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I sent you the information on Trembling Hand Trader....the Australian SPI trader who taught himself to scalp the SPI when it was liquid enough, he's now trading for Propex in Melbourne and would have to be one of the largest HSI traders in Australia.
300k in which dollar? If that's American than I'm moving to Australia ...
I know of 4 people that make a living off trading. They all started out differently, one was a broker, one an IT guy, one was a foreigner that came to America on a bet with his friend that he couldn't make a million bucks in a coupe years. He fell into trading some how and turned a 10k account into 380k in futures trading. This was after he was very successful in trading stocks so obviously not the norm, he was no spring chicken, he picked up futures and everything clicked
I know that trading for a living is attainable as all 4 of these people are doing just that and they have all been a mentor to me in one fashion or another. I seem to have found my niche and its working well on sim. I need to finish up my out of state work commitments then its onto a combine for me
Why is a business a better idea, and how do you define 'very rich'? I think that, if you want to be very rich (i.e., a multi-millionaire), trading is the best idea (note: that doesn't mean that I'm trading for that reason). But compared to regular businesses: (a) trading has higher profit margins (there is no need to rent a expensive shop location or have a staff of expensive engineers or programmers), (b) more efficient capital usage (no need to buy goods, have them on your shelves for 2 months, sell them, and wait another month before the customer pays his invoice), (c) more efficient management (it takes less energy and time than a business owner who has to manage employees, make customers happy, and do acquisition of new customers), (d) larger scalability if you trade liquid markets (while, if you are a regional business owner, there is a limit to how much people will visit your store or goods you can ship without incurring high shipping costs),
and I'd even say that (e) trading has less different sources risk to manage (primarily model risk and market risk as the most important), while a business owner has a wider range of risks which are also harder to manage (employee risk of fraud or stealing IP, customer risk of not paying or bad word-of-mouth, economic risk when you just started a new factory and sales plummet, and so on).
Of course, the risks in trading are larger, but come from less different sources which are also easier to manage yourself. For example, if you trade liquid instruments, you can quickly close a position if your risk management dictates that. While if you are a business owner with a factory and people on the payroll, it's much harder to quickly scale back when things don't go well.
True. Some dozen traders have made it on the Quote 500 list (the Dutch equivalent of the Forbes' wealthy list). See here for their estimated wealth: Who’s who in the 1% - amsterdamtrader (with figures, obviously, in euro's).
Isn't that a narrow definition of "success"? Sure, this thread is about making (a lot of) money, so this would be a adept definition of "financial success", but I wouldn't go as far as saying that overall success is measured only by someone's bank account and income.
I need you to define what "nothing" is and "something" is from the phrase, "from nothing to something". In short to answer your question, yes it is possible. I went from my full time job as a 9 to 5 business analyst to trading futures intra-day. I do not own an island nor do I have a 15 garage mansion with ferraris in every color. However, trading has given me the freedom to be my own boss and have more time for important things in my life. I make comparably the same amount as I do as when I worked my day job but I just trade in the mornings now and have the rest of my day to do whatever I want. I guess I could just increase the number of contracts I trade and make more money, but why change something that's working. Sorry if this post is a bit different from what you're asking for, which is the 20-figure bank statements, but just shedding some light into a full time retail trader's life with no formal training.
"Success" as a day trader. Its just a benchmark definition. Feel free to make as much money as you want! You aren't considered to be a successful day trader if you can't pay for your next meal with your profits. Or pay for everything you need to live comfortably for a year.
Sarcasm aside, the point remains. Hopefully you gave it a bit of thought before quipping.
It is no doubt inspirational to hear of successful traders who are making it on their own. However someone showing you proof (brokerage statements, as you mentioned), is extremely unlikely and in the end, irrelevant.
Anyway, this thread is largely about inspiration. So for me personally, I believe the likes of Big Mike, TigerTrader, PrivateBanker and other respected members of the forum are successful trading. I have never, will never, and have no interest in seeing proof. But what they post and their clear understanding of markets is extremely inspirational.
Good luck with your journey. Maybe one day it will be you providing us with your brokerage statements showing your success (or is that private?)
@Graham, I read Darvas's book .. it provided that initial inspiration - all details, figures and even the trades included.. although you have to do the mapping in your mind as the landscape of trading and the available technologies now are different from his days.. you can easily find the "story" thru Google. Good luck ..
I read a great book once called "The New Market Wizards" by Jack D Schwager and it's basically interviews with people who have made trading (in one form or another) their living. It's a fascinating read as it shows how many ways there are to be successful in this endeavor, and how there are people who have made it to the top, or at least high enough to call it a nice view.
I think though, that the reason we don't hear a lot about those who have made it in retail, is that Retail is such a private pursuit. No one knows you're climbing the mountain except your broker and the people you tell. Your broker can't tell anyone. And anyone you tell is left with how credible they feel you are (which on the Internet can be challenging).
It's the old internet phrase:"pics or it didn't happen". No matter how knowledgeable or credible you may sound, someone will be willing to push it to the "show me your statements or you're full of it" limit, and no one wants to deal with that.
That said, I think there are quite a few on futures.io (formerly BMT) that have made it, and several others who are halfway there.
The other thing to consider, is that maybe Retail futures trading isn't the top of the mountain. I daytrade YM (currently sim-ing) so I can eventually move up to GC or possibly swinging ES. After that, I'd like to have the capital to try spread trading. All of that so I can pour my money into a diversified investment portfolio.
Successfully daytrading is the means not the end for me. And the day I quit my job to trade full time is the day I have enough passive income from non-trading investments to cover my expenses.
Sure. Not sure why so caught up on this proof thing. Check my journal - accumulated profit as spat out by NT for instance is something like that shows someones trading behaviour more than anything. Even if they make it up. You can see their drawdowns, overall sucess etc.
Thanks for your input. Have these guys worked from the ground up to make their trading success? Something to Nothing - I defined as the prerequisite starting with under 100k, starting day trading and being successful enough to make a living from it. I am guessing a lot of the dreamers are in this position. Noone in the online trading community have left a footprint suggesting they've done it.
Probably irrelevant in some eyes whether they did it from scratch or not. That wasn't point of thread.