Here's my take on it. 'Easier' is not a good word to use to describe the situation between stocks and Indexes. Indexes are less volatile than stocks. Therefore, in an uptrend, stocks gain more but they also give more frights.
Forget AAPL. It's as competitive as the ES itself. here is a question for you to think about: would you rather a) own a bakery located between 20 other big chain grocery stores and compete over volume and price? b) be a saddler who focuses on oldtimers, a profession that only a limited amount of people needs but you can charge premium prices? If you like a), go a head and trade all the liquid products out there. You will be competing against the smartest bunch of people on earth who have superior technology and manpower. You will bleed out because liquidity is very good to manage risks with stops If you like b), find a market that you can be the shark in. You need to be very good with managing risk and liquidity (diversification or proper hedging) since you're in the top 20% of volume for that asset. But you can grind out an advantage and make money
Regarding my day trades: I focus on (all sort of) risks and on the direction of markets every day. I day trade futures, financials and indices. My 1st goal is no losing months. My 2nd goal is no losing weeks. This is how I know how successful I am. I also have a fixed maximum "authorized" losing day, in $. I listen to my emotions and I watch in real time the PnL of my trades: A lot of so called mentors will tell you not to do that and to be detached as much as possible (auto-trade...). They just don't day trade for a living. 1 point (4 ticks) of the NQ is $20. The day margin could be even lower than $1,000 depending on the broker you choose. Doubling a capital of $10,000. will require an average of 2.5 points + commissions, during 200 trading days (you will need vacation to celebrate). Today, an exceptional great trading day, from 9:30 to 12:30, 200 points could have been pocketed. Please do the math.
Very sage and wise comments. Most of us will never have to worry about size and scaleability, so it is better to be a saddler. Why I traded illiquid options.
In online poker, if you get 3bb per 100 hand at say .25/.50 to me that’s not very good. However, if u can get at 3bb per 100 hands at 25/50 to 200/400 at no limit six max on PokerStars a few years back when the game was running you would be a world class player. In trading it’s all relative to your account size. So here’s my opinion on what I consider to be a successful day trader from what I read, my own experience, and from talking to other traders. I have no data(I’m not sure if there are data on this) on this so take it with grain of salt. These Numbers I’m throwing out are yearly averages and I’m not going To go into drawdown because that would be another discussion. Account size: 250k and under: Over 100% yearly. 250k-1m: 50-100% yearly. 1-10m: 25-50% yearly. 10m and over: anything that beat spy by 3-5 percent yearly.
Is a more realistic metric regardless of account size. I'm not saying you can't get 100% per year but I don't think it's realistic.
I think many day traders can get 50-100 percent a year if It’s a smaller account size. if you give me an account with 100k or less and 4 to 1 day trading power like a typical day trading account would have, I should be able to get 100 percent in any given year. Ive done it in my personal account for 3 consecutive years when my account was smaller. I can’t do it but I’ve seen quiet a few traders here on et who have said they can get 200-500 percent annually with smaller accounts. @MrMuppet talks about a 50k account and getting 20-50% percent monthly, and from reading many of his posts, i wouldn't bet against him.
What is the reason you are not able to scale? Is it the liquidity of what you are trading or a mental thing about taking uncomfortable risks?
I can't get too much into my strategy on this public forum but once i push my trading size to a certain level i start to have liquidity issues. I'm not one of those traders who have a list of stocks where they trade daily. I trade whenever something show up on my radar that day and some of them are not liquid. For certain stocks i can't get the number of shares that i want and for others when i own too many shares i give up a good portion of my edge because I pay too much slippage when i want to get out. As for my risk appetite, I wouldn't put myself in a position where i'm uncomfortable with the daily swings relative to my overall account size. Your tolerance to financial pain is like a muscle and over time you can build it up. As longs the amount won or loss daily is x percent to my overall portfolio i wouldn't feel uncomfortable even thought that daily dollar figure is getting larger each year.
Day trading every day for a year is a lot of work. Sort of like driving non stop solo for over 14 hours. Someone asked me what the secret to trading is? For this sort of "get rich quick and easy" person, I replied, " A lot of work!". Then he replied it was not for him. To me working 60% (40 days per quarter) of the trading days and making 200K-400K pretax is fine. It is plenty of money for the time put in. Plus you can try to avoid the 1%ers.