Of all the threads I have read here on ET, this one was the most entertaining. My thanks to all who contributed. Most of you are rich beyond my wildest dreams. Hell, most of you made more trading last year than I have in a lifetime of working. I am humbled in the presence of greatness. I would be remiss if I didn't mention Atticus and the chinaman (whatever his name is) for being especially funny. Thanks again and a Happy New Year to all.
Made $2400 on a $10000 account in the last quarter trading options, discretionary. This is the first time I started trading with real money. IB PortfolioAnalyst report tells me that my Sharpe ratio was 1.69, Sortino 1.98 and Calmar ratio of 5.81. I believe the strategy is very scalable, but I'll probably spend 2012 (or at least the first quarter) focusing on some automated trading ideas. njrookie : only 3 years of trading and you make $3K a day?! Man, I envy the brainy ones on this forum!
Some of the guys on here strike me as "I'm not as successful as some of you, so I'm going to call everyone else a liar." Of course, some of the people posting excellent returns may be lying, but there are plenty of people on the daily P/L threads doing very well for themselves. I personally know retail ES traders who are posting near 7 figures per year. Of course, they're trading 50-100 cars at a time. I'm learning from them, but not quite ready to step out of paper trading futures yet. Still putting in screen time before going live. Real account results, trading options: +6.43% net on total portfolio. Risk capital per trade is of course less than the total. Took a loss on a covered call yesterday (not a trade I normally do, and probably won't do!), so 2012 isn't starting out too well. Looking to move into the futures arena within a couple months. My concern is that my delta-neutral options strategies are subjecting me to too much market risk. My job makes it so that I'm out of contact with my broker for extended periods of time, so a "black swan" event in the market could take a decent chunk before I could react (which is how the covered call loss happened; stock suddenly lost 6% in an hour). I would prefer to have all positions closed when I walk away from the computer.
Everybody just post % gains, but in reference to what? Gaining 20% means nothing if we do not know the common denominator? Is it on account size? Do you add standby funds allocated for trading that is not in the trading account yet? I did. BTW, my returns for the year is 23% on allocated funds for trading and I swing trade stocks and some options.
Not to be an asshole, but people doing that should not have ever been trading their money without professional help.