Anyone gave up trading for a living?

[DHOHHI]

Please point out one successful at home daytrader who started with modest means and has no other source of income. If they exist. They are rarer than lottery winners by far.

Dont get me wrong, day Trading is a great hobby and a blast. But its no way to earn a living outside of being inside a fund, good prop shop or institution

It is a myth perpetrated by brokers and others who get paid when you trade. There's one on this thread who likes it when trading makes people horny. LMFAO!!! Classic That's going in THE book!

surf

I know a number of guys who have been successful trading retail from home. I started in 1996 trading from home, went to an All Tech office in 1998 for 2 years and went back to trading from home in 2000. I had left a corporate engineering job and consider myself reasonably successful since I'm still at it and actually trade less now than years ago so I can volunteer more in high poverty schools helping kids with math. And I had absolutely no other income in 1996 and have had no earned income since then other than from trading.

And FYI day trading is more than a hobby to many people and is a very viable way to earn a living. I had a business plan before I ever started. One need not be trading prop or for an institution to make a living ... that is a myth and foolish statement.

 

[i am nobody]

Since the whole CHF thing, I've been re-evaluating my risk tolerance personally. For example, yes normally there's no big surprise and you can plan on, say, being at worst screwed by 1-2% of the underlying instrument on unexpected news. Sure an index is less vulnerable than a single stock or commodity, but what if a "never gonna happen" event occurs? Something really wild which causes a 20% or heck, 50% drop? That $2500 account could end up becoming negative 5 digits in the blink of an eye, and depending on the broker you might not be at liberty to wait for a better exit price. I used to plan only for "normal" risk, but I'm reconsidering this year.

High leverage is neat for profiting from mundane moves, even essential for small traders to have a chance of living from it in a decent timeframe, but it leaves one unprotected against a force majeure arriving at exactly the wrong time. Now, with options or a CFD account some place where your account can't go below zero? That's completely different of course. But on the CME I'm getting cold feet.

I told you the whole picture is important. If I lose three times the capital in my account, so lose 3* 2400$, I start again and need a very short time to recover my losses. I trade already so long that I have enough money put aside to overcome three CHF debacles in a row. But like I said I trade only a small part of my capital.
That prevents me of becoming very rich, but also from becoming very poor. It is a deliberate choice I made after wiping out my account years ago. This is part of my capital management.

 

[noblehawk]

from the history, no one can make money from trading consistently. trading is just like other business, you spot the opportunities and grab it, then you make money. see.you can not make money from market all the time, you can only make money when the market gives you the opportunities.
so my point is you can make money from trading from long term, but it is not the day job you can get paid after 5 pm.

 

[DTorSwing]

I told you the whole picture is important. If I lose three times the capital in my account, so lose 3* 2400$, I start again and need a very short time to recover my losses. I trade already so long that I have enough money put aside to overcome three CHF debacles in a row. But like I said I trade only a small part of my capital.
That prevents me of becoming very rich, but also from becoming very poor. It is a deliberate choice I made after wiping out my account years ago. This is part of my capital management.

I tried with small account, but that fails me bigger, so finally after I vested like 50% of my savings, and learning in sim after 4 yrs. then I started making some, again, in swing and not DT

 

[DTorSwing]

No method or nobody can do this without drawdown/ setback, but it gets better if we stay "continuous" but is very tedious and affect health and other areas to do that

 

[Pravin Choudhary]

If research is correct, the majority of traders ultimately find themselves in a similar position. It is with trading as with sports or the arts: many people participate, but few are able to craft an ongoing livelihood from their talents. Trading for a living takes much more than people realize.

 

[i am nobody]

No method or nobody can do this without drawdown/ setback, but it gets better if we stay "continuous" but is very tedious and affect health and other areas to do that

When i started and learned to trade I made losses that were beyond what I could think of. It made me very modest and my expectations were slashed because of this horrible experience. But I am stubborn so after many years I arrived at a point that was also far beyond what I could think of. This time it was in the positive way. I learned from this that I should never say: This is impossible. Huge losses, but also huge profits are possible.
And it was a very difficult road too. Much more difficult then I was thinking at the start. Building a system that makes consistently money in every kind of markets is horribly difficult, but it can be done.

 

[DTorSwing]

most of us spend soooo much of time for years to learn how to do this.
and that time has taken away my healthy life, like hobbies, family, friends beside money
that hurts me more often !!! question often arise if it is worth or not

 

[cornix]

2 points a day will result in over 5 million$. 3 points a day will result in over 8 million$.

So trading is very simple: just make 1 louzy point a day, that's all!

Could just say "just know the future, that's all".

In reality it's almost the same skill.

 

[cornix]

Wow, I guess it depends on the business! (See below.)

I believe the purpose (and thus proper organization) of any business is grow by delegating tasks to employees instead of doing everything yourself (which is called "work"). That is why businessmen are so valuable to society: not only they produce something themselves, but involve other people giving them job and scaling production up, including doing something well beyond their own personal abilities. Andrew Carnegie knew almost nothing about steel by his own admission.