Can't tell if you're joking or being serious. $50k after taxes is like making $70k before. I can live on half that with no problems. Its called living within your means.
" Now, if someone only has $100,000 and they make 42%, then they are only making $42,000 per year." quote by marxdhr Trading is a full time occupation if, you are not trading for a living ( i.e. fulltime) you are a HOBBYIST not; a trader. All these negative people not even understanding trading profession and posting is a little irritating to say the least if, you have $100k capital you are trading at least $1 million and assuming you generate 42% return as indicated; you will be making $420k not $42k.
It stinks? Try running a brick and mortar business (motels, gas stations, fast food joints, nail saloons) and see what margins are like in "real life". Why would you expect much better margins and way lower risk from a trading operation than from any other conventional business out there?
I think he is really referring to the fact that he has not yet accepted the system as his own and does not like/trust it. At least this was my problem. Not $ but emotional cost of doing something that not quite fits (yet). You need time to convince yourself that works. On the other hand good job that may not be there in 1-2 years as skills deteriorate...
Go back and do a search on me and look at some of my early posts from Oct. 2005. You'll see that I was an equity swingtrader who was transistioning to daytrading futures, with 100k to put in my futures account. Luckily I did not put the entire 100k in my futures account. I started with 25k, and initially did pretty well (first month or two) then blew out after a while. Put in another 25k and had some wild swings up and down (almost blew out again, getting down to 7k). Eventually that 7k grew back 25k...then 50k....then 75k. Keeping a min. of 75k in my account is my magic number. Why 75k? It's been my experience that besides the right set-ups and having a system to manage emotions, proper capitalization is critical to avoid trading scared money. I daytrade between 6 - 12 ES contracts per trade (depends on market conditions and how I am feeling) ...and I like to have a minimum of 5k in my account per contract. I'm sure I could get by with about 35k, but I feel much more comfortable with a larger account...when I have a string of bad trades I like to have a lot cushion. I'm sure some will have hard time believing this...but since early 2008 when I really turned the corner I end almost every week green, and rarely have more then 1-2 red days per week. It's not unusual for me to have 5-10 green days in a row. I maintain 75k (all my $$, not a prop trader) in the account and at the end of each month I wire out whatever amount is over 75k (only ten bucks per wire transfer at IB). My worst months I only get to take about 10k out, on my best month I took out almost 50k. Look for me in the 2009 PnL thread and you'll see that I posted my futures blotter everyday from about mid March til end of May 2009. I'm tired right now and don't want to go back and look at my statements, but if memory serves me you'll see I made about 70k - 80k during the 3 months I posted blotters. In 2008, I made 274k just trading ES. So far in 2009, I'm on track to beat it. You may be wondering why did I stop posting in the PnL thread? Two very negative ETers kept PMing me, one claimed I was paper trading and another hinted that I photoshopped. Well, anyone who has been down the road that I have been down and actually makes money trading (especially ES) knows how stressful and difficult it is, let alone taking crap and additional stress from complete strangers. In fact I find I spend less time on ET as time goes on. To be honest, I did discover a few gems and pearls of wisdom among the ET masses, but for the most they are rare and do not post often. It's probably no coincidence that I became consistent around the same time I started spending less time here......ET is not a healthy place to spend your time unless you know which posters to follow and who to ignore. Good luck.
Perhaps this should be in a PM, but anyway Liked your comment. Its not easy to "turn the corner" in this business. Now the challenge is to keep what you got. Best of luck to you
if you're referring to me, thanks. you got that right....the challenge for me is to not give it all back. one of the more important (IMO) aspects of trading that most people (or maybe they know intellectually but can't actually do it) is to also know when NOT to trade. Today was a great example, certain days when PA is choppy, and/or the internals give me mixed signals is the kind I like to avoid. I didn't like the early PA and sensed early on this morning that the market was not conducive to my style, around 10:30 ET I walked away from the computer...never put on a trade today at all. Did some errands instead. The biggest lesson from Jesse Livermore's book, IMO, was knowing when to sit on your hands. I'm far from perfect, but I feel really good about making/losing zero today.
True for me long ago. For the most part, posters here are either new or just trying to make it. Now I only visit this site when bored or searching for info I can't find elsewhere, which fortuneately is not too often. That this site is called Elite Trader is ironic to say the least. I would be more positive about this site if it had contributed to me becoming a successful trader, but it had little to do with that.
How many CFA certification do you have? I guess none. Yes, there is a war going on because there are so many traders chasing the minuscle returns.