By day trading, is it really impossible to get a 3% return every day without fail?

[speedo]

3% a day "without fail" assumes a smooth curve of earnings which does not exist in trading. A good trader will make 10% on pre-leveraged capital one day and lose 3% the next. The ability to do this is a specialized skill set which can and often take years to develop. First one has to understand the nature of price development and produce a methodology to take advantage of that understanding. It is not enough to learn how someone else does it....we are all different. The hard part is to shape one's behavior to perform consistently with the appropriate measures of focus, patience, courage and discipline. While I believe most people can develop these skills and abilities, the hard truth is most will not.

It would be best for a novice to not focus on dollars or return percentages but with the path itself. If one is successful, and the odds are against you, the money will be there.

 

[Redneck]

aim for 3%, and compound.

Save yourself heartburn - this is unrealistic (there are inherent limitations)

Periodically (monthly / quarterly) sweep the account and start over

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Now the hic is : the losing streaks effects on these.

There is significant merit to the adage; keep all losses small

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One thing for certain - You believe it can't be done - You are 100% correct

Love this gig

RN

 

[Handle123]

It takes half your lifetime to get good at trading, and I don't know why since we trade everything we do in life, trade money for something. People will spend months researching the best car to drive and yet when it comes to trading they can't wait to open an account. I was guilty of that too another lifetime ago. You can do anything you can dream up trading the market BUT you better be prepared to have an answer if it doesn't work out, and one of many reasons people fail, no fall back. They quit their jobs to compete against themselves and the brightest people on Earth and yet when they start losing, no answers. You better have all the answers before putting on one trade, buy insurance in case of being wrong. And yes it is possible to make 3% a day on average to a certain point, the money starts messing with your brain based on how you grew up or you just run out of safely trading the volume that is there. But the number of people who can do 3% a day are doing it with smaller amount of money as those with millions are not going to risk to get that.

 

[debitspread]

2. Average 30%/yr for 10 years. 3. You will rank in the top 0.1% of all of us players.

Heck, that's modest by ET standards. Most here claim to make at least 100%/year, at least 3x the daily range, etc.

 

[Scataphagos]

Heck, that's modest by ET standards. Most here claim to make at least 100%/year, at least 3x the daily range, etc.

Yeah, lot of "talkers/hopers"... not so many doers.

TONS of potential in the market... difficult to capture much of it, especially "net", minus your losers.



I recall years ago when I was into the "mutual fund timing" game... some guy was "trading the crap out of Fidelity's Selects". When asked about how much of his money he was doing this with, he said, "3%". When asked about where the rest of his money was, he said, "T-Bills".

Pffffft!

(Anybody can pay to watch a monkey fuck a football for 3%.)

 

[ktm]

I love these threads.

 

[Trevor Phillips]

Incredible and fun to think about it. But yeah, totally unrealistic. It's not going to work in real life.

 

[Ferdinand]

There are a number of reasons it doesn't make sense to aim for X per day.

Not all days are equal. If the dow moves 300 points one day and 25 the next, why would I trade or make the same amount each day? You can plug in other variables but the principle is the same in my mind.

Also, why would one day be your arbitrary timeframe? If you want every single day to be a winner, why not every single trade?

My point is that plenty of traders will take several small losers before hitting their one winner that carries them to significant net profit.

If on a trade per trade basis small loss, small loss, small loss, BIG GAIN is ok, why would it not be ok on a day to day basis?

I realize everyone trades differently but the biggest flaw in my mind is that trying to FORCE every day to be a winner NO MATTER WHAT is an unrealistic goal and the attempt to achieve it will end up screwing you much harder in the end.

If your goal is 3% / day and you're down 3% that day, what is your game plan? Recoup the 3 and go for another 3? What if you end up losing another 3%? At some point you gotta have a cut off where you will end that losing day, or else you are risking your entire account every single day.

I have certainly looked back over a couple weeks and thought "damn, if only I had the patience to let that one crappy day go as 0 or only a small loss, it would have made a huge difference."

Realizing that is one thing, and doing it is another.

It feels bad to take this seriously, prep, pay attention, work really hard, and leave the day having done nothing or having netted out at or near 0.

But if the realistic alternative is forcing trades that result in losses, the better trader will choose the 0.

 

[jsp326]

Just think, what strategy could possibly make a steady 3% on any day, whether it's quiet trading around the holidays, a Fed interest rate hike, the worst of the 2008 financial crisis, a rip-roaring bull market, etc.

 

[marketsurfer]

Yeah, lot of "talkers/hopers"... not so many doers.

TONS of potential in the market... difficult to capture much of it, especially "net", minus your losers.



I recall years ago when I was into the "mutual fund timing" game... some guy was "trading the crap out of Fidelity's Selects". When asked about how much of his money he was doing this with, he said, "3%". When asked about where the rest of his money was, he said, "T-Bills".

Pffffft!

(Anybody can pay to watch a monkey fuck a football for 3%.)

i remember that game--- when combined with IPO flipping many millionaires were made very very quickly.

too bad those days are long gone----