You are right! I am no where near 3-4x my salary! I'm not even at 1x. Significantly less than 1x but net profitable.. You guys have helped made up my mind. I'll go back to corporate and trade a little bit i the morning before work. And if I have time work on trading systems to automate. Staring at the screen all day in hopes of a few hundred bucks doesn't seem like a good long term move. I don't want to be out of the marketplace too long. Need to keep my skills fresh. But the idea of scaling up in daytrading is interesting. Just not sure if I'm ready to put on a lot of contracts/shares...
Yes, I've daytraded fulltime before back in 2001-2003. It was beyond dismal results! Then I went back to corporate jobs. Then started trading again part-time and refined my skills. This would be my 2nd go at full-time trading if I were to do it. But it seems the consensus is NOT to do it! Back in 2001-2003, I was much younger with little financial obligations. The prudent thing is to get a corporate job and invest/trade on the side.
Trader99, Good decision. I am in the same situation as you. I work in corporate and trade at work at times. And it is a huge challenge. So I am currently in the process of learning to program to back test my system and consider trading automation in the future. I will not be quitting my 9-5 no time soon, definitely not quitting after 1-3 profitable year.
It depends on your timezone. If you are on PST like me, then you can get up early and trade for an hour or so before work. But automation is the key I think. That will take a nontrivial amount of time to implement and refine. So you have had 3 yrs of profitability?? Nice!
trader99, lol, i have 0 years of profitability because I never took the time to program and backtest my method. Just day to day trading or discretionary trading. I am in central time zone. I meant to say after 1-3 years of profitability.....
OK. I think I should reconsider after 3-5 yrs track record of profits that are at least 3-5x my salary. That's the safest choice. But at least you are working FT right?
This is my full time job. But I've got about 10 years experience as a professional market maker and been doing this for about 5 years. Learning curve is very steep and I learned a lot during those years of prof trading. I personally feel I couldn't have learnt the broad base I currently have trading on my own... So, you could give it a go. But depending on your age etc, after 1-2 years how hard is it to get back into corp job?
Your points are duly noted. But it's also about "opportunity cost." I actually have many marketable skills. To not use them to earn a great stable salary, benefits, etc. seem like a waste. There's nothing to say that I could perform worse than now when I go FT due to the pressure to make money everyday. I think part-time trading is the best route for now.
When I was at DE Trading / ITG in Glenview, IL as a prop trader, my closest friend was a HUGE Schatz scalper. He kept his part time job selling athletic shoes in the City for a very, very long time. He had that job to help him through his start, and he just kept it even when making serious $$$. Maybe even after he bought a condo in Chicago and his M3. If you're in a position to force trades in order to survive, from my vantage point bad things happen. Just my 2 cents, YMMV.