Hello, I just recently learned about the existence of day trading and was wondering if I could use it to my advantage. I'm a computer science major and when I graduate in 1,5 years I'm planning on starting my own webdevelopment company, which means I'll be spending 4-6 hours a day in front of a computer programming applications. Making it pretty easy to keep an eye on the markets and make trades all day long. (probably just normal day trading, because I'd be a little too busy with my programming to do scalp day trading) Now I'm aware that long term investments like stocks and real estate generate a return of about 7% (taking inflation into account), but when it comes to day trading the numbers are a little less reliable. For day trading i've been finding all kinds of different percentages ranging from 10% to 300% (mostly the people who posted some return of investment between 20% and 30% seemed to be the most reliable). I have no intention of using day trading as a kind of get-rich-quick-scheme, but more as a nice little bonus on the side of my webdevelopment business. But ofcourse the amount of time in research and trading itself that I put in must be worth it in returns. Because if it doesn't generate a significant percentage above 7% i'd ofcourse be better off just making a long term investment with my extra money. So now i have 2 questions: the first one: if I do my research, stick to a system, never take absurd risks, is a consistent yearly return on investment of 12% (accounting for inflation) possible? the second one: considering my approach, situation, available time, is 12% a realistic number, or a little bit of a low estimate? If so, what kind of ROI can i realistically count on?
No offense, but provided this isn't a "troll" post, I'd say that there's no way to predict what kind of ROI you can expect. Could be negative 99 % (i.e. losing everything very quickly), could be 1000%+ (statistically, quite unlikely, but hey you never know). Just consider that most people (95%?) who attempt to trade fail, and that even many professionals have been turfed out of the game in recent years simply due to competition making markets brutally efficient, especially in the short-term space.
Hey there! You should look into Swing Trading. Think of it like running your own mutual fund. If you don't use leverage, and you study hard, you can get better results than 12% a year. But you won't make more than a few trades a day at most if you're doing it right. Until you are a Zen Master, don't use leverage. SM
The best thing you could do with your programming background once you master it is to learn price action, support and resistance, moving averages, indicators, etc. ....then learn how to design/write trading strategies/algorithms so that your computer can do the trading automatically with little or no manual decision making from you. To get started Google... "designing a trading strategy" and/or "designing trading algorithms" and read, read, read. Autotrading is where its at....in my opinion.
Who is this joker? Angelusx, you do now you are posting on "Elite Trader" and nobody here makes less then 1,000% APR.
Heck no, get involved in the tech web application start-up scene with those kinds of skills. You'll be so much richer in 10 years it's not even calculable versus going the day trading route. That said, algorithmic daytrading may interest you, but it's not really possible to go at it alone. There isn't much employment in the area anyway versus run of the mill web application tech start ups. And no real financial advantages in doing algo trading vs. web apps unless it's your passion.
Anyone with ambition should be aiming for at least 200-4000% return per year, and that's in the low range. If you can't make 100x the S&P you need to find a new forum bro.
I'm well aware of this fact, I'm also pretty sure what the reason for that high number is, and that reason doesn't apply to me. Nice, Ill look into it, thanks for the advice! I'm not planning to do day trading as my main profession. Like I said, I just heard about it recently and figured since I'm in front of my computer 6 hours a day during my work, I might as well just do some day trading on the side, adding to the capital I make with web application development. If I were to get a ROI of 12-15%, that would seriously add up in a couple of years. I'm not going to do day trading full time, so those kinds of numbers aren't really realistic for me.
Lol you aren't getting the joke... this forum is notorious for a lot of loud mouthed idiots who make ridiculous claims about making 100000000% a second. i would be wary of listening to anyone here, especially those who have only been here a year or two.