The first thing to learn is that posting on a message board is the LAST way to get advice, as all the idiot replies prove. The advice from sle is the only one to make any sense... or have any authority behind it. It takes at least a year of paper trading to get in a position where you are not losing money consistently. 99.% of people who start out with your goal trading live lose their stake within the first year...or sooner. There really is no free lunch. If there were everybody would instantly eat it.
"There are no free lunches, there are only cheap lunches. Even then, when biting into a cheap potato, ensure that it's not a rock. " (c) me
U wanna quit escorting to make 150USD a day ?!? Business gotta be tough out there... Seriously, try to keep your contacts at least warm, you're more likely to lose a significant portion of ur 20k than make 150bucks a day out of it
If you live in a big city (NYC), (LA), perhaps you could join a prop firm while you continue to work on weekends/nights. This way you will get some education plus risk management, I know alot of people trash firms like SMB, but the good thing is that you will pay their training fee, but you might actually learn something that will be useful, instead of jumping in the market with your 20k and losing 10k of it instantly, especially with options....
Lexi what made you want to start day trading options at the start instead of stocks? Just a suggestion but maybe you could do mostly stocks at first with the odd option trade and see how you do first...try to preserve that capital as long as possible..as you are likely to make mistakes and lose money. Honestly, day trading is very tough, might even suggest swing trading stocks and the occasional option with small size and try to get consistancy before you size up. You are trading from home i assume?
The market will never give you a fixed amount of dollars (or euros) a day. The idea that we can extract X dollars every single day from our trading activity (in your case your goal is to make $150/day) has to be abandoned once and for all! On the other hand, making $150/day ON AVERAGE now that's another story. I will answer your question with another question : "Do you have a backtested system that generates $150 a day profit ON AVERAGE" ? This is the only question that truly matters. That said forget about making 188% annual return on investment (like your numbers suggest), it is not going to happen. Remember that the biggest hedge and mutual funds cannot even beat the S&P 500 or make 15% per year average on a consistent basis.
perhaps you could come to a mentoring "exchange" with a trader here....perhaps it would be more worth your while to escort a trader in exchange for training. sorry to be so crude, but I know everyone is thinking the same thing!
I wasn't ... no wonder I feel wasted today... yeah that would be a pleasant change from those birds who have no clue nor interest abt what happens on the screen ( but who get more than 150/day lol)