Listen my friend, I run an office in Chicago OK. Over the years I've had every type of trader you can imagine in my book. Every strategy under the sun. I saw all the P&L. And you're right, it sure did talk! It showed 95% of them never made money no matter what approach they took! Some sold naked options. Some swing traded. Some just bought and held shit forever. None of it worked.
@Shanb Great Journal, best of luck for the future. @alTrader You've made your point. Move along, won't you? @BaggerLord I'm sure you mean well, but I think this Journal would be better for Shanb (and everyone else) if you kept your thoughts to yourself.
You've told me this before and I know it is true, but this is the same in any field. At one point in time I had a desire to go into MMA. I have been doing martial arts my whole life and fell in love with the sport after doing muay thai for a year. I knew that MOST people who attempt to do it professionally are not going to succeed. I have a friend who works for a real estate software firm in the silicon valley...his goal is to start his own startup in a couple years! He knows that most 95% of people who will go into it will not succeed!! Before going into trading I knew the stats and all that other stuff..so what I'm still here! Defeat and failure are always a reality, but if one starts to harp on those how will one ever give himself a chance to succeed. Hell if one does fail or not do as well as one hoped, you pick yourself up and keep going. Or you quit when the going gets tough. Anything worth having is never easy to get, I'm here to take all that on! I just turned 23 and have my all to put into this and I am.
The SPY was one trade when I first started out...you go forward and learn. Care to nit-pick a little more?
That may be true, fine with me if that is the case. I'm pretty sure the only one in this thread really worth listening to is Maverick lol. The guys I know that do well daytrading do it by shooting for big intraday swings, not scalping ticks. I'm sure it can be done on in play stocks, although I don't know anyone that does. I personally know 2 people that do it on russel and s+p futures and have done so for years. They do it by being selective on when they trade. They only trade maybe 3 times a day. I started to do well when I accepted this approach. I also had to accept I was badly undercapitalized and not in a position to make a career out of it yet. Too many make the mistake of trying to compensate for undercapitalization by overtrading. They try to squeeze water out of stones and go broke in the process.
PM me your company. My cousin is an exec for an options market making company located in Chicago (British firm)... I'm curious to learn what firm allows their traders to day trade, swing trade, trade options (especially naked) and buy-and-hold. Shanb, IWM (nit-picking/confirmation bias)
So by being a broker-dealer you get to analyze all of your clients' P/Ls? I assumed it was a fund. Best of luck to all. I think I repeated my advice on day trading equities enough times... it's not a cake-walk and regardless how hard you try you can easily fail. There's an enormous element of chance involved and skill in trading is not as simple to attain as in say music or sports. The more efficient the market, the tougher it will be for a trader. For what it's worth I do "day trade" but only when the opportunity is there. I don't trade for the sake of trading and am very selective with my set-ups. The easiest way to make money is to get in during the pre-mkt and get out on the open... After 10:45am my P/L is incredibly random. The problem with my style is that it's not very scalable and opportunities are once or twice a week. I've found that swing trading works best for me and I am basically trading commodity names for momentum plays.
I don't analyze their p&l, I manage the risk in my book. LOL. Nothing is a cake walk man! Seriously, market making is tough, investing is tough, everything is tough. Again, if there was one part of the market where everything was oh so easy, everyone would pack themselves into that room! It just doesn't work that way. Trading is hard no matter what time frame, what product you are trading and what your strategy is. It's just tough!