You're an adult and you can technically do whatever you want. But the problem is - do you own the consequences? I think the consequences of what you're doing are not going to be easy to swallow. You are throwing yourself into the arms of bankruptcy with the slight hope that you will prevail, which is really gambling as you correctly put it. The only rationale for this is that you probably are just in a big rush to make it, which is a very, very, very typical problem for traders (and other people in other ventures). Pay back your loans before you blow your stack. Go research a remote prop trading firm. Save up some money and leave your job on a positive note (in other words put yourself into your work so you'll get good references). Then quit your job and find some freelance work you can do to keep you going. This can all happen in 12-18 months time. That's nothing. You being in this mad rush to make money will absolutely torpedo any chances you have, for the very unlikely probability of having made a successful run which will be under tremendous stress. If you do as I suggest, you're giving yourself a fighting chance. If not, within a few weeks I guarantee you, you'll stop making these update posts as you'll be embarrassed for the decision you made and will inevitably see how you could have avoided it by not having made the poor business decision you seem ready to make right now. If it's thrills you're after, get into competitive sports. Don't do something that will leave a black mark on you professionally. Yeah you're in your twenties and all, but don't waste them by having to spend time to rebuild from damage you could have easily avoided by forcing yourself to be patient - something that is a sign of maturity and a hallmark of success.
If you want to be a trader, you have to know when to stop out. So keep your job and if you need 8% a month for it to work and if you don't make 8% in your first month, then stop out. Pay back the loan. Reassess. Or come up with some black and white measure of success and a time limit and if you haven't been "successful" by the time limit, stop out.
Day 7: Beginning of day: $37628.28 End of day: $40979.67 P/L: $3,351.39; +8.91% WOOT WOOT! DUST all day and only DUST. Small overnight position in DUST that I was hoping for a higher start was just flat. W/e really because it's hard for DUST to disappoint even more. Traded more with DUST earlier in the day and made some gains. Traded more and lost those gains. GDX was screaming to go down all day so I added/sold positions carefully trying to time that. Ended up going negative for the day, maybe 1-2%. GDX was seriously screaming at me that it wanted to drop but it just did not have much movement most of the day. Small, small changes that wasn't really significant. Close to 12pm PDT it is showing signs of the big drop. 11:56 am PDT I'm considering whether I should sell at 1.85 or put on a trailing stop because I had a meeting at 12. Did a limit order at 1.85 and the bids always just stop at 1.84. OMG time is ticking and I gotta go into the conference room. Watching GOLD alongside GDX graphs and omg it is screaming just screaming it wants to go down but it just wont. No idea why it was putting up such a fight. Canceled my limit order and put on a trailing stop order for 2%. Came back from meeting like 30 minutes later and it was up just as I've pictured in my head. Super happy today, things worked out just as I'd planned. Giving myself 3+ stars for today's trading. Everything worked out well. Disappointed in my position sizes that made me lose earlier gains I made today, but giving props for the patience in staying in DUST. Can't give myself 4 stars because I tried to sell my positions at 1.85, but just by pure luck the order did not get filled. So lucky, things just worked out for me today. After the huge loss yesterday I was pretty bummed out, sad to see my week's gain disappear in a day. Yet today things played out beautifully and made it back. Note to self: play it safe and play defense. No more big drops. Wait the market out. Don't get overconfident. Don't get cocky.
@wabu27, take it from a guy who's been around the block. 1) pay back all your loans. NOW. taking out loans to fund your trading, at 28% no less, is like feeding cheetahs steroids while you're trying to run away from them. sooner than later, they'll catch up to you and eat you up alive. 2) if you really want to daytrade, trade sim for a year at minimum to see if you really have what is required to be a professional trader. whether you start trading live at age 24 or 28 isn't going to make a huge difference, if any. 3) instead of running all over the place, focus on one market and master it. start with es or nq or ym. as others have already mentioned, you can open up a futures account for a lot less and daytrade. 4) stick with your day job. study for that cfa and pass it. 'til then, trade sim or a small size account. 5) thank me in year 2020 after following steps 1 to 4 above. you will be forever grateful.
