I've been day trading over 10 yrs. The first 6-7 were rough. I've made every mistake possible (and then some). The last 3 yrs I've made the changes I wish I had early on. I am fascinated by the markets and spend all my time listening, reading, learning & watching. Currently I make 2-3 equity trades per wk & 1-2 option trades per month. I average 3% - 7% profit monthly. My biggest & most consistent problem is taking my profits to quickly. I must admit, I always wanted "that" to be my problem. I am new to Elite Trader & was curious as to how the serious traders on this board compare to the numbers I've mentioned. Regards, T/fox...
Profile For traderfox. Date Registered: 07-05-99 Total Posts: 1 (0.00 posts per day) ------------------------------------------------------ Will you please stop clogging the board with your incessant posting!!!!
All the traders I know talk in terms of $$ made today. We have found that % returns are just too inflated and not an accurate measure of our success on any given day.
Most traders here scalp for nickles and dimes. They day trade for cents and go home flat, cause they can hold positions overnight. Most of them are perma bears and the nasty kind you donot want to meet.
Both percentage return on capital and net dollars earned are important, but not equally important to all traders. You need to make the $'s to pay the bills and if you are trading prop and sweep your profits monthly or trade with no capital up, % returns don't mean much at all. At some point though once you are more focused on building wealth and managing larger assets, then I think % return takes on more importance. Personally, I think $30-$50k a month in a good market is a pretty respectable performance for a prop guy who's been around a while. 10-20% a month is totally doable for an experienced trader with a, say, 6 figure account. And no, you can't compound that rate continuously until you own all the money in the world. That's just my opinion from my perspective and from the traders I talk to.