Average daily profit with $50K account?

Quote from TraderZones:


Don't they ever wonder why all the large financial institutions don't just hire an army of daytraders to make this "very reasonable" 200-300%, rather than working so hard to arb a little here and there?
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Are you sure that they don't.
When you hear of the bonus payments to traders do you wonder why they are paid so well?
 
Quote from deaddog:

Are you sure that they don't.
When you hear of the bonus payments to traders do you wonder why they are paid so well?
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The bonus payments at most major financial institutions are generally made to a lot more people than just to "traders", such as analysts, managers, IT, sales and other support staff. So for places such as GS, MS, UBS, and others, it is largely based on the performance of ths company and one's own compensation package.

These traders are generally appyling institutional methods, servicing Wealth Management and other clients. They are not sitting around, figuring out how to Fib and MACD the market via their own methods. HFT trading is not being done by Jack and Jill while clicking away on instruments, but by powerful algorithms that sense market opportunities.

And many traders are being replaced in general by system/algorithmic trading, so, the point becomes more moot every day. Firm traders are an expensive, distractable lot with a very long learning curve, a propensity of errors and the occasional things like the idiots who lose a few hundred million of a firm's money gambling on a stupid/desparation play. They also have a habit of walking out and starting their own firm and competing. So, legions of traders sitting at multi-monitor setups one day will mostly be replaced by lights-out trading.
 
Quote from TraderZones:

The bonus payments at most major financial institutions are generally made to a lot more people than just to "traders", such as analysts, managers, IT, sales and other support staff. So for places such as GS, MS, UBS, and others, it is largely based on the performance of ths company and one's own compensation package.

These traders are generally appyling institutional methods, servicing Wealth Management and other clients. They are not sitting around, figuring out how to Fib and MACD the market via their own methods. HFT trading is not being done by Jack and Jill while clicking away on instruments, but by powerful algorithms that sense market opportunities.

And many traders are being replaced in general by system/algorithmic trading, so, the point becomes more moot every day. Firm traders are an expensive, distractable lot with a very long learning curve, a propensity of errors and the occasional things like the idiots who lose a few hundred million of a firm's money gambling on a stupid/desparation play. They also have a habit of walking out and starting their own firm and competing. So, legions of traders sitting at multi-monitor setups one day will mostly be replaced by lights-out trading.
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But are you saying that none of these traders are making returns of 200% a year?
 
This has been a most interesting thread to read.

There are a lot of people who are very passionate about the inability of anyone to be successful at trading.

They refuse to believe it. And if you are, they'll ask for a year of records. Then they'll want 5 years, then 20,30, etc., so they can always justify to themselves why it can't be done by anyone.

Yet here they are, claiming to partake in a business in which they say you can't be successful at.
 
Quote from bugscoe:

This has been a most interesting thread to read.

There are a lot of people who are very passionate about the inability of anyone to be successful at trading.

They refuse to believe it. And if you are, they'll ask for a year of records. Then they'll want 5 years, then 20,30, etc., so they can always justify to themselves why it can't be done by anyone.

Yet here they are, claiming to partake in a business in which they say you can't be successful at.
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Agreed.

1% a day is more than doable. In fact, if a trader can't do 1% a day, everyday, there's a high chance of blowout.

When small, consistent profits can't be made with frequent trades, guess what the outcome is? When a trader is losing, they're not winning. And when a trading is winning, they're not losing. A traders account is zero sum like the market.

Consistent traders who do 1% a day, often, can do a lot more - 2-4% a day etc.

There's not a lot of middle ground. At least for discretionary. Perhaps not for stat arb, high frequency etc.
 
Quote from TraderZones:

While papertraders often have no problem acheiving this goal, as risk has no meaning when no money is on the table.

$400 a day is $400*270 trading days a year, or about $110K a year. Throw in trading costs, and maybe you need to pull $130-150K, or up to 300% annual return. And on the longterm? Slash the chance of doing this by perhaps a factor of 50.

Take a look at timertrac, robbins world cup, collective2, futurestruth and the other dusiters and see how very very very few do this when PAPER trading without worry of risk.

