I was just wondering how much does professional daytraders make usually per day - including good and bad days - average i mean. And also quite interesting dilemma for me is - who makes more, futures trader on equities trader (or forex trader but i don`t think so)? I have heard that some guys made couple of years ago about 10,000% procent per year, they discribed it like a good project. So, how much makes professional daytrader in todays markets per year or per day?
You have to be more specific on your description of professional daytrader, like professional with 5 yr experience, 10 yr experience, someone trading full time etc. Some professionals don't make a dime, some make a living, some are bathing in money.
What a question abesiki. How about something easier, like "What do women want?" Honestly now: - What is a "professional day trader" by your definition? - What is "usually"? - What is "average"? To be honest, the average day trader loses a lot of money, every day. - Equity or futures trader? Another mad question, with many answers. For example, equities are much much much easier to trade, they're like kiddy play compared to futures. But then the commissions weigh very heavily on them, and your taxation is a big problem, whereas with futures you enjoy commodity taxation instead of securities taxation (commodities: 60% taxed long term capital gains, 40% short term capital gains versus securities : 100% short-term capital gains taxed), and then you also get liquidity problems as soon as you start decent size on stocks, which will then also cost you plenty of opps and money velocity. To make it short : There is no answer to this, too. It's really up to you, entirely. The guy you're talking about with 10,000%+ is probably Daniel Zanger, and he was the not "some guys", but one single occurence that's not going to repeat again too soon. He took advantage of the huge volatility during the bull market in the late 90's, turned $11,000 into $40,000,000+ in a couple of years. But mind you, the same guy didn't know how to deal with the following bear market and lost shit-loads of serious money. He is now selling a chart-pattern website on the internet, quite possibly even trying to make a living. Don't believe everything you read. It's not as easy as it seems. If you want to learn to trade, this is going to be the hardest thing you'll ever do in your life. You have my word for that. Good Luck! Scientist.
Interesting article on Mr Zanger, taken from an interview earlier this year: http://www.traders.com/Reprints/PDF_reprints/CP_ZANGER.PDF He mentions that it took him over 10 years of studying charts & stocks each day before he became successful. His story is actually pretty inspiring, as he really seemed to know sod all for the first 5-10 years of his career, and went virtually broke in the early 90s. Then by the time the bubble came along he had mastered a winning method purely through hard work, which combined with the right market allowed him to clean up in an amazing way. Then there is the day in Oct 2000 where he was 200% long in fibre optic stocks and Nortel announced an earnings shortfall, and he lost 32% in one day. What a maniac!
Every year is different. You can't compare 98 and 99 with 2002 and 2003. Lets take the past 6 years. Total compensation (all 6) for all the traders I know, ranged from -2mil to + 75mil. Anything is possible when you trade.
It doens't take a genius to see that Mr. Zanger is just a statistical outlier. Made huge money during the bull market and can't make money when things turn around. You got to have some kind of consistency to call yourself a profes- sional....
In this market, it doens't matter how much you make or lose in one day. Always take a the big picture in perspective. So here we got less than 1% a day in average . But that is around 100% in the past 6 months.
Ok. 2 ES points a day is pretty easy on 1 contract to average. So if you can afford one contract, $25,000 a year is a good guess. So if I get 2 points on 10 contracts, I make $250,000 a year gross. Minus computers, fees, programs and all the other stuff it costs to trade. So you will net somewhere around $150,000+ before the tax man takes a chunk. Now this gets tricky. If you tend to scalp 1/2 a point at a time.....you will not make much at all. You need to try and take this in at least a 2 point chunk. Those trading fees are killers.