NoDoji.. thanks for your willingness to share. My comments were not directed to you personally but you know in general and based on the all the reasons I cited... i.e various professionals, head managers at prop firms, etc. Those are certainly very good results and have given me reason to consider to investigate it more.
5% never listen to any opinion never ask tips or suggestions, think by him/herself. stay focus on what they are familar with. ignore distractions. I am an option trader.made some kind of success. my secret is NEVER LISTEN TO ANYONE. lots of my friends said to me options are very risky. but to me, put it another way it is very lucrative. look at today's AIG, C, FSLR, mcp, and AAPL option, you know those opportunities could not be found in any other instruments. I am a small account single handed retail trader, gather as much as soon as i can is critical. so I can forget about money, just focus on the game. since there are so many opportunities, you need focus, never look around. I am trading AAPL 250 Feb.24 520 call. I saw crude at 107.95 reversal, but I just focus on AAPL, made better money than trade crude. let crude go.
FWIW I remember reading Dr Brett's comments a while back. Apparently he became more pessimistic about retail trader expectations after a private meeting with the CEO of a retail brokerage company several years ago. The guy told him something like 90% of the small traders at his firm blew out their accounts within a year of opening them and he had never encountered a customer of theirs who could make a consistent living off a small account. I tend to agree that there are no traders making a living off a 10k account. Anyone who was that skilled would keep the account at a larger size once they had generated enough profits, wouldn't they? A larger account builds the emotional firewall and means you're less likely to be trading scared money. I have seen profitable day trading and while in both cases the trader was very well capitalized... theoretically they should be able to apply the same techniques with 1-2 contracts in a 10k account considering you can get $500 margins from some brokers. At least that's my assumption.
Why does the second sentence necessarily follow from the first? If NoD generates $400/day, she is generating about $110,000 of income. This would give her the flexibility to blow out two $10,000 accounts, and be left with $90,000 averaging $350/day. If NoD generate $500/day, she is generating about $132,000 of income. This would give her the flexibility to blow out four $10,000 accounts, and be left with $90,000 averaging $350/day. I have blown out 5 small accounts, but my little savings account has doubled from $2000 to a little over $4000 as a result of the trading income I have generated over the last 3.5 months. At that rate, I should have $16,000 by November, and will be all setup to generate a $150,000/yr income! Probably not; I'm just kidding. I'm still too inexperienced. Does the 90% statistic take this into consideration?
They do not listen to mentors ,genuises on forums .signal service sellers included ,writers of books ,private rooms services and other crooks appearing Bloomberg and CNBC.
BH, I'm not saying that I think making a living off a 10k futures account is impossible. I'm saying it's not likely to find anyone doing it. For the few real traders I've had the chance to talk to, proper capitalization is a big thing they have stressed to me. So I'm assuming anyone who was a career trader would want an account larger than 10k to trade from. Not that they couldn't trade from a 10k account, but they'd prefer it to be larger.
LOL. you won't make a living off a 10k account, unless you live in your mom's basement and she pays all the bills. You need about 2-3k a month to simply "survive" in America, and if you only have 10k i doubt you are going to make 30% your first month. I think 5% win (i only trade part-time, but have been very "lucky" with stocks and investments -- not trading) because they understand what a beginner sees and does the opposite. you know beginners love to pick tops....so the 5% is either patient and sells another high as they get stopped out, or simply buys these highs which lead to new highs. the more people say "Sell, sell, sell", you start to think, "it is definitely time to buy."
I don't think I would choose to trade $10,000 for every year. Obviously, though, I'm not at that level yet. I would be more inclined to gradually increase the trading capital, and then "invest" for the long term a sizeable percentage. So I'd take the $90,000, give the government its share in income tax leaving me with $65,000. I would add $5000 to my trading capital, invest $20,000, and live on $40,000. As I was trading, I would be withdrawing weekly, all profits, and putting most in a savings account that I could draw from if I blew out the account. But, that's just me. I'm much more cautious than many of you. Currently, I do withdraw profits weekly. There is never more than a few hundred in my trading account.
The problem is risk control. Making a living off 10,000 dollar account makes no sense to me. Even if your leveraged 4 times (40,000)The amount you risk per trade would be too high. In the real world you can't say. "Okay i plan on making 10% a month so my income will be 4K". That is not how trading works. You can be up 15% one month and be on top of the world. Then the next month your down 5% and you wonder whats going on. You start to fiddle with your trading style and you make things worse. You should never set an amount you need to make you will make stupid decisions and eventually drop out of the game with a blown account. You should trade small whilst building your account to ensure you stay in the game. If you build your account to 50,000.00 maybe then you can live off your earnings. To me though i wouldn't understand why you would want to do so. If you are a good trader who the heck would stop there when you can keep turning profits and compound your account If you can turn 10,000% into 50,000$ you can turn 50,000$ into 250,000$ in the same time frame. Simply put if you are a higher frequency trader 1/2 percent per day compounded is a 500% return yearly. Shit you will be in the new Market Wizards book. The fact is even that is tough to do. At the same time very possible. Bottom line you should not be worried about how much you are going to make. You should be more concerned about the risk you are taking with each trade. Making probable low risk trades and compounding your account properly. You will be much more successful long term which is what this game is about "LONG TERM". Believe me I am not a naysayer just simply been in the game long enough to understand you can't pull out the calculator and punch in your future success. This is a psychology game with mathematics in between. Trade small compound and you will reach the stars. I am on the journey right now. So should we all!