hi tyler ... perhaps this has been said before here in thread I know it has been stated elsewhere on ET do not worry about how much you can make do not try to make as much as the "BIG GUNS" you read about in magazines or you meet in the biz somehow or even on ET worry about your methods your risk your discipline your self control your edge your best markets or stocks your type of trades etc how old are you anyway ? what is your background ? can you afford to lose 20K ? good luck
B1S2: I'm utterly confused by this. I've read many of your posts without a doubt to your sanity until now. 1) You're selling straddles if you're buying the underlying and selling two calls. Not that straddle selling is a bad play, particularly in bonds or possibly even ES these days, but it's not really a way to decrease your exposure. You're getting pretty short gamma which increases your exposure. (i.e you have both upside and downside exposure) 2) How are you selling straddles without using margin? I know exactly how much margin it takes for me to sell a straddle on practically any future or equity. Neither is "free". Unless you mean you're not exceeding your cash in margin use. I must be misunderstanding your strategy... As to tyler: Stick your $2k into a bond or mutual fund. Paper trade until you're consistently successful, then risk *VERY* tiny amounts of it. Like others have said, it's not controlling much you'll make per day, but how much you'll lose. Also, $400 is crazy for a $2k account. 5 bad days (everyone has a bad week), and you're out. If you're leveraged, you'll be getting a margin call and going even deeper into debt. Just do some simple math--you're expecting to make 20% per *day*. If you could do that, your account balance will be over $1M in 36 trading days. Does that sound reasonable?