Anyone here actually profitable?

[hilmy83]

I refuse to pay for another book, course, or mentor. Tired of it all.

Can someone give me a no bullshit assessment on whether this is actually achievable or not? I have iron-clad discipline but zero strategy. Psychology has never been an issue. Not trying to strike it mega-rich at this point but just to consistently put money in my account and take a few trades a day.

I'm beginning to lose my mind. Thought trading would be a good way to try and pay off medical debt but boy was I wrong. Maybe if I could swing 5 lots on ES and take 8 points a day it might happen, but as of right now all I do is lose money.

Any and all help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Take 10 people and put them through school for IT, engineering, medicine, how many will pass?

A whole lot higher than trading that's for damn sure.

I say just give up. Life is too short to stare at charts all day and making predictions based on arbitrary lines

 

[Businessman]

Profitable trading is not that hard, but expecting a regular pay check from trading is a completely different matter.

And then you are a slave to market conditions, who remembers April last year? Crazy volatile, start of bear market + invasion of ukraine. Look at the markets today.. zzzzzzzzzzz

 

[Rutro]

Edit: I can't edit the initial post so I thought I would put an update here.

Everyone seems to assume things about me or my position which are untrue. I apologize, and I should have been more clear: I've spend the last year of my life (8+ hours a day) learning everything and anything I can about the financial markets and how to trade them. I have put in a ridiculous amount of work, have read dozens of books, paid for numerous courses, absorbed hundreds of YouTube videos from other traders (although, I have to admit, the YouTube videos seem to be completely useless and fake). I'm not lazy and it's not like I want something for nothing.

I struggle with finding strategy. I'm not blindly putting trades on in the market without a strategy, but it seems that for the 100 or so things I backtest nothing works. It seems like a neverending waste of time because I cannot come up with something that has an edge.

Trading is not a business. I owned and ran my own business prior to falling ill, and it is quite easy in comparison. You don't gain or lose your entire bankroll in the blink of an eye, there are always ways around problems and if you make a mistake it doesn't just debit your account because of said mistake, people are easier to work with, you have more time to think and react, you can get loans to expand your business (what bank would loan you $1 million to finance a trading career? None. You're stuck with whatever saving you can put into it), etc. Running a business is easy in comparison to trading. I think most people relate trading to a business because what they really mean is: treat it seriously. This I would agree with.

I have to be honest. I read about a page and a half of the comments and then had to stop. Almost no one answered my question. Everyone gave advice but almost no one actually stated if they were profitable or not, what their ROI is, or anything of depth, which was the entire purpose of this thread.

Respectfully, and I do say this with the utmost respect, the entire "avoiding books, courses, YouTube videos" I mentioned in my OP should also include "trading forums". I find that most people will blow up a thread to 4 pages and almost no one answers the original question...

Do any of you mind posting some details about what you trade, how often you trade, what your monthly/yearly return is, etc.? Can I get some realism into what professional trading looks like?

Also, just because I have debt doesn't mean I am cash poor. I can fund a sizeable trading account, but have been smart enough to not lose money while trying to find my edge.

 

[themickey]

Imo, it's best for wannabee retail traders to initially take trading as a hobby, look at it weekends or evenings in your spare time.
If you are cut out for this game, you will slowly devote more time and resources to it.
By the time you retire then it may take a life on its own.

Just work at it slowly, concentrate on learning and being efficient, don't concentrate on profits until you know what you're doing.

 

[Rutro]

Not sure if your question is limited to the equities markets, but I ladder bonds and hold to maturity.

• With the inverted yield curve short-term bonds have been great. I'm averaging about 6% (including compounding) and haven't lost a penny in years.
• I'm quick to reinvest coupons and payouts to address reinvestment risk.
• It takes some work... you must learn bond math, and keep on top of it. Maybe try a bond ETF or Mutual fund if you just want your percent but don't have time.
• The bond markets are for the pros; hundreds of billions in bonds cross every day. Small fry like me have cross the spread and go a little deeper in... you have to sweeten the deal or they won't take your offer. It's just not worth their time.
• I could probably do almost as well with a bond fund myself, but I really enjoy trading bonds; researching the markets, and laddering. I want this out of life
• It also takes a lot of patience. You won't get any big hits. It's the "tortoise" in the race against the hare.
• It works well if you also have a full-time job. Set up your ladders, go to work, and check back in a few months.. and be quick to employ those extra dollars from your paycheck.
• Many bonds are also exempt from taxes, which is also nice. Munis are exempt from state, local, AND Federal.
• Corporates get "called" from time to time (which is annoying), but it's part of the game.
• Personally I like marketable b

Very interesting. I'm going to look into this. Thank you, and congratulations on your success.

 

[Rutro]

Hello Rutro,

Lets us ALL stop bullshitting please, just for one day!!

Sir, if I was making million of dollars of trading the market every year, and I NEED to trade another year to make a million dollars to pay my bills and support my 3 pretty girlfriends and drive my fancy cars: I would not tell anyone I am trader and I will damn sure not ever post on https://www.elitetrader.com/ every again my life.

Why would I do this and log off ET and never return? Because I do not want to give a mirco of a hint/tip/help of my trading edge to anyone if I need my trading edge to pay my bills. Once I run the edge to make about $4million to retire and no debt, then I come back on https://www.elitetrader.com/ to provide some help. But that only help will only be "Keep working hard buddy, you will get there"

I am not telling you damn thing on earth. You are my competition and I gotta keep my 3 girlfriends happy so I can stay waxing their ass everynight.

Forget about it. There is no help. No one is going to show you EXACTLY
how they are making millions of dollars trading the market. EVER not in 1 million years.

So you are COMPLETELY on your own my friend if you thinking someone going to tell you something that will pay your medical debt off.

Keep on trading and get better, that is all you can do.