And your statement vanishes like smoke in a hurricane. Throw in risk of ruin, errors, taxes and other things, and it is beyond ludicrous for people to "expect" this kind of return.
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You aren't comprehending the leverage. I can't speak for futures but if u trade stocks at a prop, 50k will get u like 2 to 2.5 mil in BP. I think everyone can agree that 10%/year is not unbelievable in any way, so YOUR 50k is now 250k. So really who gives a shit what % they make a year, unless you are marketing something or managing OPM?

Don't waste time and call BS, I have seen at least a dozen traders do this, and experienced it (on a smaller scale). I don't know what good traders make %wise a year (cause no one cares or talks about it), but I have to assume they can avg at least 10% probably significantly more.
 
Annual %s are to lure in clients.

Annual %s are good to discuss longterm holding portfolios.

"yeah man, my portfolio is up 8% last year, rock on!"

But for people make their living day trading? It doesn't make much sense.

It doesn't make much sense for independent traders to discuss in anuual %s.

I've said it a few times before but people seem to not understand.

Those of you who are following my journal know that I trade with between 1 and 9 contracts.

I am happy to make an average of anywhere between $200 and $1,500 per day, but for the sake of argument, lets say I make $500 per day on average.

What makes sense to other traders if if I say "yeah man, trading up to 9 ES contracts a day I make about $500 a day. That's like $125,000 a year!"

Now, if I have $50k in my trading account or if I have $500k in my trading account, my performance is still the same. I still trade up to 9 contracts a day and I still make about $500 per day. Annual %s are irrelevant here. And to be honest, if I had $10,000,000 in my trading account I would still trade 1-9 contracts a day because that's what I'm comfortable with, so I'd still make about $500 per day. Do I care what % of my account that is? No. If I wanted to brag about my ePenis length I would withdraw from my account until I had the minimum margin required for 9 contracts and then make my same $500 per day using 9 contracts and then talk about how enormous of a % return I got, but you know what? It's all irrelevant because I'm not even using most of the money in my account so who cares?????
 
Quote from PiggyBank:

You aren't comprehending the leverage. I can't speak for futures but if u trade stocks at a prop, 50k will get u like 2 to 2.5 mil in BP. I think everyone can agree that 10%/year is not unbelievable in any way, so YOUR 50k is now 250k. So really who gives a shit what % they make a year, unless you are marketing something or managing OPM?

Don't waste time and call BS, I have seen at least a dozen traders do this, and experienced it (on a smaller scale). I don't know what good traders make %wise a year (cause no one cares or talks about it), but I have to assume they can avg at least 10% probably significantly more.
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Hopefully, you aren't serious? Everyone here comprehends "leverage." This is a trading forum, so trying to remind us of trading 101 is very odd.

What you don't understand, is "risk." If you spent the time to read the thread up until now and had a modicum of knowledge about real-world tradnig, you would probably retract your post.

Yes it is "possible" but that is not the point. A trader who understands what is going on knows it is about RISK-ADJUSTED REWARD. And the reason this whole topic is in vain is, that pursuing 200-300% a year will almost guarantee you will blow out, likely time after time. The ones who think differently, are almost all paper traders.
 
Quote from PiggyBank:

You aren't comprehending the leverage. I can't speak for futures but if u trade stocks at a prop, 50k will get u like 2 to 2.5 mil in BP. I think everyone can agree that 10%/year is not unbelievable in any way, so YOUR 50k is now 250k. So really who gives a shit what % they make a year, unless you are marketing something or managing OPM?

Don't waste time and call BS, I have seen at least a dozen traders do this, and experienced it (on a smaller scale). I don't know what good traders make %wise a year (cause no one cares or talks about it), but I have to assume they can avg at least 10% probably significantly more.
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Piggy, 10% per year is not a high target. But you forgot you have a restriction of money at risk, which is only 50 000, or 2% of your buying power. So consider the task "do 10% per year with less then 2% DD". Is it possible? For most traders here this is very unlikely.

This ratio remains the same regardless of leverage. You want 250k/year starting from 50k, so you need to have 5 earn to risk ratio.

Bulls and Bears make money, Pigs are slaughtered. Here is the link for you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_slaughter

<img src=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3d/Medieval_pig_slaughter.jpg/358px-Medieval_pig_slaughter.jpg /img>
 
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