Does anyone make a living trading stocks anymore? I'm not being a smartass. It's just that most of the people I knew that trade stocks, no longer do. I've been trading options and futures for the past three years and have the opportunity to trade NYSE stocks. Is this a dead market for stocks or can someone still make 100K or more a year by day trading 1000 shares at a time?
Could you give us a look at expectations. I set my expectations up by looking at good trading groups and how they do. Say you have a given amount of capital. could you tell us what using it would do for you? One day trading journal by a beginner is doing about 30K a year with what looks like a small amount of capital. He is rolling along with an average of 500 shares and does about 5 trades a day to make 150 to 150 a day. sometimes he holds 2 different stcks at the most. Fill us in a little. TIA
The firm I'm looking at starts you out trading up to 1000 shares at a time. I think that when they are comfortable with you they will let you trade a little bigger at times. They mainly lean on big size in the NYSE specialist book. So the risk is minimal but the gains are small too. I am not very familiar with trading stocks. I don't know if this is how everyone trades them or if it's a unique style this firm thinks works. I don't know how many trades a day they typically make but I would guess it would fall between 30 and 50 depending on activity. Trading futures had been going ok for me. I had the unpleasant experience of an outtrade that wiped out a lot of the money I was going to use to back myself. The loss on the outtrade gave me a bitter taste for futures. That's why I'm looking into stocks. But I'm uncertain if it's possible to make money when the stocks move as little as they do. The reason I started this thread was to see what some of the stock traders out there think. Any advice on that market is appreciated!
Thanks for your response. I really can't comment further because I am not knowledgeable about the area you are planning to go into. Those large Caps you are required to trade do not return much. I stick with stocks that have high profits per trade in a short time.
It is possible to do 100k-200k plus a year daytrading stocks. However I have found that it is difficult for a majority of daytraders. Obviously it was much easier to accomplish this 3 years ago and therefore that is why most of those traders who did it then have moved on to something else.
Get a decent list of stocks combined with a few decent strategies and be disciplined in working them. As has been said - it's not as easy as 3 years ago and a trader has to be a little more inventive and intelligent about how they do it, because the easy money ain't there any more. But there is still plenty of profit to be had in stocks with a little bit of work... Best Natalie
It is important to conduct this study prior to day trading stocks. If you look at lets say the QQQ's for example. The average volatility there compared to lets say Cisco will leave much to be desired. Although the "Cubes" are still the most heavily traded in the world they are not the most volatile and therefore not a good daytrading candidate. You really need the volatility to make money. p.s. E-mini S&P 500 or E-mini NASDAQ 100 Futures contracts are the way to go.
Indeed, although not recommanded for ANY novice and undercapitalized traders, I would recommand any active experience equity trader to give it a try and see. I know I did.. and I never looked back to equities for daytrades.
momento, I actually did trade the emini S&P for a year and a half and agree that they were a great trade. However things seem to be changing. The book is getting extremely thick and the big institutions seems to be trading it more. Is that a good or bad thing? Who knows. Depends on our style. It seems like the thick book has killed a lot of the volatility. Maybe I'm in a rut, but it has been way harder this year to make money than before. I hear that the NYSE stocks are more consistent. That you can bang out a few thousand a day and make a good living. That's why I started this thread. To see if that's legit or just someone blowing smoke up my ass.