Quote from montysky:
EricP, like lescor you're an inspiration to all of us on ET.
Enjoyed reading the stats from your past years, can you post 2011's performance as well? Keep up the good work.
Just stumbled across this thread today.
As with a lot of traders, 2011 was a disappointing year for me. With the exception of August, there were relatively few trading opportunities for me. I reduced the amount of capital in my account, as the cash was not needed for buying power most of the year. By year end, my total profits were slightly lower than 2010, and my worst profit level since 2006. I think my percent return was roughly 30%. I had one negative month in 2011 (July, -0.3%). My largest drawdown during the year was perhaps 2%. My best month was August, with a profit of 14% (almost half of my year's gains). It was a slow volume year, with 738k transactions (7.5 transactions per minute versus prior 8+ year average of 8.5).
By comparison, 2011 total year end profits were about 8% of the profits in my best trading year (2008). Also, my 2011 results were slightly LESS than my single best DAY of 2008. That said, it was still a decent year, producing an income that will generate little sympathy from your average working person.
I don't know if 2012 will be an improvement over 2011. The month of January has started pretty slow. The real question will be whether we get a volatility spike at some point during the year, as we have during the past two years (May 2010 Flash Crash and Aug 2011 Debt Limit and credit downgrade). It seems quite possible that we will see such a spike due to a collapse in Europe (Greek default, EU restructuring, etc). That said, volatility originating in Europe is not nearly as profitable as volatility originating in the U.S., as European volatility tend to lead to large U.S. gaps, and much lesser intraday action as U.S. originated volatility. Overall, I suspect that 2012 will be another 'bad' year up until we get something crashing in Europe, and then the question will be how long does the instability last? The longer and more devastating the instability, the better the trading results should be (yeah, sounds bad to profit from instability, but that's true for most of us => I like to think that I am paid to help provide stability and liquidity in the financial markets => No instability means no need for me, and little profit).
NoDoji: While I haven't really 'retired', I can tell you that I haven't been working 'full-time' since the middle of 2009. The markets just haven't been active enough to keep me in front of the computer. On a positive note, my golf game has never been better and I've done more traveling in the past 18 months than at any other time in my life!
Anyway, to summarize, 2011 was a disappointing but still 'nicely profitable' year. Nothing spectacular like 2007-2009, though. I suspect that as we continue to see mediocre trading conditions, we'll have fewer and fewer traders remain in the business (both individual, as well as hedge fund and bank traders). Certainly, the banks and hedge funds have been cutting staff relentlessly in the past year. If and when good trading conditions do return, there will be fewer competitors to fight against and hopefully more trading opportunities for each of us that are still in the business.
Best of luck to everyone in 2012!
