Sweet Booby has no connection with theotrade other than they are both broke mofos. Booby's net liq is under $20K. No tears!
MAKING MONEY IN THE STOCK MARKET Short Time Frame ------> HARDER Long Time Frame -------> EASIER Think of it like this, if you put money in the market (SP500) every month, for 10-20 years, you will very likely make a lot of money (especially in tax-advantaged account). Don't think there has been a single time in a zillion years of market history that this has failed to be profitable. Compared to the damn near 100% failure rate of day traders, this doesn't seem too bad? Live a good life, put away what you can. And kick back a few Fosters!
I never liked Fosters. I never wanted to admit it. Then I found out most Australians don't care for it, either and I felt a lot better. The cans are badass, though.
Making $200-$300 a day (consistently) in futures is unrealistic with only $2,000 to $3,000 capital to trade from. The hard truth is that it is statistically more likely that you will lose $50-$200+ a day in futures on that capital even trading micro-emini's because most newbie traders have no consistent edge, usually over-trade (resulting in large commissions), usually cut their winning trades short and let losses run or engage in averaging down if long or averaging up if short hell bent on repairing a bad trade. Trading for (consistent) daily income is very hard and takes alot of time to get good at and most people run out of money. Unfortunately some new traders will get lucky on their 1st few trades and make some decent money and start to think this is easy and then lose all their money over the next several trades. Most newbie traders trying to daytrade futures for daily income ending up blowing up their account (or several accounts) as it typically takes a substantial amount of live trading screen time and learning to get any good at it consistently
So I'm new here as well. And fairly new to trading like yourself so hoping this helps. Will try to shed some optimism so you're not downed but different replies here. Is what you're trying to do possible, yes. BUT, you'll need to catch a 'friend trend'. Like the last two days, or like July/August when I started and got really lucky (with virtually everything going up helped me get 300% ROI for a month) $2k is not much, you'll most likely have to start with Micro Minis S&P b/c almost everything else will require more cash to get higher margins. I'll let the picture speak a 1000 words. Put your startup tactic into action last night. As you can see it's possible with Micros - I'm up almost $200, but AGAIN that's with a trend behind you. It's very volatile out there and if you don't catch the trend you have to WATCH your commissions. At small volume you might be paying as high as 2.25 (so that's almost $5 to open and close) and with Micro futures tick worth only 1.25 you have to catch big swings to be successful at scalping. Otherwise you'll pay more in commissions than you gain scalping with small budget. PLUS couple mistakes and you won't have enough to make new scalps. Not to change the subject, but ping me directly if you'd like. Maybe we can do some business first (I'm in digital advertising and it sounded like you're in IT or something like that) Maybe then soon you'll be able to start with higher budgets and Minis instead of Micros for higher tick values. Hoping it helps Chris