Lots of good advice above. I started in 2005 with $5k I had to live on while I was backed at KTG for $25k account. Took six months to get a check, but by the end of my second year trading I had made over $1.2mm. Last month I made eight figures, it can happen. I suggest starting at a backed firm versus starting your own account. Find an edge, and like others have stated, when volatility comes you can crush it. There's are about 6-7 days in the last decade that account for 60-70% of my lifetime net. The rest is grinding away picking up nickels and dimes.
The biggest difference I see is the lack of real time/same day posting. Those old P/L threads were inspiring. I saw people there that I wanted to be like and connected with them here. I had just started trading as a swing trader (1- to 14-day holds), but I wanted to day trade so I could sleep better. I paper traded each day (literally, writing entries and exits down on paper) and a web search turned up Elite trader, so I started scanning the P/L and other journals and also saw that there was a chat room here. You could read the chat history without signing in. I was so intimidated by traders who seemed to know all sorts of things I didn't and seemed to have no fear, so I just read the chats. In mid-summer 2008, I took the plunge from paper to live day trading and gathered the courage to join the chat and start asking questions. Most of us called our trades in advance or in real time day after day. Seasoned traders shared valuable info with me, but I didn't believe (and, more often, didn't understand) what they were telling me, much to my eventual detriment. If you read my archived day trading journal, the results I posted were all called in real time in the chat room here (and later in Robert Weinstein's chat room when ET's shut down). These chat rooms were where I got to observe Geez trade. I enjoyed his company, but was scared of how he traded, thought it made no sense, and had no idea what a smart and experienced trader he was until years later. http://www.elitetrader.com/et/index.php?threads/nodojis-day-trading-log.132626/ http://www.elitetrader.com/et/index.php?threads/a-70k-bet-that-i-cant-make-a-50-gain-in-2009.148752/ What I see a lot more of now is arguing about trading methods and whether they "work" or not. There are so many ways to trade that "work" (produce consistent profits over time), it's ridiculous to argue about it. If someone offers you a working system that is too difficult to automate, you'd better have one of those extremely rare personalities that allow you to embrace risk and uncertainty, and to quickly let go of a negative experience and move on to the next opportunity. The people I see arguing and calling each other names here do not have that personality and I seriously doubt they trade for a living. Folks like Red_Ink, Geez, Robert Weinstein, EricP, Redneck, and many others were incredibly helpful and positive when I reached out to them.
Jared Kenna purchased 5000 bitcoins at .20 cents and traded them back for USD at $258 a piece. $1,290,000 . Right place at the right time. Luck, jackpot, genius foresight, call it what you will. He lost approximately $200,000 when he reformatted his drive with a different batch of coins lol
@rmorse, et sponsor: to @wrbtrader i mean some one with a retail account of less than 5k usd and 600 trading days,do you know anyone who falls in this category? ------------------------------------------------------ @wrbtrader: I would say no to this one. --------------------------------------------------------- i am with @rmorse and @wrbtrader: if anyone dead or alive knows of someone with this sort of trading achievement, i would surely like to learn from him/her also. why won't any want to? consider the followings: 1 mil dollars in 600 trading sessions/days will equal to around 1,666.67 usd per session/day. the dollars amount surely is not too impressive by any seasoned trader's standard, correct? but then if some trader has to start with 5,000 usd or less, to trade! WHAT DOES THAT REALLY MEAN IN LIVE SESSION? again what does it mean? and what would it entail to gross or to net 1,666.67 at the end of the session from initial investment of 5,000 usd? e.g.: 1,666.67 / 5,000 x 100 = about 33% per session/day, everything else equal and constant without compounding. that sounds practically, humanly and virtually impossible, even for an old man like myself, but then who knows.... thanks everyone for the opp to check my own sanity too.
Bruce Kovner , made his first trade using $3000 from his credit card. Now he has a net worth of like 4 billion. "Kovner's first trade was in 1977 for $3,000, borrowed against his MasterCard, in soybeanfutures contracts. Realizing growth to $40,000, he then watched the contract drop to $23,000 before selling"
of course we should take in account power of compound interest .in theory it's absolutely possible if we take advantage of scaling plan .but in reality ....
This is what the Bible has to say about the mustard seed: "It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches." Replace plant seed with seed capital. The question everyone should ask is: At the end of your trading career, do you want to be known as the person who took $250K of THEIR OWN money to $2M, or the other alter ego who took $10K to $150M (true story -- two Japanese traders did it: BNF and CIS)? This is yours to decide!
It's early days but I'm on my way Started with $10k about 10 months ago and I'm currently up to $132k... My aim is $500k in 3 years so I still have a long way to go...