Personally I don't think 30k is enough to do it for a living. How do you think it would have went with 300k?
Well, maybe think about it like this: are you a good lover? Assuming you answer yes, would you call yourself 'unsucessful' at it because you don't 'do it for a living'?
No, I don't think it is either. My point was that at the time I hit the slide, we were talking about substantially more. With $300k? I probably would have stuck at it a bit longer, but I'm inclined to believe the end result would have been the same. Afterall, if I don't believe that, in essence, the concept of daytrading is a valid one, for reasons independant of capital, then I don't think that changes when you vary starting cap. (Btw, you inadvertantly support my thesis that daytrading is only for a select few; how many people do you know with $300k risk capital on hand?)
That is exactly my point in my post above...Doing it on longer time frames you can also do it while keeping your old job if you so wish!
My 2 cents. The way I actually make money is by combining fundemental catalysts and events with price action. I dont use conventional price patterns and my time frame is mostly a few days.. from 2-20 days usually. Occassionaly on huge economic number days like today.. I will try to daytrade for an intraday swing only when I see a situation present itself usually when markets become extremely oversold of overbought I tend to daytrade. I only daytrade futures or ETF's... like SPY, SMH, IWM. This only happens a few times a month. The best money is made when I am inactive for a few days.. and see a situation present itself with an excellent risk to reward. THe more I try force trades the worse I do. --MIKE
spect8or, I share your sentiment. Even though a few certain people I know are wildly successful day traders, it has been much easier in my experience to make money at higher timeframes. If you have the time to do so, I would be very interested to hear more about what you went through, what kind of strategies you attempted, what were the results, etc. I'm sure many here would also enjoy reading something like that as well.
Well, let's see, Virty. From my opening post: "Don't misunderstand, I'm not railing against all trading. Not at all. I still maintain a great interest in the markets. Only that choosing to make your livelihood from trading the markets is, for the vast majority of people, about as bad a career move as you can make." In case that isn't clear, my "beef" is with daytrading for a living. And, as I mentioned, the nature of daytrading virtually requires you to do it for a living (unless you think you can go to work for another 6-8 hours a day after the markets close). Any other form of trading, "swing" or "position" trading, probably isn't going to generate enough trades, hence "income", to be viable as a sole source, unless you're talking about swinging big $$$, so that kind of trading virtually rules itself out as an income source. EDIT Until you build a large wad of capital, that is.