I was wondering how much money some of you guys lost trading the market before turning the corner and becoming profitable. In my case, I lost $35,000 before the light bulb finally turned on. Anyone care to share their experience(s)?
First year I lost $33,000. Second year I lost about $12,000. Third year I made about $15,000. That was the year I turned the corner and also the year I first started trading the ES at the end of that third year. For almost three years now since then, I have increased profits year over year while trading only the ES. $45,000 was my two year tuition to figure this trading $hit out...best money I ever gave away. Chris
Made roughly a 1.1m during the dot-coms & lost most of it. Learned how to trade.. and just passed the 600k mark slowly (1k is a good day). So from the height to the lows.. lost around 800k. Still not fully recovered.. but more confident than ever.
...$14K in two years learning to bet QQQ and NQ. In retrospect, cheap at the price by trading only 100 QQQ's and 1 NQ. God bless IB's low commissions and good fills!
Lost $16k the first 3 months, broke even on the second attempt a few months later, and finally turned profit after about a year.
Responses so far are positive but hide one thing...The guys responding are the ones who managed to turn it around (a small minority). A great majority of people will lose, walk away, and will never again look back because they will be afraid the market will somehow "hook" them into coming back for another beating.
Honestly, i don't think you can be more wrong. Most traders have no other options but to pursue trading. Often these daytrading companies snag them out of college with the dreams of being a real trader. They use words like internship, or having an alternative to a formal classroom education by using their tuition for starting capital. What can they fall back on? They have no other choice but to fall back in the daytrading cycle and hope they are the few that survive. Only the owners get enriched by having slaves churning out commish for their pockets.
You're right - most traders ultimately end up losing. But for this particular thread I am only interested in responses from profitable traders, partly for my own curiosity and partly to give an idea to other people thinking of jumping into this game what kind of a realistic butt-kicking to expect from the market. 35k and 3 years - that's how long it took me and there still isn't any guarantees since there is always the risk of blowing up. That being said, I can honestly say that this is the only job I ever liked.
Took me little over 1k to "turn corner" I was playing with very little size and risking a little bit. Then several months when I made barely over 1k (also, modest size). I think the biggest problem people have is trading too large of size - thinking it will bring big games. You should rather loose on little than on a lot.