Solid advice. Point taken. I have four pages here and almost no one (a few exceptions) mentioned anything about being profitable themselves. I trust basically no one, which is why I'm frustrated and I mention not buying anything else in the OP because I'm tired of throwing my money down the toilet on false promises and bullshit.

Anyway, to those who tried to help, thank you. I'm not sure where people got the idea that I was lazy, but whatever. This has proven to be a waste of time. Time to go off in the wilderness alone, I guess.

 

[themickey]

I have four pages here and almost no one (a few exceptions) mentioned anything about being profitable themselves. I trust basically no one, which is why I'm frustrated and I mention not buying anything else in the OP because I'm tired of throwing my money down the toilet on false promises and bullshit

There are imo, plenty of profitable traders on ET.
I follow scores of traders on ET, probably a majority are profitable.
The idiots on ET have a loud mouth.
The good traders are generally subdued.
I could tell you my experience but I'm not going to, I have nothing to prove.

 

[themickey]

The good traders are generally subdued.

Dest would be a definite exception, not subdued, prolly makes more than 90% of ET combined.

 

[Businessman]

I trust basically no one, which is why I'm frustrated and I mention not buying anything else in the OP because I'm tired of throwing my money down the toilet on false promises and bullshit.

You haven't even quantified what you want. Except you said something about 8 ES points a day. Which is a completely unreasonable profit expectation.

If you want a profitable trading system with say a Sharpe ratio of 0.5. I can tell you that is easy, no bullshit. But such a system, even though long term profitable, is not a great system to trade. Lots of losing months.

But if you want a profitable trading system with a Sharpe ratio of 5. That is not so easy to develop at all and if anyone tells you that it is they are bullshitting. That system wont give you any losing months.

What is reasonable? it lies somewhere within that range, but closer to the 0.5 end than the 5.0 end.

 

[Laissez Faire]

Everyone seems to assume things about me or my position which are untrue. I apologize, and I should have been more clear: I've spend the last year of my life (8+ hours a day) learning everything and anything I can about the financial markets and how to trade them. I have put in a ridiculous amount of work, have read dozens of books, paid for numerous courses, absorbed hundreds of YouTube videos from other traders (although, I have to admit, the YouTube videos seem to be completely useless and fake). I'm not lazy and it's not like I want something for nothing.

With one year in you're just scratching the surface. It's still not too late to give up. It's much harder to let it go after you've been at it for 5 years with nothing to show for it.

If you decide to continue, I think you're better off focusing on swing trading and modest returns as opposed to making a killing.

But the best advice you'll get is probably to give up, unless you're prepared to dedicate your life to this with the chance you'll go nowhere.

Respectfully, and I do say this with the utmost respect, the entire "avoiding books, courses, YouTube videos" I mentioned in my OP should also include "trading forums". I find that most people will blow up a thread to 4 pages and almost no one answers the original question...

100%!

Don't trust anyone. If you figured this out after only one year, then good for you. It took me a lot longer and I'm now at the point where I pretty much don't trust anyone. There are a select few I think are the real deal, but at the end of the day I never saw any performance reports or broker statements, so I'm not really sure about anything.

The only traders I really trust are those that are verified in Market Wizards by Schwager.

Also, just because I have debt doesn't mean I am cash poor. I can fund a sizeable trading account, but have been smart enough to not lose money while trying to find my edge.

Do NOT. I repeat. Do NOT fund a large account. You will lose it. A larger account just means larger losses. Trust me. There are people in this thread that blew a 100K account. The most famous trader in Norway blew a billion sized account and that was after years of successful trading.

Do any of you mind posting some details about what you trade, how often you trade, what your monthly/yearly return is, etc.? Can I get some realism into what professional trading looks like?

I've been at this for well over 10 years. That's not 10 intense years of daily studies for 10 + hours, but periodically this have been my entire life and I've been a full time trader several times. To this day I still spend most of my free hours on this, but my day job is as an engineer. I also have a business education. Good grades and generally grasp things quickly. Academic studies and office work is easy compared to trading.

In some ways I already gave up on trading for a living or becoming rich from trading, but I keep plugging away like some weird hobby. Some people watch TV after work or hang out with their girlfriend. I spend my time trading and only give my girlfriend a kiss goodnight at midnight when I'm done with the day. She's lucky if she gets to spend some time with me on the weekend. Thankfully, she's busy and an introvert herself.

What's really weighing on me recently is the alternative cost of my time and time really flies by as you get older.

Trading style / method:

Day trading index futures primarily targeting the larger moves within the day, but trying to be content with a smaller move also once in a while.

I use predictive modeling / statistics which help me forecast/anticipate the day ahead. Sometimes I get it incredibly accurate, other days I'm dead wrong (like today). This is a statistical application written in C# which I spent many years to put together and hired a professional firm to build for me costing me I would imagine around $15-20K in total.

I also use chart based analytics mostly focusing on levels as I think the micro moves are less predictable and more noisy. If anyone else understands these consistently, then he gets my admiration.

Results so far this year:

Funded a small account in January:

Off to a good start, but got sloppy and over confident like I often do when things are going well and losses just cascaded as I started taking more risk and was more focused on making back what I lost and getting back to equity highs than actually trading the market.

Closed down the account in the middle of February, took a breather and funded a new small account that I started trading medium March:

Which means I'm up just below $2K in total so far this year.

I feel I have a good grasp of the market on a daily basis, but it's only too easy to mess up and do mistakes. I consider myself marginally profitable with a paper thin edge. If I can correct my major mistakes and learn to stay out when things aren't clear, maybe, I have a chance at getting somewhere, but I'm not holding my breath.

Just to give you some honest feedback about where I'm at after so many years. Maybe someone else would share their results, too.

My advice is still that you should do something else with your life.