How many people here actually make a living?

I am on this site because I find more intelligence here than on most boards.

I am not saying that trading can not be done. The odds are heavily against you and just hard word is not enough.

 

depressing reading, lol.
Looks like making a living trading is pretty much impossible and of the small number of people who appear to be able to do it, half of them aren't! ??

Hope its not true but it isn't looking good (not just this forum....I read other trading forums and there's been a few cases of even the traders everyone assumed was in the 5% of winners, actually weren't!)

Are your chances better with trading stocks rather than futures? I notice that the pnl thread is virtually all equities traders.

 

Few traders make a longterm, lucrative living from trading with a modest sized account.. But a lot more talk about it or are paper traders.

 

You only have 250 trading days a year.

Realistically 50 days will be non-trading days offering chop and no setup.

So 200 days are left.

Let's say you can earn $50k/year in a factory job or being a teacher.

To make the same amount trading you need to make $250 for every day that you do make trades.

Most people can't even do that.

So trading is just not feasible for most.

But at least you get more free time as you don't work on Saturdays.

 

If you want to trade for a living and you're 18 you have to think.

What are the wages when you go to college?

Fresh out of college a doctor/technician can earn 80k a year.. and with experience maybe 160k a year.

When you transform that to trading it means you have to make $400-800 a day for every day you make trades.

This alone is very hard.

Sure you would say, I can live on $10k a year income.

But that's not the point.

If you're a doctor/technician you can also live on $10k a year income.

The point is that you have to think out of the box.

Putting effort somewhere else can be financially more rewarding for less effort. This is the hard truth.

People think of trading as a job with limitless income. They don't think it through.

And trading is alot of work, without guarantee of stable income.

Trading just isn't for most people, think about it.

 

A lot of posters on ET are kids in school or just dopped out of school, who cannot muster an account size of 10K. When they talk in absolute dollar terms they think everybody is like them.

 

Sir

FWIW & IMHO

While sitting on your hands (when in a position - AND it’s going your way) is extremely important – no doubt

Being able to sit on your hands, (while on the sidelines – as XXXSkier describes) – is infinitely more important

(This is the point I'm fairly certain XXXSkier was making)


They say patience is a virtue…. In trading it’s a down right necessity for survival

Just Food for thought Sir

Regards

RN

 

Many here fail because they have the wrong goals. If you want to "make a living" or make 50K to spend each year GET A JOB.


Successful trading is for people with much bigger goals. It is easier to get rich trading than to grind out a living. Totally different mentality and sets you up for greater success. In other words you have to be in a situation to compound your trading profits and perhaps manage accounts and earn fee income, NOT eat your seed corn every time you have a surplus.

 

Sir

To me trading is a grind – day in and day out… week over week / month over month… I’ve also heard it described (very accurately) as a marathon…. not a sprint


Do I like trading – Yes no doubt…. But it’s still just a job.


Regards

RN

 

Once you are decently capitalized THEN u can pull profits out and diversify the surplus. You still want to be spending only a small portion of your earnings. The best thing though if you are good is to develop into at least somewhat of businessman and earn some fee income. At least from a financial perspective.