Think about it. He or she will break even trading full time if he or she can generate enough return to cover inflation + his normal 9-5 full time salary. That means your starting capital has to be around ~6x of your annual income provided you can generate 20% return year after year. ~14x if it is 10% return. Unless you inherit something, it is quite hard to save 6x of your annual income after tax. If you are a doctor, that means 1.4mil. However, if you are a waiter/waitress, it make the decision to switch easier..
I don't trade to generate 20% a year. That wouldn't be worth it at all. Look at the P/L thread more closely there are guys in there making 20% a week of 100k and more. If you can hack it in the industry the rewards are ridiculous. 20% a year?,
What reason would a consistently profitable trader have for posting their P&L every day for 5+ years? A trader such as that doesn't need to prove anything to anyone. They don't care whether you believe their results or not. The only reason to consider a long ongoing daily P&L posting is if the trader were getting something in return (such as their needing extra credibility to raise funds for managing other people's money). Most of the consistently successful independent traders that I know have little interest in managing money for others, figuring they'd rather keep 100% of their profits.
I am talking about year after year for 10 years. There are guys in P&L that can do that but not that many. Also, not counting small accounts.. If your track record as a mutual fund manager is 20% year after year for ten years, you got to be prized target for headhunter. If tons of people are able to do that easily, then there are just a lot for me to learn...
Exactly, if most people here are confident about generating return 20% year after year, the topic flooding this site will be how can I borrow money the cheapest way to leverage up.. In fact, this is the main problem for private equity. Anyway, it is very well possible that I don't know what I am talking about.
Seems some of you guys are confused about ROI and daytrading. I explained here. http://elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=1906262&highlight=return#post1906262
I don't know why he didnt quit/reitre when he had a few million. I would. Or at least i'd stop being risky. A few million is enough to retire with invested conservatively with low/no risk and never touch the principal. That's my goal. I'd rather retire young w a few million (stress free for the rest of my days) than keep working because I feel i need multi millions and be stressed out and possibly lose money.