Best day as prop trader
- Thread starter kaitrader
- Start date
$2million in one day.
That day, I came in flat. I bought $12m portfolio value across a basket of Reits and Broker Dealers first 10 minutes of the trading day when the US govt outlawed short selling financials in 2008. They gapped up 2%. By 9:40, I was long $8m and added another $4m when they made intraday highs.
What kept me in for nearly 20% move intraday was that this was not a normal market. If you were following the markets in late 2008, sectors would trend up or down 5-10% intraday everyday for several months. The pattern back then was to hold unprecedented intraday trends. I had several $500k loss days during this period. This was the most volatile year I experienced on my P&L in my 15 years of trading.
Great, were you trading own money?
yes. i left a large backed prop group to trade my money up for a few years. looking back though, that was a mistake.
you were trading a 10 million$ own account? Must have taken some guts man, hats off.
for what reasons?
IMHO, trading when management "shares" risk with you is altogether different than money up scenario where one is trading very high prop leverage and subject to constant margin call watch especially in a high VIX environment. It has psychological ramifications. I've found this to be a consistent pattern when observing trader careers.
but why keep trading then. can just retire or do something more relaxing
Maybe he loves to trade