Didn't you know? MrMarket is the night janitor at Wharton. That's why he has his day's free to bother us traders.
ggg..all this time I thought he was in the basement trying to become a great trader. I guess his allowance wasn't much, had to pick up another job
Mr Market, I have been trading FT since mid-97 for my own accounts. From 97 to 02 I day-traded high RS stocks on breakouts, swingtraded those same stocks, and position traded a tweaked version of the Canslim Method. From 97 to 02 I never had a year under a 3 digit return, but I did encounter some considerable DD's to achieve that... In Jan 02, I moved over to the futures arena and did that exclusively, I did not achieve a 3 digit return, but I did have one of my top years on a dollar per dollar basis, I was well into 6-figures, but did just under a 50% return on capital... I have since started an LLC and have parteners (opm), trading both futures and equities. I am shooting for a 50% return on a DD less than 8%. I would consider this a "good" year considering the capital I am working with, anything over would be gravy for me and my partners... Although I am not a typical 'day-trader', I a hope this can answer your questions. PEACE and good-specul8tion Oh and FWIW, I am most definately in RS's camp with the 25% return. Anybody managing over a 1/2 mil and netting 25% per year (on tight DD's) is a 'good' trader imo, not great, but definately gets the job done.
An acceptable return if you are new to the game. However, if you have been trading for more than a couple of years then you really should try harder.
Specul8r its almost impossible for anybody on this site or in general to believe that there are a few people that are able to consistently make money trading in the market. Most want to believe they need a computer system, others want to believe in the efficient market theory and speak in egg head terms. Well spec I put my numbers..actual copies of my P&L from Terra Nova Online for the month of October on ET for all to see. It was 30k profit. I didnt get one single PM from anybody and the responses to the thread were minimial. What I find interesting about that is that you and I spec are wasting out time posting on ET, answering questions defending our craft. All the while nobody ever posts their records on ET (even though people ask repeatedly of each other) and finally when somebody does its just fades in to the background. Why is this the case? I think its the case because when you look at the reality of this site its all about very lonely people who are more interested in keeping up extrodinarily high thread counts in order to obtain some artificial celebrity status. Bottom line is the truth about trading stands as it always has...very few people make it in this profession. I would say that 5% or less make a living out of it or even are net profitable. Fortunately for us spec we are in that 5%.
I actually read your posts and consider you one of the people worth paying attention to here. It's pretty obvious that you know your stuff. I for one hope you keep posting.
Only by maintaining the illusion that success is impossible can one avoid assuming the responsibility for his own failure. Misery loves company.