Daytrading profit potential

L

LelandC

I am curious as to what the folks here on elite think is the maximum amount of money a daytrader can make in a year? I guess I would use the example of trading with a prop firm where buying power is not a problem. I have heard of several 7 figure traders throughout the country - although there are probably less the last couple of years?

Also what style of trading do these big shooters employ? Is it feasible to trade 25,000 shares of XYZ (let's say XYZ is very liquid) for a buck and pocket $25,000 on that trade? Just thought this might be an interesting discussion....

Leland
 
Anyone care to comment on this thread? I thought it would be interesting to see how well the big successful traders are doing. I guess no one is making big money (LOL)....
 
Originally posted by LelandC

Is it feasible to trade 25,000 shares of XYZ (let's say XYZ is very liquid) for a buck and pocket $25,000 on that trade?
More...
If you have sufficient cash then give ORCL a try. :D
 
Don't really know about pro shops, but the top guys with 10M plus under management with 5+ years of trackrecord do about 100% on base capital.

You can always multiply by whatever leverage factor you get at the pro shop.
 
I know of one guy at our firm who is consistently making 3-5000 a day and we discussed it and figured he was probably making more than just about other prop trader out there. I think a million dollar year as a daytrader would put you in extremely elite company.

Low to mid 6 figures would probably put you in the top couple %, just a guess on my part. I converse with a couple dozen traders on a regular basis and none of them are making more than the equivalent of a decent middle class job.
 
Seriously, I have no idea what a top daytrader earns. I know the rumours and I'm sure there are some that hit big for a while but their risk exposure catches up with them.
I think it's like farming; some years the harvest is plentiful and other years you are eating fluff out of your navel.
Mathematically you can earn millions.:(
 
Ok, we all know that the potential to make millions is limitless but on the flip-side of the coin, the exposure will kill us all. About 10% of traders at my prop house are making over 7k/month.. the rest is just fodder
 
So if you took all of the earnings for each trader and then divided by number of traders to an average......voila, that's how much an average daytrader makes (although it is still skewed because the drop outs don't get counted).
Can you do that sum for us out of interest.
Cheers
Mike
 
Yes in a prop trading firm that pays 30%, the average in my group is $70K salary. The top trader makes well over $200K per year. We trade any equity, office average is 300,000 shares per day. Most of the times it's 1cent and 2cents profit per trade.
 
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