Hello everyone I have been position trading commodities for a little over a year now. I am currently a junior in high school. I tried day trading during the summer because I thought that in order for me to do this for a living someday I better be able to profit intra day and not just have positions for weeks or months. To put it simply I failed misserably! So I went back to position trading and built up enough capital to try it again. Now that school is going on I was forced to trade the currencies from about 3:30-7:30am. I did ok at first but after about a month I blew up my account that I set aside stictly for intra day trading which amounted to about $5000 (I know its not much but to a 17 year old kid it adds up pretty fast). To be honest im really starting to get irritated at the fact that I can profit consistantly position trading but am not worth a damn intra day. The reason I want to be so successful at intra day trading is because when you go work for a prop firm or for yourself at one of the exchanges you basically are trading intra day right? I mean there isn't any prop firms or many guys that can withstand the sometimes huge fluctuations of position trading and still be able to take home a few bucks at the end of the week for utilities, rent, car payment, etc right? Or are there prop firms for longer term traders? I am not a very good student in school so going to a college like Harvard is not much more than a dream at this point. I will probably be going to a state school here in Iowa so I don't think I will have much luck trading for Goldman, Morgan, or any hedge fund when I don't have a degree from a high pedigree school. So I know I have to make it on my own if I want to succeed. Maybe I should of put this in the career section but I know more people seem to post and look at this section so I figured I could get more opinions. Any help with this is greatly appreciated as I am kind of at a fork in the road as to where to focus my trading. Thanks Again
If you can profit consistently from position trading, then just go with what works and position trade. Quite frankly, why work for a prop, if you can trade futures profitably? Either way, don't stress it too much because it sounds like you have several years to continue practicing before you have to earn a living. The fact is, you are way ahead of the curve to even be trading profitably at your age, so I applaud your maturity.
clacy thanks for the compliment but don't some prop firms offer you a base salary and so much % of what you make? I just am wondering if anybody would hire a trader that position trades not just day trading. I would eventually like to go on my own after that if I can build up enough capital to give it a shot but I will probably want to work for some kind of prop firm before that. Any ideas?