2 k futures account - $500 a week possible?

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sam hogar

Hi all,

<O:p

I am new to this forum, but not new to day trading. I started out trading stocks and was successful. Unfortunately as my abilities grew so did the frequency of my trades and I was shutdown for having an “undercapitalized account” even though I didn’t use leverage/margin and showing the pattern of a day trader! No warnings or disclosure was ever given as I was totally unaware of the rule.
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I have read some interesting viewpoints on this forum, and some of the ideas that stuck out were the ideas that day trading is a waste of time especially if you have a small account. You are basically not going to compete with the natural variance and earn an healthy return especially with slippage, commission and invariably face gamblers ruin.
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I have also seen gurus and others (most likely sales, marketing for brokerages) insist that daytrading with a small account is completely viable. I noticed that “proprietary” trading places such as topstep trader offer pay to play contests were you are awarded basically a 2k futures account to day trade.
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With all that said, I set up a 5 k futures trading account with a 2 k loss limit to try and trade 1 lot of CL and ES. My strategy will rely heavily on impulse legs and a modified version of elliot wave theory around high/low pivots that I developed trading stocks. My risk to reward is usually 1 to 1 but I try for opportunities that provide 1 to 3 or higher. My stop losses are going to be extremely tight 1-1.5 point max for ES and 10-15 for CL as I used tight stops successfully for equities.
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My question for everyone would be, is this possible? Can anyone really trade with a small account or are you perpetually facing gamblers ruin by being undercapitalized? Are futures really just a negative sum game after commission, fees, and slippage costs? Are the daytrading stories of people making 10-30 k a day using a 10-20 lots and tight stop losses true or a perpetual mirage created by IB firms to slowly bleed the hopeful?
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And should I really just wait and save up to trade stocks again where at least I was winning (we are in a 5 year bull market) and had half a chance?<O:p
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Thank you all for your time and experience,
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I am at least going to try a little bit and will post my trades in here. My goal is to start making 300 to 500 hundreds dollars a week.<O:p</O:p
 
Mate, set up a demo account, trade CL with 10 pip stops and see what happens.

Remember if you can't make money on a demo account, there is no way you could make it on a real money account.
 
Yes you are absolutely right if you can't make it in a demo then there is no way to make it live.

Somethings I forgot to mention is that yes I back tested it and successfully have traded on a virtual simulator. The main problem with that is hindsight bias and the bulls eye fallacy. It feels like I am drawing bulls eyes over bullet holes and saying wow look what a great shot I am.

Also your orders and stop positions change the very nature of a live market. I have seen in a virtual simulator the market bid/ask move dangerously close to where a stop would be in real life. In the simulator the trade makes money, but in real life it is not hard to imagine a hungry market maker coming down a tick or two to trigger your stop out.

Do you use a ten tick stop loss for CL? If so that is encouraging.
 
hft's will eat you up .death by a million small stops,you can do it but you need to trade 3 or 4 times a week on avg, find the major supp/res lines and trade into and away from them,if you get in away from them, say 4 pts off a high on a 10 pt so far range they can easily retest and take out your stops, in a nutshell, you dont have enough to trade successfully, you will spend more time worrying about your acct,skewing your take on what the market is doing, diluting your focus...the size of your acct and stops is a psychological anchor...but if you are extremely focused on discipline, as in very good at sitting on hands waiting for set ups, you can succeed
 
sam hogar said:
day trading is a waste of time especially if you have a small account. Y
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2K account to make $500/week ($2,000 a month)?

So basically you want to consistently earn 100% return on investment each month.

Not going to happen my friend.
 
It is possible. However, it is also possible that you will blow up that account within the same week if your trading that way.
 
It all depends on you trading plan, and ability to execute it perfectly.

Now, from your opening post, shooting for 1:1 w/ a 10-ticks stop in CL is, IMHO, a recipe for failure. With a 10-t stop, your entry must be with the immediate price direction, so you are getting slippage here already. You'll get another tick of slippage when you are stopped. And price needs to travel 11-ticks from your entry fill to get your target filled.

In summary, from the entry-trigger level, you need:
a) 12-ticks move in your trade direction for a win ; net gain +9.5 ticks (after comms)
b) 9-ticks move against your trade to be stopped ; net loss -11.5 ticks (after comms & slippage)

You'll need a serious edge just to break-even, because noise will take you out for a loss much more often than for a win, and your losses will be larger than the wins.
 
Grandluxe said:
Another one makes his 2k "donation" to the markets. Cha Ching!
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Don't lick your lips yet, I have very good discipline and you won't get an easy meal.

It seems some say yes it is possible but not plausible/probable. You need great discipline, cannot over trade (pick only ideal, the best opportunites), and have a good trading plan.

My trading plan was great and worked well in equities, but again I know we are in a huge bull market for stocks so...............how much is it really saying? :/

Dom is showing negative expected value on a 1 to 1. Something I was aware and very worried about in futures since it is actually known as a negative sum game after commissions and fees.

Elite is pointing out how absurd it would be to assume these types of consistent gains which I agree if annualized are quite laughable on the surface.

For Dom yes that is my specialty taking off with a bullish or bearish impulse leg for a nice ride. Most often pain free.

I am really worried about what ammo said about the HFT boyz hunting stops, that seems very real. Of course Elite poured cold hard reality on the premise of earning a consistent return on such a small account. All in all it does not look to promising, then again it never did.

How much do you survivors of day trading use for futures? How big of a stop is realistic? What type of return is realistic?

Have any of you had success with a small account even as a tried and true veteran?
 
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