I scalped three years in a row in the 90's, doing 200-300 trades a day, profitable 98% of days, always thought it was luck. It wasn't until ten years gone by, added long term futures trading that I started to believe in myself. By then had done over 600k trades. You have to be skilled on how to identify when to alter your trading system, that takes Stats, many many STATS. Most of the trades been in scalping, but 70+% of profits been in very long term futures and dividend / credit spreads / stocks. Intraday trading is expensive cause commissions really eat up percentages.
I meant by the time you have acquired your third Ferrari (with the first two still in the garage) - that you can be confident that your trading method is working and should be expanded further.
tough - I think it helps knowing the types of trades they're taking on (e.g. are they selling vol., relative value, etc.) and the frequency (many times in a day, weekly, monthly, etc.)
I'd say 2 years to have a reasonably high level of confidence. Ideally through a variety of market environments rather than e.g. exclusively a bull grind, or a high-volatility bear market. As or more important than raw PnL is the nature of the results e.g. profit factor, max win vs max loss, are any extraordinary risks being taken (eg are they short gamma or using martingale? Holding short microcaps overnight?), and how performance relates to the underlying market environment. With that said, trading is risky, markets are constantly evolving, and there's consequently no magic line where you cross over and generate consistent profits every day, week or month forevermore. Edges come and go and guys can print money for years, then starting one day they never make another dime.
It varies. I mean, it depends on certain variables, like my personal attitude to the strategy I use, whether I fully rely on it or not, and of course the results. I test strategies preliminary by trading very, very small volumes, like $1 positions, just to understand whether it's capabl of something bigger or not. Usually, I am failed at devising good strategy, but I remember I had the ones which bore fruit for me. It requires at least a week or more to adjust to it to make it bring results.
does the strategy make sense from a business perspective or does it depend on your ability to magically predict the future? If it's the former then right away
ONE FAT FINGER... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat-f...-finger error is,number of other input errors.
Assume your friend will lose all your money than rob & kill you. From watching many ID channel episodes the day traders end up cooking the books pleading for more cash until they rob & kill their investors.
I dont think its necessary to keep the first 2. I think you should know by the time youve traded up to your 3rd Ferrari or even moved from Ferrari to Lamborghini/Maclaren.