That's quite possible. They probably use maximum # of contracts and minimum margins. Peddle to the medal. Not my style. I like to live to fight another day. Let's look at NQ this week alone. On 7/25/18(Wednesday) in the NQ we had a 100 pts up move in the normal session. Then afterhours a 100 down move. Then today 7/27/18 we had another 100+pts down. Let's say it's 300 NQ pts in 2 days roughly. 300 NQ pts * $20= $6000 per lot. $300K using $500 margin that's 600 lots. 600 lots * $6000 per lot works out to be $3.6M for two days of work. Not bad. But let's say after 7/25/18 this person made 200 NQ pts *20*600 lots = $2.4M. Then today(7/27/18) this person uses the full $2.4M at $500 margin that's 4800 lots. 100 NQ points * $20 * 4800 = $9.6M. No one would have the balls to use maximum margins like that. That's crazy. So let's say after this person made the $2.4M on day 1, then they can use less leverage and still hit the $5M figure. Totally possible. But takes balls of steel/platinum/iron etc. Just saying it's possible mathematically. Doesn't mean a sane person will do that in real life... haha.
one advantage these two had were they worked from a office in the cme building and were trading at member clearing rates. also back in the day they had a fiber optic line up the elevator shaft from the basement where the members servers were. they both were professional traders and had tons of experience with fast moving markets. one i know is now selling commercial real estate now. the other loss his ass in the exotic car business.
That’s pretty much exactly the way all the stories of people turning “X” into multiple millions in a day/week end up. Leverage and risk tolerance are awesome- Until they’re not.
People should start from their own abilities and find out what they can achieve themselves instead of watching what other can or what they pretend. All the rest is irrelevant. There will be 3 possibilities: they will be worse. they will be better. they will be equal. And that result will be their reality.
i think what is really frustrating for traders is they will have a method and have some success using it. then latter using that method they will lose everything, so their mind is blown trying to figure out what went wrong. this happened to me over and over again it took me many years to define the exact structure of my trading framework. having come from a construction background, i approached trading like pouring concrete. you don't pour concrete out on the ground and then try and form it to the finish product you want. what you do is build forms that you expect the finish product to be contained within after you pour the concrete into the forms. when i first started out i let the market data wonder all over the chart. then i discovered ways to form the moves into neat packages which for that point forward i recognized the sizes and shapes of in a repetitious way. then i started cataloging the shapes so they become part of my trading catalog etc. everyone has their own path but the point is if you can relate trading to something you know it may make the path less bumpy. m
Let's face reality. Most people blow their accounts within a few months. Last week I made 24.87 % of my balance but past results are not always accurate in forecasting future results. Nobody knows about future results ?
MarkBrown, Just curious, what does it mean by "loss his ass"? Does that mean he loss a bunch of money, right?
yes he lost a few million down in florida with getting involved some car dealerships, accessories, manufacturing.
It's an old saying that traders make a fortune and then lose it all in the restaurant or bar business.