I 100% agree with the theme. Keep your job and learn to trade in your spare time if your needs are $150K/year.
this subject was discussed many times here (search) imho the odds are overwhelmingly against anyone who take the path to become a trader... one can still take this path but imho the chance favors those who does not give a damn about the odds
Sometimes, it's better not to know what the odds are. It's a distraction that can make you second guess yourself. Fortune Favors the Bold. Hehe.
Forget about potential reward. Focus on risk first. Ask yourself: If I quickly lose my stake (which is common with new traders), am I still financially comfortable, and able to return easily to the workforce? If the answer is "no" -- that's all you need to know.
It's viable for any who are willing and able to put in the extensive time, effort and personal development required of any demanding profession. Most enter the arena lacking either this understanding or diligent commitment.
Keep the day job and learn longer term Commodities. At 46yo, your mid life crisis will become a crisis, you be going down a long path of self destruction and discover every bad emotion within yourself. There are ways to change this, but you will be required to put in min of 10,000 hours and have to memorize tons of information during heavy stress for most people, unless you lose your concept of money or value. I am not trying to push you away from trying, but too many who get burned out from one profession think this competition is a job and it is not, it is a business and those who been doing it decades will eat up the ones who lack knowledge and enjoy doing it. Many larger traders, Hedge funds, HFTs have automated programs where they been back tested fifteen years plus on tick data and spent decades learning about price, not to say they don't have losses, but losses means no emotional "feelings" even when you lose thousands in a day. Brokers will tell you it is a zero sum game, it is very negative, on small $5,000 accounts, you will have to do 100-150% if you do ten trades a day just to breakeven at end of the year, if you quit your job, few will not count the hourly loss they make doing other job, the bennies gone, no vacations, no health insurance, so you have to figure out what you make by the hour as a loss when you go to trading. I made the transition in 1999 after I became profitable 7 years before and had 3m in the bank, first 6 months was very hard cause your brain causes all kinds of tricks and self doubt, easier to think of the bad in life than what you accomplish in life. Most who just day trade only day trade and they see it with least bit of risk, but in reality, has the greatest risk of all of trading in my mindset, too expensive to hedge. You might not have overnight risk, but you can do options for hedging in long term. I do both, I learned long term first as you have most time to get good at charting and then go shorter term till day trading and scalping, but long term is where most make the most, just ask Buffet and Soros and Jim Rogers, I don't recall any Hedge funds do day trading, risk just too high to get your price in or out. Xela had put together a good list of books she used to learn(use search), mine are much older and pre computers, but learn charting first and way before indicators. Unless you can do charting well, trying to program charting is just not the way to be doing it, you have to learn the nuances and there are many. Day trading you going up against speed, machines and knowledgeable people, long term is more of supply/demand/charting, also learn about options. Take your time, very few traders make what you are making. 95% loss, 4.0% breakeven, 0.9% under half mil, tada is the 0.1% Good luck, many knowledgeable traders here and prop guys, hedge fund managers too.