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)
Please keep in mind the spirit of this forum is to be helpful and polite to others. Making a statement like "And you are categorically wrong" without further details comes off in a hostile or confrontational tone and is not welcome here.
I didn't do that at all. First I stated my definition of success. Then I stated what it takes to be successful.
This is true for the majority of people. There are outliers of course. But even with those outliers, an extremely small % of those guys will not be full-time. Luck plays a much larger role in small accounts because you need those string of winners right off the bat. You may have a great strategy and market psyche but once you roll the dice you don't know where they will land on your strategy. Could be a string of losers with few winners for a bit for you go on a nice run. Will you still have enough money left to trade that strategy through fruition while maintaining a strong market psyche just as if it were your very first trade? No bobbles or mistakes? You better be extremely freaking sharp in every area.
The way I see it, he was explicitly stating and he was categorically correct.
I know some people have a view that your psychology plays out very differently when your account equity is small. Now, I don't think that's a very important factor.
The way I look at it, from an opportunity cost perspective, a small account is doomed because an entry job as an analyst that doesn't even get directly involved in trading already pays about $100k, so surely a full-time job in market timing should pay a comparable amount over a comparable amount of time, and it takes a herculean effort to double $100k in a year.
Trading capital is no different from lemons. You could probably open a lemonade stand quite affordably with 1 lemon, but why would you?
interesting opinions in this thread. I'm not sure there is really an answer because of the subjectivity and the number of variables. Most guys whose deposit details I know/knew only drew money out of their account when the balance was bigger than what was required for about two times the std dev. of their typical trading requirements. Usually there are two reasons to do that. First you can get a better return elsewhere because excess deposit was usually in treasury bonds. Second, most guys that are/were professionally trading their own money feel that there is too much risk in most firm/joint back office agreements to their capital if someone else blows out their account.
I'd be more interested in a discussion of "edge". What do people believe to be their edge in trading? If a guy can describe his edge with confidence and certain terms that are easy to understand, he is probably making money.
Here is the thing...in my experience guys that are making money never talk in dollar terms...per trade, per day, per year, because they feel it limits them. If you have a deposit and an empirical edge, that is, one that is demonstrable you don't even take the time to talk about money...you just make money. They can get sucked into it as a pissing contest or for vanity, but it is passe.
When you are not making money you are looking for edge, buying real estate, or investing in stocks.
I went back to stocks because I found I could make just as much money with a lot less stress and spending a lot less time in front of a keyboard.
I'm well capitalized and manage to fund my lifestyle and increase my net worth with a return of 20% per year. I certainly couldn't do that with a 100K account.
"The days when I keep my gratitude higher than my expectations, I have really good days" RW Hubbard
