Frankly, I think any commission where you can't get out with a profit on a penny roundtrip is too much, because it causes you to have to think about whether or not to pull the trigger and save yourself.
I know this is my first post here, but I just decided to join the site since I have been reading it more often these days. I am a trader that has been in this business more than 5 years and have been consistently very profitable. I know several others that are as well, but realize we are a small minority, and can certainly confirm that among the few of us there are still fewer that would be able and/or willing to teach someone else to trade. I am not clear on what your goal is here - to learn how to trade or to just verify consistently profitable daytraders as exist as evidenced by tax returns. If you want the latter, I would be happy to share my tax returns, along with the name and phone number of my accountant with whom you can verify. In addition, I can give you all detailed information of the firm I trade with and the name of a managing partner who will also verify any earnings info. I will provide all this for $2000. If you want the former, $10k is simply not enticing to me if it means giving you actual lessons and taking some responsibility for your results. But for $10k I would let you watch me for a couple months and glean whatever you can from seeing everything on my screens. I will not hide anything from your view and can give simple explanations for what you are viewing, but the interpretation will be up to you. If you want actual lessons in technical analysis, trend recognition, general market awareness, news digestion etc...it will cost a good deal more than $10k, and I would be surprised if a couple months is really worth it. Here's a scenario you might find interesting that is simple and potentially very rewarding - I am very active on instant messenger, and constantly trade ideas through it with other traders throughout the day. We could set up a situation in which I send you all my trades as I implement them (I am not so active that this would be impossible) for a one time fee to be negotiated plus 50% of all your net profits. This would require you to send me a copy of your trade blotter along with p&l at the end of every day to confirm your earnings. In addition you will need to sign a contract drafted by my attorney prohibiting you from sharing any trade information I pass on to you, with a hefty penalty built in if contract is breached. This arrangement will only be worthwhile if you have substantial trading capital. If you have $250k, I can help you set up an account that will leverage you 4:1, giving you $1MM, which I think would be the minimum to make this worthwhile. This way, my average return of 20% will net each of us 100k/yr. with minimal work for each of us. If/when you find this arrangement is working nicely, and you have others with substantial capital that would like the same arrangement, we can work out a finders fee for you as a % of the upfront lump fee, as well as a small profit share from those accounts as well. I am very serious about this and can give you all my credentials if you are interested.
Dude I started trading paying .01, yes, .01, not .001, so i had to make over two pennies to break even. You should be able to get .005 or less pretty easily, and .005 is a great rate to learn at. You don't think about comms, just price action. If you have to get out and you hesitate and you think you're saving yourself 50 cents (since you should be trading 100 shares) but you watch the price drop... well... you're making a newbie mistake and need to overcome it. comms with trading 100 shares aren't relevant. Try to do as many round trips/day as is possible. You want to overtrade and even churn at first, that way trading becomes natural and you don't get into a habit of looking for too much confirmation or second guessing yourself. you should be able to do the plan I suggested paying .005. If you can't, you don't have the heart for this.
This is true, however the experiences of the Turtles (assuming that the story is true) would tend to confirm the opposite. But I do agree with the general sentiment, that learning how to trade is a personal endeavor - and not one that can just be taught by rote. Rich
You are absolutely correct. I would never enter into any kind of arrangement without some sort of verification. There are sharks all over the place trying to lure in fish. I am quite sure that daytrading is no different. Rich
I completely agree. It is a very much depended upon the individual and individuals involved. A good trader does not make a good teacher. A good student doesn't make a good trader. Becoming a trader may not suit all personalities. Rich