That was funny. The west .. where the girl who makes coffee thinks she's better than the dude who owns the coffee shop.
Hey BYoung, I am the one (like you). I've been in IT for 20+ years. I have a couple more years on you. I'm assuming you came up with that 150k figure because you're looking to replace your current income from a job. First off, that's wrong thinking as many posters already mentioned. Do I think it's possible to make 150k/yr trading? Sure it is but it depends on many variables... How much trading experience do you have? How much capital are you willing to commit? What products are you going to trade? Are you going to be swing or day trading? I've been trading on and off for about 15 years and to be honest, only turned the corner last year. It has been mentioned here on ET numerous times, that one needs to put in at least 10k hours in order to succeed in this endeavor. Well, in my case, it was closer to 20k!!! I guess I'm not as smart as others . I have been a long time lurker here but never had any desire to post before, until I saw your post, hence the new nickname registration. I trade while at work, been doing it for many years but the last 5 years were different as far as the level of my activity. I have been averaging 15-20 trades per day and CL is my daily bread and butter. I also trade GC, ZB, TN, 6E, ES, NQ, YM. My advice to you... Start small to test the waters and gain experience. Don't quit your day job! Can you spare an hour or two while at work? Then, if you can prove that you are able to make consistent profits, you can start to scale up gradually (to increase your size and profits) and only then consider quitting working for the man .
150k/yr from Trading is too small, better than most regular jobs but TRADING is out there on a whole different plateau - laptop+internet+account+skill = minm. 600k/yr. + perennial vacation, trade from anywhere (last 8 trades from Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana beach, 7 winners, 1 loser that I cut loss so fast, even the Devil got depressed) ........ there is no better job, not even in Heaven.
10k hours, 20k hours, no matter, all worth it, reward will come. Now if you throw in hard punches to the stomach, days of being totally knocked out on bad trades, frustration that ain't never been tapped before, and you persist, yeah that's when gold dust pours and there ain't nothing small about it, it just won't stop.
This is the golden age of IT, why do you want to become a loser trading from a basement lol. also IT guy here.. long story short I have built up the portfolio enough that the holdings are expected to return many times of $150k... QQQs return 12.75%/year since the day it was born.. put your IT earnings in it, you only need to build up to a little over $1m to expect $150 return... $1m today for IT is not that high a goal. A straight dollar-cost-averaging with your salaries can get there fast enough. Now you can also get a little fancy, to get better prices with better swing trading / position trading skills. Learn to read price actions, read sentiments, get familiar with seasonality and earning cycles. Nobody is really making any money with 'active trading'... the intraday space has long been dominated by robots. Play the long game, where the robots don't play.
Active trading could become your full time job if you have understood the basics and the factors which effect the market. Trading has the potential to change your life forever. Be serious about trading and try your luck in it.