Excellent analogy, lol... I would, however, argue against trading futures if you're undercapitalized (I've done it myself). It seems wabu27 has the workings of a strategy in stocks and I'd keep with that as opposed to switching to futures, it's a different ball game. Unfortunately, this problem is a reason why the pattern day trader rule needs to be abolished, it forces people to do crazy things like wabu is doing. A US citizen can't even open up an account outside of the US because brokerages enforce the PDT rule abroad. I know some people who either have foreign citizenship or have a trusted friend who has it, and they use that to open an account in Europe.
Day 8: Beginning of day: $40979.67 End of day: $37205.25 P/L: ($3,774.42); -9.21% Where to begin. Remember the guy that was talking about how he will not have big losses again? Telling himself to play defensively and control position sizes. I believe that was just earlier this week. Well, you can see the results. Day started out funny reading the T2W posts and in the meantime missing an easy rally that was happening in the markets. No big, there was plenty of easy moves to capitalize on in the morning. It was really a matter of picking one and seeing if it will go up higher than the stock next to you. It was easy and obvious, and I thought anyone that loses money on a day like this is a fool. Well, I'm up over 3% and about to start my work (had lots of work to do today). I'm about to close my screens when I see a potential move in NFLX. Oh, I made money from NFLX and JBLU for the earlier 3% gain. I thought if the market helps, this day could be the day NFLX can gain 2% or 3%, possibly up to 5%. I get in. Drops. I add. Drops. I add. Slowly dropping and I'm going wtf am I doing. Now it's past my stop target and my P/L is like +$200 for the day. "Hm. What to do. I really deserved this. This was not a carefully thought out trade. Wow I can't even believe I'm up for the day. I wouldn't be surprised if I was down $5000 today." That is really how I was trading and I felt like garbage. Yea that summarizes the whole day. Garbage. I for some dumb forsaken reason hold onto NFLX because I'm so disappointed in myself. I felt like I should be negative for the day for how I traded. I hold. Waiting for the bounce. Rally. Nope. I exit.. down 2%. I'm not even sure what I did today. Such an easy day and good earnings for the day, yet I couldn't stop. I was pretty out of it. Low volume throughout entire stocks now. I just put my money into VALE and just let it sit. Meanwhile doing work I needed to get done. Vale drops. A lot. Now I don't know why I put the money in or why I didn't set a stop. I just don't know. Can't concentrate on stocks and can't concentrate on work. Gotta get this finished yet gotta think what to do with VALE. Seriously considered thinking of quitting trading today if this is how I'm going to trade. This is just like my old self coming back. Cocky and confident after couple winners, and losing. Ego problems maybe? Not sure. Gotta think deep about this one tonight. Giving myself 1- stars today. What more to say? Surprised I only lost the amount I lost today. Should've lost a lot more.
Day 9: Beginning of day: $37205.25 End of day: $37541.04 P/L: $335.75; 0.90% Weekly gain: -9.61% YTD gain: 5.12% Played with FB, UA, and AAL today. Made a solid return with AAL's bounce but gave a lot of it up while trying to time the bottom with FB. Profit is small but given today's boring market, not bad. Was pretty worried yesterday after taking a huge loss but was fine after having a couple beers at night. Giving myself 2+ stars for today's trading. Could have done better with positioning and scaling down/scaling up but overall entry and exits were not bad. Practiced safer trading today by trying to scale down/scale up. I think I'm getting the hang of it. I think the only true winner today was scottrade for the commissions. Not a good week but I think it was for the better. Feeling good and confident. Looking forward to next week.
Good luck wabu27 - The best experience you can get is experience itself. Its going to be hard work, toil and tears - if your dedicated and committed you will do it. Regards
Loaning to trade => no go! What if you lose the loaned money? Even a scraping daytrader can utilize turbo's during volatility to get insane amount of money.