Come on dude, he expects to jump in and trade ES like a pro. How can he make 2-3x his money without the possibility of blowing out his 30k in one swing. Trade 50 contracts and lose 12 points=-$30000. Boom, back to working a night shift.
Tell your friend to trade one contract. If all goes well, he can start increasing....one at a time would be my suggestion. By the way, it drives me crazy to read posts wondering whether you can "make a living". The market is there to get rich, not make a living. Why trade otherwise? But start with one. Speculating by an untested trader with an overleveraged position becomes scared money. OldTrader
Thanks for the replies. You're only repeating what *I've* tried to tell him. Hopefully he'll make the smart decision to either start with 1 or 2 contracts OR use margin and stick with what has worked for him. P.S. LMAO at the fella that said you could do this with $5k One is a million shot as far as I'm concerned.
That is all I need to know about your friend. It sounds like he is a papertrader, who thinks he is clever, and that it will continue. Look up "Risk of Ruin." He sounds like a poster child for this concept.
there is no "just pull in 60-100K" from $30K. Few do that. Very few do it longtermm. You are talking about over 300% annual, after costs, on the upper end. If he made that kind of return, he could pull in $100K a year just from running a simple advisory service, without risking anything!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Define "making a living". That means different things to different people. Personally, I can't begin to fathom living expenses of $2K per month. Is his goal $2K per month (average of $100 day) or $60K-$100K (mid-point average of $320 per day)? Significant difference. Either way, an account of $30K is more than enough to accomplish it, IF his edge translates to the futures markets he wants to trade AND his money management skills are as you stated (and that trading was with real money). One or two contracts is definitely the place to start -- ten contracts is really a lot of pressure. To quote Marty Schwartz, "I don't feel the same pressure when I own 100,000 shares of stock as when I own 100 S&Ps." The scale is obviously different, but the idea is the same. Since his money management is apparently in place (again, assuming he was trading with real money), his simulator results should not be too misleading. He should be able to determine from the simulator whether or not his edge translates to futures successfully (i.e., before trading real money). If it does, then he should be in good shape. A good question has already been asked: If he is successful with equities, why change to futures? There's a lot of value in working what works. I would really like to trade spot forex, but I currently suck, suck, suck at it. Futures are what I'm good at, so I stick with them. Just curious... Regards,
Your friend believes that success in one field is instant leg up for him. Not. It will be detrimental as it will be counter to his psyche and experience in other markets. His biases and anticipation will be the stock trading must that will become the emini trading trap. He has very little chance of long term success, as do all others. Most all who post ET are paper traders. Cheer leaders at best. Not all, just most. He must have a mechanical proven realtime system that is higher than average accuracy. He must have an edge that allows him to capture positive points more often than negative. JJ, Volente can give you a system or 2 for him i would guess, if they would be so kind.