Well I would like to think traders have longer career longevity than escorts. Plenty traders are still trading and they are way past even 70's.
And now you are showing yourself as being thick with your flawed thinking... According to you, if a trader does not make a profit on any given day, that trader does not get paid. But if you work for a "regular paycheck", you get paid irrespective of profit or loss made by the company issuing the paycheck. How can that be? Because the company issuing a regular paycheck has working capital! And that is exactly what I presented... A trader job is no different than a regular job. Apparently to the thick and flawed, a trading business is an all or nothing payout as there is no such thing as working capital. Geez.
It really depends on where you are living as well. A doctor/surgeon in the US can make millions a year, in the EU max a few 100K. We recently had a show running here about doctors/surgeons who are world wide recognized as one of the best if not the best in their field and they where "only" making 10-20K/month. Same goes with IT professionals and lawyers etc.
If you are in a high paying profession (eg specialist doctor), you can 'safely' live a more extravagant lifestyle - fancy cars on lease, luxury house with a big mortgage etc. You are reasonably confident of your future cash flows so can spend a good chunk of your income. A trader with equivalent income has to be much more careful. You don't know what the future holds, so it makes much more sense to squirrel away the money. Also, the psychological pressure of having high monthly commitments may affect your trading. I think a lot of good traders live below their means for this reason. Fancy houses and flash cars come after you've made the money up front and can pay cash. The irony of course is that when you get to this position, you realise it isn't about the material displays of success, it is about winning the game.
Assuming a 7% net normalised return (not a bad target in itself), trading starts comparing to the other high paying professions when: 1) You have > $5m in your porfolio (unleverred) 2) You are very good at legally minimising your tax bill.
Totally disagree with this. Market conditions can cause changes to the trading plan. Hardware needs to be upgraded....for instance I need a computer with 8 cores to do backtesting on tick data. Software is always changing and upgrading, so you must keep up with that. Trading hours vary based on market conditions. Slow days may require longer hours.
Move from 1 contract to 2 contacts and double your income. Yes, it's true. And it does work that way! If you net profit $100 a day with one contract, using the same strategy with 2 contracts your net (profit or loss) doubles with no other changes. No additional inventory, customers, equipment, labor, leases, licensing, schooling, etc needed! BUT... From the trading business stance, there is prudence and cowboyism. If the increased size is not properly backed to support at minimum a small consecutive string of losing days with the increased size, from the business view this should/would not be acceptable. And this thread is about those traders who's business expenses and personal income are derived from a trading account. "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should." ~ Jurrasic Park
No problem to disagree mister. All of us trade differently, trade different financial instruments, have different trade plan, have different experiences ..... Anyway, when I wrote those comments, it has been highly simplified. In real world, it is not that straight forward
Not if you go thru an agency....they generally give you a 30-40% "hair-cut"....so that comes down to $600-$700 per day and only $400-$500 considering employment taxes.