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)
Apologies, but combining both statements (which you did), you are suggesting exactly what i said.
Ok, i have tried to qualify my response below.
Lets agree to disagree.
-----------------------
hi @artemiso
explicit: statement of fact.
implicit: 'suggesting'....is an opinion, which i am trying to say as polite as possible, is incorrect, as is yours, sorry. At best you are making a sweeping statement - provide me the research you have done then that will add value. To counter, theres thousands who have and are doing well starting from small accounts.....albeit poss blown a few times. What follows hopefully explains more....
This is your opinion. Prop traders start off with an account balance of 0. So we may be talking semantics, but noone has mentioned it so far.
To add: prop firms i have worked in, your account is built from your pnl, from day 1, ie its 0. I know plenty who have made millions starting from 0. And they only ever keep in trading account 100k max to qualify for better profit share deal, their limits are based on prev performance, and day targets are 5-20k - which makes the % return per day discussion moot as there is a whole load of other stuff to account for....eg the prop firm are putting up 1/2 mill perhaps to facilitate the trader. Leverage etc.
If you are trading with a Prop firm, your account starts from zero FOR YOU. But realistically the fund required/invested is not obviously not zero, the fact that Prop firm taking the risk of funding your account doesnt make the the money required to trade zero juz because it's not your money. If your parent funded your trading account of however much money, would you say your account starts from zero because you are not trading with your own money?
Even if you see it purely from your own perspective, working at a Prop firm usually does not get you paid with fixed salary, hence the opportunity cost will always be there as @artemiso mentioned. Unless you are the 0.01% that becomes consistently profitable straight away, the opportunitity costs of salary adds up. From what I know, on average Prop traders will not be profitable 1~2 years and they will start covering up the hole they dug for the next 1~2 year before start making some good money. It takes a great trader in average of 3~6 years to reach the state of consistent profitability. The opportunity costs incurred plus the split after you trading profitably would easily adds up to >200k.
Btw I'm extremely familiar with your tone...ego is something that is not lacking in the Prop world...(myself inclusive...) I know you meant no disrespect to anyone here including BM but it did came off that way to the others.
I funded two 10k Futures accounts, one with NT (scalping focused) and another with a different broker (swing).
You can imagine which was more successful, in the first month of going live, neither however the swing account got lucky on a couple of 20-30 ES point intraday runs and pulled ahead. Since I have found that both styles in parallel works well for me.
Ok so part of my plan when I started in 2014 was to move to Colombia as here if I made $50 a day I was more than covering my expenses, all the psych pressure came off when I moved here with my capital burn rate way down.
Also no SAD from UK winters, consistent warm weather for my speedboat injured back etc. melted the stresses away.
There are so man combinations and permutations to success but assuming possible, reducing your costs (feeling wealthier with less) and increasing your happiness are important factors.
Just to add, I planned for two years of full time study as if I was going back to college, it so happens I did well before that but I was realistic.
Also as @teee said, I was a top IT consultant, a profession known for some necessary "professional arrogance", though it was mostly about never showing panic on your face (what the hell just happened!!) in front of the client. It melts away in retail though wealth brings it's own learning curve on humility. Again, Colombians give me a sense of proportion and I do the charity work here of course.
Thanks @teee for empathy.....fyi I am not worthy of an ego btw, so i will be mindful i dont portray one going fwd. In fact i have just banned myself from all threads bar mine - i can only annoy myself there. In my defence i do have some knowledge from numerous experiences (3 UK prop firms etc) which i was trying to impart, and provide some balance.
Apologies to anyone who misconstrued my tone, i try to keep comments short and that often involves blunt prose....but obv no malice intended. I have one bug bear - generalisations with little evidence (Actually i prob have millions).
In addition @teee, I concur with everything you said. The prop firms i know all ditched ppl within 6 mths if not making money.... one guy stuck about cos he cld afford to and was low risk taker and after 2 years it clicked and he made it big. Wonder how many of those out there who fall off the conveyor belt.
Your post, btw, reaffirms my point: its not as simple as defining success just by account size....time/backing/low expenses/a lovely mum.... etc etc all come into it. Like most things, its not binary.
Professional arrogance is never a bad thing as it keeps one focused and motivated, as long as you are mindful of it.
@Rory, Im not sure about reducing costs but inceasing happiness is definitely the end goal of all we ever try to do. Should always do a top-down analysis from 'happiness' when we try to define any of our goals/plans =]
Professional arrogance....i will show you my pnl statement to disprove this assertion. I will call this a reverse al brooks (nothing against the guy, no idea who he is, just referring to the thread).
however the swing account got lucky on a couple of 20-30 ES point intraday runs and pulled ahead. Since I have found that both styles in parallel works well for me.