Any advice for a soon to be full-time trader?

Whatever amount you think you will need to start trading full-time - at a minimum double it or more. I've always recommended having at least 1 1/2 years of expenses put aside in addition to your trading account money.
 
Howard said:
Hi all,

I quit my full-time job earlier this year to focus on full time trading. October will be my last month in the work force. After that, I'm on my own as a full-time trader.

I'm just curious if anyone who's once been in a similar situation or am in one currently have any advice to share that can be valuable moving forward?

I'm not really seeking advice on trading methodology as I'm feeling fairly confident in what I have there and have my own stuff to focus on, but anything else would be of interest.


Some background information about me:

- I have an account size of just over $15K. I day trade US index futures.

- I have savings to cover living expenses for 6 months.

- I have a standing job offer with another firm and can also get my old job back if needed.

- No kids. Just a needy girlfriend who feels she sees too little of me.

- I've been full time trading twice earlier. The last time, I was severly undercapitalized and simply had to quit because I was broke. I didn't 'blow up', but slowly bled to death and had to eat.

- I've been exposed to the markets on/off for 12 years by now and have devoted long periods of time to serious market study and research. I have proprietary tools developed to aid my market analysis and research. So, I'm not new to the markets.

My initial plan was to trade part-time after work and slowly build my account, but it turned out to be much harder to do than I anticipated and I quickly felt burned out juggling these two on <= 5,0 hours sleep. Especially since my day time job is very demanding/stressful and I can't always leave on time either.

Because of this and since I feel I have options otherwise, I decided to quit my job and finally try full time trading with full focus once again.

One thing which will be different than earlier is that I will try to focus on consistency of returns instead of trying to hit home-runs every single day. This is something I can afford doing now since I'm not pressured to do so. Of course, in order to succeed, I need to make money, but I think slow and steady wins the race.

Thanks in advance for any advice on this exciting journey.

Best regards and thanks for reading.

Howard
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Hi Howard, I am glad to find your post. You actually motivated me to sign up for this forum. I am pretty much exactly like you. I quit my full time software engineering job to pursuing full time day trading career last month.
Here are some brief details on myself:
- live in Toronto, Canada

- 30 years old, married, no kids(plan to be child-free)

- own a house, my wife and I run Airbnb on the side, makes enough every month to cover all housing expenses off during off-season, and living+housing expenses summer season.

- no plan to ever return to my job as a senior iOS software engineer

- account size of $20k, but I don't plan on using it at the start, I signed up for a $50k account from TopStepTrader(Prop firm company)

- daytrade NQ only, 9:30 am - 4 pm

- exposed to stock trading in general for 3 years, knowledgable in technical analysis and trading psychology

- developed a futures trend-following trading strategy focusing on 1-5 minute timeframe, fully automatic signals, very little discretion required. I won't give too much details about it here

- "live tested" my system since everyday since August of this year, November and December so far has been much worse than August and September. ("live tested" because I was doing it periodically during work and had the benefit of hindsight)

I hope we can discuss further off the forum but free feel to share your opinions and insights about our situation here as well.

Cheers

MercForHire
 
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MercForHire said:
- "live tested" my system since everyday since August of this year, November and December so far has been much worse than August and September.
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Welcome to ET.

I think most equity index day traders would agree Nov-Dec was worse than Aug-Sep. August 1-Sept 4, RTH range/volatility was about the best it's been all year for intraday. Range tightened up a bit in early September, but then a nice expansion came back later in the month which lasted into early October. It starts to feel easy in these conditions.

But the week beginning 10/14 up to present day has been mostly shit in the RTH. Probably the worst period of the year along with pretty much all of April and some weeks in mid-July. Frustrating times, but they come and go.
 
There is always a market breaking out. Coffee has been on the move along with some of the grains & the British pound to name a few.

It's the traders job to figure out where the $ is flowing to.


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imjohn said:
Welcome to ET.

I think most equity index day traders would agree Nov-Dec was worse than Aug-Sep. August 1-Sept 4, RTH range/volatility was about the best it's been all year for intraday. Range tightened up a bit in early September, but then a nice expansion came back later in the month which lasted into early October. It starts to feel easy in these conditions.

But the week beginning 10/14 up to present day has been mostly shit in the RTH. Probably the worst period of the year along with pretty much all of April and some weeks in mid-July. Frustrating times, but they come and go.
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Absolutely, the performance of my system has dropped drastically recently compare to September and October. It was able to capture(per NQ contract) $19k in September, $26k in October, but only $8k in November. This month isn't looking so good so far neither, December 2nd it caught $2.4k of profits but the rest of the week were pretty much break even to -$200 days. I am just glad it's not negative on the week.
I am still practising my execution skills. There is still a significant gap between the hypothetical result vs real result. Hence my decision to start on TST Combine.
 
comagnum said:
There is always a market breaking out. Coffee has been on the move along with some of the grains & the British pound to name a few.

It's the traders job to figure out where the $ is flowing to.
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True that, every day some instrument is doing better than others.

I used to scan various instruments prior to a session and pick the few that looked most promising for the day, but overtime switched to just specializing in a couple and learning to trade them in various conditions. Either way gotta be adaptable.
 
nooby_mcnoob said:
IN 10 YEARS YOU WILL OWN THE UNIVERSE
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That's a stretch, but I'm certainly not doing this to earn a living. I'm extremely ambitious and my end goal is to become filthy rich and I'm willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish that. I'm done playing around. It's time.

Retaining profits and compounding them through increasing contract size is key to achieve that.

It seems like most people here lack the entrepreneurial spirit, drive and willingness to take the risk that's necessary if one want to leave the 9-5 behind. Most great stories have an element of risk and sacrifice.
 
MercForHire said:
Hi Howard, I am glad to find your post. You actually motivated me to sign up for this forum. I am pretty much exactly like you. I quit my full time software engineering job to pursuing full time day trading career last month.
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Hi, MercForHire,

Welcome and nice to hear from you.

I won't give too much details about it here.
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As you should not. :)


I hope we can discuss further off the forum but free feel to share your opinions and insights about our situation here as well.

Cheers

MercForHire
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Sure. Just logging in for a quick comment now. We can talk more here or privately later.

Howard
 
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