I have been trading for 40+ yerars and acquired a lot of experience on and off the exchange floor. I am intelligent, inventive and motivated and experienced to the point that if I have a loosing week scalping CL and ER2 it is because I was a pig.(which happens less and less often) My occasional lack of discipline does not change the fact that almost every day - starting around 7AM EST - by 9:30 to 10:30 I am ahead by what one could call the equivalent of an executive level salary (only 25K-s in that account),Trading one lot of CL, sometimes two at at a time. At that point I run errands and go jogging and after that I seldom return to trading. Unlike most scalpers that I have met I do not have a natural sense for the tempo of the market. Remember the kids who were good dancers? I was not one of them, so I use a structure made up of canned indicators on different time scales (like CCI, Stoc, Averages, Volatility bands, Volume and OBV) to figure out at what time and point to fade the markets. People like the ones post on the P&L thread trade rapidly and if they make mistakes they can recover quickly because in active vehicles there are endless opportunities. No one is doubting a professional tennis player hitting the ball just right from any angle dozens of time during a game but people are incredulous that it could be done in trading. In fact the price of an actively and intensely traded vehicle can be gamed just like a tennis ball or football. Yes my friends, trading has become a video game. (and basically this is what the black boxes are doing too) The sad thing is, people instead of taking responsibility for investigating their own abilities doubt others. Regards, GC
Because you don't make a living from markets, 2% year-to-date is still an acceptable result for you. For you, trading/investment is just a hobby. A hobby usually costs you money. Therefore +2% year-to-date is not bad at all. Whether or not you believe our results does not matter any way. We told you the truth, but you refused to believe it. There is not much we can do about it. Have a nice weekend!
what size accounts are people quoting to have made 10% a month on? i challange anyone of et to show me a $1 million account you made 120% a year every year for 10 years with standard leverage. if anyone made 120% a year on $1 mil or more they'd have the record for the greatest trader of all time. many on the p@l board have 20-50 mil buying power with little down so even if they made 500k a year its not a huge % return
As I said in my original statement, you cannot make 10% a month on a large capital. My statement is: you can make 10% a month on your efficient capital. You may have 1M in your account, but you may never use that much capital for your trading. In this case, your efficient trading capital is less than 1M.
What retail trader maintains a 1 million dollar trading account at one broker? I've never heard of such and such is not a smart thing to do. Retail traders with that kind of dough have spread that kind of money among 2-3 different brokers. Besides, if there is a retail trader with a 1 million dollar trading account... I strongly believe such a trader is only using a portion of that money for actual trading because they most likely know that its much easier to manage the risk exposure in comparison to being in the market with with 1 million dollars. Mark
You obviously don't know what's going on on the prop business. Every prop firm has and has always had its top traders making money like this. There's a book with stories from traders how worked at 'tradescape' (which became E*Trade professional later on) -> http://www.tradebit.com/filedetail.php/1974452 You'll find the same numbers or even (way higher) than posted in the trader p/l thread. I know people who worked there at that time and confirmed that they really made those numbers. But you probably won't believe that either Fact is, people have been making money like this forever ... And way more. Maybe do a google search for 'Paul Rotter', aka 'The flipper', he's a good example of how much money you really can make if you're amongst the best of the world, this guy seriously wouldn't come out of his bed for 50k a day An interesting interview with this trading god: http://i-found-my-holygrail.blogspot.com/2005/09/worlds-most-successful-trader-paul.html
what percent of the posters admit it when they have a bad day ? heck ... I do not post my $$$ amounts won or lost only my % gain or lost I had a huge drawdown once late last yr made it back and then some but other than perhaps PM to Don Bright about it I am not sure if I was willing to post "huge drawdown % wise" on my acct at that time its easy to have an ego and harder to be humble have a nice weekend all
As a guy who posted a fairweather blotter today I'll respond. I fully admit I haven't posted regularly in the P/L thread in quite some time. I have good days, bad days and amazing days. Today was an amazing day under amazing conditions. It was an open we opening traders dream of and comes along very rarely. The last ones even close was Thursday last week and before that it was Nov 18, 2005. So I posted my blotter. While I might not know you, I am active on this site and have come to know a lot of people. I don't get in pissing matches and contribute where I can. Like Lescor, I've met some amazing traders by posting on this site and have met several of them in person. These people have been supportive and inspiring and I consider them good friends now. I got all this by posting my blotter here for a while and not being a dick on this site. Believe it or not I wasn't even high man in our chatroom today. Someone else beat me into the close. 5 of the 7 traders I know best did over 70K each today. Some of them posted on the PnL thread today. I believe 99% of the blotters I see and as far as I know we've only had one confirmed cheater (NYSEKiller caught in a great piece of detective work by Rearden Metal). As far as I'm concerned every blotter posted today was legit.