Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
Assuming the results each year are not reliant on the prior year, can you discuss the starting balance? I don't care about a dollar amount, just if it's basically flat year to year or if you increase size regularly.
I've been working to increase size so am curious about the rate in which others have succeeded at doing it.
Trading: Primarily Energy but also a little Equities, Fixed Income, Metals and Crypto.
Frequency: Many times daily
Duration: Never
Posts: 5,057 since Dec 2013
Thanks Given: 4,409
Thanks Received: 10,225
I must say @ron99 I think your options thread is fantastic, there are many others on this forum who get a lot more credit than you, while you quietly help anybody who has any question in that thread, in any way that you can. I know % returns are ambiguous but after seeing this my respect for you has only increased. If your ever in Houston pm me, I'd love to meet you in person.
Trading: Primarily Energy but also a little Equities, Fixed Income, Metals and Crypto.
Frequency: Many times daily
Duration: Never
Posts: 5,057 since Dec 2013
Thanks Given: 4,409
Thanks Received: 10,225
Well that's sort of an important fact.
I'm not trying to call out @Big Mike in anyway, I'm just using him as an example since he is the big honcho here, and he has been brave enough to open his own Kimono, In his thread he has said that he sweeps money out of his account continually. He has also said that in February when needed he swept money back into his account (that he later withdrew). As such return on initial capital is sort of meaningless.*
While this is obviously a very silly analogy I could make the argument that my returns are infinite. My trading accounts show an initial balance of $0 every year, Hence even a $1 profit is infinite. Obviously that's not true, just an illusion of how my trading account balances are treated by my broker.
*I'm pretty sure @Big Mike alluded to something similar to the meaninglessness (sp??) relation to initial balances somewhere but can't find it right now.
Trading: Primarily Energy but also a little Equities, Fixed Income, Metals and Crypto.
Frequency: Many times daily
Duration: Never
Posts: 5,057 since Dec 2013
Thanks Given: 4,409
Thanks Received: 10,225
I'm not as bold as many here to fully reveal my activity and results, I wish this was an elite thread rather than a public one, but I will say this. Since going out on my own about 6 years ago my worst year was 2013. In 2013 my trading profits (excluding expenses but including brokerage obviously) was just over 25% of my beginning year trading capital. This understates my actual return as I continually withdraw money for my trading account to a) live off, since its my primary source of income and b) to pay tax's!
I made around 8% in 2014.
While lagging behind S&P for quite some time I'm still satisfied with trading performance given the market conditions.
I usually trade a selection of large cap stocks from Dow Jones and S&P500 with an automated mean reversion system (with trades lasting from two days up to a few weeks). The system tends to underperform during monotonous market runs but excels when stocks get choppy. (E.g. in 2008 it would have made ~70%)
However, I think it is quite possible that the current market run continues for at least the next one or two years. Then when everybody and their mother has jumped on the trend following bandwagon, I will hopefully start to outperform again.
Probably 95% of participants are Elite only anyway, so just create a new thread in Elite area if it makes you more comfortable keeping general public away.
1. US markets are more mature and better developed, while the German market tends to overreact a lot.
2. Lower transaction costs
3. More security: Geographical and judicial (although this is not a big issue atm)
4. Market hours are more comfortable: US market opens at 14:30 and closes at 21:00CET
5. Currency is more stable (Of course debatable. Also I'm almost fully hedged, so I did not gain much from USD appreciation)
6. The companies are mostly global players so the rest of the world is covered anyway.