If only Marty Schwartz , Pit Bull , had you to advise him. After a few years of succesful trading he was on the wrong side of the market and kept averaging down: "Audrey, I blew almost a million dollars in 4 hours" (p.107) He held overnight and got lucky and ended up with only an $800,000 loss for the day . Over the next month he managed to get most of it back. In the years following that he made millions....
Papertrading with awesome results? Wow, sounds like my paper trading when I was in high school long ago. Let me tell you are in for a long ride when you finally start real trading.
It is not hard to do, even by a good trader in a good trade. At my firm, a trader was long 7500 shares of MO. It was a good trade and he was profitable on it. At just that time, they announced that $30B award to that one woman. MO was halted and reopened $10 lower. He was actually able to contain the damage to about $44,000 by the end of the day. nitro
nitro..... Stretching things just a liiiiiittle, aren't we nitro? You're illustrating the exception to the general rule. Most people don't lose $65,000 dollars on a trade. Most never have and never will. If it was that easy, not many besides Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, etc. could risk trading. (Sky's not falling, nitro. Relax.)
Don't you just love these guys giving advice based on their paper trading, or real life experience of all of two months?! If only they knew.
Ohhh that MO is one fuuuuunnnnnnn stock to trade. 7500 shares, wow that trader must be damn good and got some big cajones. To the original post, yes $100k a year is possible and realistic trading stocks, at least at the moment. You do need some BP as silk mentioned. 200k should do it and you can get that from a prop firm. 4 years experience is still experience. Quite valuable in trading, IMO.
Sorry, don't mean too be caustic, but just telling you the truth. The market is an even harsher teacher!!!
What you have to watch out for, is a trading style that lets you make some decent money for a period of time, but in reality is a time bomb. Many traders during the bull, had this kind of game. Unless you luck out , and leave the table before your turn to blow up arrives, you give it all back + interest. Be careful that there is in fact a difference between the 'mistake' and the 'good' trades.
Well, It is a DOW component after all, isn't it? You would think you were "safe" from such lunacy. nitro