Making on average 1 point a day is being done by many traders I think. Iâm surprised that a trader (you mention that you are a trader) makes such a statement. I make on average more than 2 points a day. If you cannot take more than 1 point out of moves that go beyond 5 points you should revise your system.
I do not trade systematically. I decided to chuck anything a computer could do and started trading profitably in the spring again. I traded for a living for about 5 years. Went stale for about two. And traded well in the spring hope to trade well starting in september again. Right now I am just monitoring some longer term investments. The one point a day deal is what guys who have put on a lot of trades with systems say. If you are letting a computer trade and are making two points a day on the es and can prove it. There are dozens of guys here who could get you as much private money as you wanted to trade. 2 points a day profit on one contract with a computer would be super hero status according to traders on this site and friends of mine who ran hedge funds. Think about it you could easily trade 500 contracts at time. That would be 50,000 dollars a day and you would be trading others money. Let me be your agent. (I am a licensed attorney I will get everthing drawn up correctly. You will get 2 percent managment fee, a kick back on commissions and 20-50% of profits depending on how greedy you want to be.) I am not saying you do not do it. What I am saying is. You could be retired by the end of the year.
grob, I for one appreciate the insight. I also believe that as in life, we are all at different levels of emotional development. ie, if you are homeless, all you want is food and shelter... if you are a billionaire, you may find money pointless, and need some other meaning for your life. I think trading is very much like that. When you start... you want to capture EVERYTHING. As you develop, you realize the power of leverage, compounding, and in this case, 1 measely point. Now what my concern is, in the trading universe, where am I? At this stage in the game, I do over 40% a year with no compounding, or reinvestment. Have done it for about 7 years. Spike on the other hand knocks out triple digits, either yearly or monthly. That is amazing, but believe it or not, I for one am not that motivated to do it. Yet at this jucture you state to take a broader look... do you me warren buffet broader? or just look for ebbs and flows and take what comes on a bigger time chart? I would like the hear from others regarding this... Where are you? Are you at 100% or at 50% or 5% of where you would be CONTENT?
Jem, how long would you have to prove it? Kind of a crappy question but are you talking over the last 2 years, 5 years, months? also, 1 point is a large percent of the ATR, but are you not discounting the fact that the market rises and falls far many points in a typical day?
grob109----------- i forgot to answer an earlier question by you----yes this example was from one account only that i use for my living expenses trading income. i trade a very consistent method that i use a good size of position volume per trade with. i generate enough income to pay all my basic monthly living expenses and enough for all the movies/dining/wasteful type spending. my other trading is in an accumulation phase---------- i try to let it grow unencumbered without any monthly withdrawals. one system is in a set of accounts with a 6 month trial that i do not want to make withdrawals from that show on the brokerage statement---------i want the statements clean to only show the trading results.
As far as the time frame I think you would have to show you have handled up markets down markets, range markets and trend days. I think it would depend on how many trades you took as much as how many months. Yeah I understand the travel range or whatever you want to call it. But that travel range in the es means nothing to me but a chance to get shaken out. By the way I used to be a very short term trader so I used to make a living on what others considered noise. But frankly I have trouble determining a move that should follow through from a move that should reverse in the es.
the way you put it one could think that money can be made just by being in the market. i consider myself open-minded - but somehow you come around like some rookie trader studying intraday charts afterwards and counting all the points that "could have been made" - just because the market went "from here to there". so what you keep trying to explain here - is it all just theory - or ist it the way YOU are trading the futures day by day? and if it is not theory but reality - please deliver some facts. and please do not consider this as some sort of challenge - i just want to learn. thank you.