I don't trade, but I work for a prop firm. We have 2 guys banking a million this year, 25 making a good living. From what I see, either you have what it takes or you don't. If you spend more than a year grinding it out, trying to make it happen, do yourself a favor and quit. Seriously.
Yeah but isn't the great thing about the markets the emotions, the fear and greed that lead to huge seloffs and rallies. What happens when programs control 90%+ of the volume out there - they take all the emotion, fear, greed out of the markets. Could be wrong though, I think the markets from the mid 60s to early 80s were pretty range bound, but I don't know about the volitility back then.
I'd rather not talk about it. But 90% of the loss occured between 2004-2005 while I was working fulltime as an EE. I quit my job and started trading futures fulltime in 2005 with about 150K. Little did I know what I was in for. One thing I know is that I will never quit.
There use to be a time when I see every rally and would get pissed if I'm not on it. Nowadays, I only don't even flinch. BEcause if you can make 1-2% securely every 1-2 weeks. Very securely, The amount of leveraged that can be used, can make you a very wealthy man. You don't even need to be on the full rally, You just need to make YOUR percentage, the rest is gravy ++ . I talk to many traders and what I have noticed is, most people don't even have a real edge. + don't understand where the market is suppose to be moving + trade everyday even though they aren't even scalping but they keep insisting they are scalping (funniest) + Trade on basic patterns (don't work) But what most people need to understand is they need to trade consistent things. Consistent opportunities requires patience and waiting. That goes in the opposite of someone who needs to rake in money to put food on the table. " I need to make money, I need to make money" And that kind of mentality gets you owned.
Market is constantly trying to keep the winners from winning again. The only players that are supposed to win all the time are the insiders. see Soes Bandits.
So what type of trading are you guys referring to....seems like equities mainly? Because I work on the floor at the CBOT in the bond options, and a lot of the guys down there are still making a pretty good buck, really good in some cases. And then I know some younger (mid-20s) guys trading cash-market upstairs that are doing pretty well also (30K+ a month, consistently). And the bond market hasn't been all that great recently either, so I guess it depends on what you trade or how you define doing "well".
I'm having my best quarter ever. But then again, I don't daytrade, and I've adjusted my equities swing system for low volatility. But watching the SPY chart I monitor on 5-min bars, I can see what the problem's been for day traders and ES traders.
its funny you got guys on here saying all the guys in there offices doing great or all the guys in there prop group making 20-50ka month. i know or talk to at least 50 traders and i see very few doing any of the #'s quoted on here