Not a hundred but definitely multiple tens of people who retired from the industry and are managing their own money. Some are truly “trading” (ie turnover is relatively high) and some are closer to investing, but they are making a reasonable retirement income. Myself I am still employed in the industry but if I had to retire right now there would be plenty of higher return strategies for me to engage in. All this while people here are discussing Eliot waves for swing trading. My main point is that extracting alpha is hard. Not everyone can do it, it requires education, knowledge and skills that most people don’t have. If you refuse to accept the fact that most things don’t work and the markets are the ultimate source of humility, you’re an idiot. Even given advantages of better technology, better data and analysis, multiple institutions and traders fail. So no, if you take a random ETer and put him in front of my datasets and execution systems, he would not be able to do my job. Hell, there are days when I think that I can’t do my job - and I have fairly good education, two decades of institutional experience and plenty of established strategies. THIS SHIT IS HARD.
Pot meet kettle. What did you offer to my thread? All you did was repeat and parrot the same talking points that almost anyone else would. All while feigning like it's great advice for me. Either A) You don't have very much knowledge regarding "day trading equity futures" since you aren't aware of what's possible. B) You do but you made an assumption that there's no way I figured it out. Zero value for me, so thanks for that I guess.
"where do you guys even learn all this. i want to learn about all this stuff but itsvery hard to find information. its so scattered im assuming you have to work for an institution to get some type of formal training to learn this stuff? at least what seems like when i watch older traders that are good like oliver velez and others. they all went through institutional machine before they went on their own. and they are the ones who seem to have a better understanding of how market actually works. and they are the ones who hang around the longest" Couple of ways to learn and you're pretty much on track. Your geography will be a key - look for internships or night desk positions. Many shops run 24/7 depending on the instruments they trade. Family offices and proprietary trading firms are growing like weeds - hedge funds often have lots of available spots in non-RTHs. Ambitious and hungry candidates. No replacement for shoe leather. Often commonality of address depending on the size and character of the town. Many shops network for talent. Chicago, New York, Greenwich, L.A., San Francisco, Houston, Austin and Dallas have been growth markets. Good luck!
The only advice that I gave you was to get a job. I've got limited (but actual) sell side experience. My buy side experience in futures is fairly significant. Two funds, mid 00s, trading switches, cracks and Rates using EccoWare and TT X_Trader.
There's a lot of nuance there. For example you say some are closer to investing. Ok, so they are using resources they gathered via institutional trading and using an investor approach potentially. How do I know those examples aren't them just using the defacto method to turn a profit via money and time just like the other people in my example? That still doesn't mean they can day trade necessarily. I am sure they don't care, you don't care and even I don't care. The point is that would not qualify as someone to use to disprove my statement. If anything they would be used to help support my statement. Does that make sense? You can defacto like 10-15% a year without a ton of difficulty. So if you're using someone with a million or two million dollar account / portfolio making $150-$200k a year. I would consider that a person to use to validity my statement, not yours. It's fine let's just say you're correct and I am wrong. That is fine. All I know is most people cannot day trade and definitely cannot do it on lower time frames. To me that is a true edge. Obviously as capital increases it becomes more difficult. But if you can't make at least 50% a year return on what you're trading, assuming there's no liquidity issues AND you're very comfortable with the size your trading, then you don't really have that strong of an edge or you don't understand the markets at a very high level. You're most likely using advantages, not edges.
Bad advice though. I have to run thought I could out last you, but have to go get stuff done. Enjoy rest of your holiday weekend if I don't hear from you soon.
I am no longer a fast food franchisee. Quantifiable "success" would be earning some (>1X) multiple of the RFR on your capital. You can't even define your strat. Inst-thread. Go pollute elsewhere.
My. Did you know that if you can make 10-15% a year “without a ton of difficulty” in a scaleable way, you can a) lever up and make 20-30% a year and/or b) start a fund, have investors beat down your door, and become a multi-millionaire with absolutely zero risk?