people refuse to do that . On 5/14/2013 , you had a strong uptrend , but today on 5/17/2013 there is no trend on the Nq or Ym .. So if you want to be successful and make your money grow , in my opinion you need to be very patient and have a job that allows you to watch the markets for a few hours everyday . Good luck .
Now, if you want to daytrade 5% of you net worth and make a full-time job out of that, all the more power to you. I would eventually like to be in that position: retired with a a few million set aside in longer term investments, daytrading 5% of that just for the challenge. Then you're in a position where you can take real, profitable risks without the real fear of a blowout's significant negative consequences. Otherwise, you should be daytrading someone elses money at a prop firm for example.
Here is your $500 per day. Be long 4 contracts ES going up average 2.5 points per day past 5 months= 10 points gain daily Be long 8 contracts ES if you want to make $1,000 per day:eek: There you have it. The most profitable E-mini trading "system" given to you for free in a QE world.
The same rules of probabilities apply to them as you with your $20,000 account. The same risk of blowing out. Yes, someone with a small account can make eyepopping returns in an historic bull market for a few months. Good luck keeping it.