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

Write down your rules of trading untill it's a real algo (probably not computable but nevertheless). I myself trade gold and trade it differently in the European morning compard to the start of the noon-session going into the American session. I have well over 17 different setups and hard rules of where to take my profits. Sometimes I get lucky and the market give me a lot, sometimes it's just a few dollars. I mainly try to trade with the trend so use indicators that point out the trend for you. I do however take couintertrend trades too.
 
tzachi said:
all he needs to average is one point ES a day.
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I'm sure you're right. Smoking hopium is the correct way to ensure that you don't end up on the street.

Good luck with that. Let us know how it works out for you in a year; public libraries have computers you can use for free.
 
I have posted a few times regarding similar situations like OP's....

short answer is it makes zero sense to go 'full time' in trading... less is absolutely more in this biz.. check my thread 'trading is easy'.... heck I don't even check daily charts no more... weekly/monthly time frame is the shit lol.
 
I can't get beyond this...

Howard said:
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
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Why do you think that you can earn, say, $1K/wk to live on when you weren't able to earn a few bucks/wk part-time to grow the account?

Coupled with this...

Howard said:
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.
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And now you have a DIFFERENT, un-tested/un-tried game plan. Which likely has a different set of execution requirements and machinations. Seems to me you have put the horse before the cart... consistency should be a goal whether you are growing the account, living out of the account, or both! This new un-tested, un-tried game plan is where you begin and refine. You're doing it backwards IMO.

As someone mentioned, spending more time in front of the quotes DOES NOT (by default) equate to more profits. It may however, by default, equate to more trades, which may also be different for you.

All that, to make a living, you need a business mindset to help determine your success or failure. You are starting with a 15K account. You need to pay yourself... Starting out I'd use 1K/wk as a wage, since that is near the "average" wage in the USA. Therefore, this means 4K as cushion. IOW, you only have 11K to trade with.

Whatever wage you decide, whatever pay period you decide, weekly/biweekly/monthly,
YOU WITHDRAW the appropriate amount. With 11K and a 4K cushion, you will have a 1 month cushion with a 1K/wk wage... The cushion is replenished via profits. If you've replenished more than your expenses that means you are growing the account. Else you are losing or breakeven at best. If growing, you can adjust your trading capital. If losing you have to adjust your trading capital, your expenses, refund the loss back to the account, or quit! Either way, you have to pay yourself via withdraw. There is no Dunning-Kruger effect when done with an actual business mindset.

Can it be done? AB-SO-LUTELY!!
Your post however, poses significant challenges, IMO.
 
Specterx said:
Quitting your job to day trade index futures with a 15k account?

Worst idea ever, this plan has as close to zero chance of success as you can get. Presumably the OP is just trolling.
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The OP is not trolling. That being said, I am trading futures with $110,000 in my account, am profitable and would not consider going full time given my capitalization (i.e. full time as in my trading would prohibit me from earning money from other sources during normal business hours). I have a friend who has close to $200,000 and day trades and is not leaving his full time job until he can average $1,000 per day. Going full time with $15,000 is doomed to failure.
 
Howard said:
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.
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Don't day trade index futures, you're going to lose. Even if you win, it's foolish to pursue as a main/only strategy because the edge available there is miniscule. You'll either be grinding out ticks with insane costs and risk of ruin, or sitting out 90% of the days waiting for good setups, thus wasting your time.

Keep working, save 30-50% of your income and swing trade to compound. If you cant swing trade off weekly charts with 2-4hrs/week of work you sure as hell won't make money day trading index futs.
 
BlueWaterSailor said:
Not saying this to be unkind, but - take the job offer. $15k is ridiculously small as an account size from which to make a living, and even the few problems that you've listed show that you're not a pro. The best professional traders average about 2%/month, or less than 30% annualized; on $15k, that's not enough for a year of decent breakfasts, much less a living.
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I agree with BWS sentiment that $15K is small (too small for me, at least).

Though OP is day trading index equity futures. 2% a month of 15k would be $300/month.

To make $300/month trading 1 ES contract, trader needs to net 24 ticks/month. With the average 21 trading days per month, that's netting a bit over 1 tick / trading day.

If he leveraged 2 contracts (7500 margin per), to reach $300/month, trader need to net 12 ticks/month. Roughly .6 ticks / trading day.

I don't know what the best professional ES day traders are doing, but I suspect even average experienced traders are doing better than .6 or 1 tick / trading day.
 
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