Daytrading profit potential

We have a few "Million Dollar Traders" - who generally keep around $100K in their accounts (pretty good traders).

We find that the people who need to draw money out daily or weekly, thus keeping their accounts at the lower end ($20K-$50K), tend to be a bit more conservative, and their profits run in the 6 figures each year. I of course cannot comment on the exact numbers, but will say that there has been a bit of a downturn in earnings this year, but also that it seems to be picking up again.

A good trader will adjust his/her technique to fit the overall markets, and will usually do well. Those that are tied to one strategy (i.e. momentum) will find the going a little rougher.

Don
 
Originally posted by dotslashfuture
daytrading, true daytrading as an outsider paying commissions, is gambling. There is no escaping that fact. It doesn't matter if you do it with stocks, options, or futures. In the end there will be a very tiny percentage of very lucky people who make a ton of money and a very large number of people who will wish they never heard of daytrading.
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This may be true for a majority of traders. However, I think it is naive to say that the successful traders are 'very lucky people' any more than you might say that the players in the NBA are lucky to be there. There are many consistently successful traders that trade for their living. These are professionals in the sense that they know what they are doing, have worked very hard to get where they are, and are good at it. It would be silly to assume that these traders are simply on a lucky 'winning' streak and that the odds will catch up to them.

However, I would agree that successful traders are 'fortunate' to be successful in a career that they love, have unlimited freedom and can work the hours of their choice. It's a great career for those that learn to be successful at it.

-Eric
 
I went to your web site and read the bio's of your founders. You all seem like a bunch of guys who were big options players and completely understand the math behind how the markets work. Do you employ people who want to do low volume high percentage strategies like credit spreads, or is it all about cranking out that stock volume ? The fact that most prop firms brag about how many shares they do doesn't inspire much confidence.
 
Here's how it's been for one trader I know: in 19 months, Grossed $650,000. Allowed to keep $32,000 (before tax). I say 'allowed' because 23 of those 32 grand were viewed as a concession by the house to the trader, even though he was making them nice coin. He had to pull teeth to get that much, and it came out in drips.
 
One Stock Trading: Dell has traded intraday over 18 points cumulative for the month of May. This means the "meat" of the move which would be able to be traded, not the daily high/low. Someone posed the question of what should you do if your stock is not moving and the market is "ripping", LOL. Dell or other similar stocks will almost always move with the NAZ in the same direction, absent stock specific news to the contrary.

Now, if your goal is to trade 100 times a day and jump on whatever has showed up on some "scan" this method may not be for you, LOL.

Trading is a business and it has to be approached as a business. The people who approach it as a gamble and treat it as a gamble will, of course, lose all of their money. You have to have discipline and money management, just as you would with the Subway Sandwich Franchise. If you do not have these factors you will not be a successful franchisee for Subway either.

Take $25,000 trading capital, work it and take the profit off of the table at the end of the week. Start each week with the original $25,000 trading equity. Never risk the profit again. This forces you to trade very careful when you have a down week in order to bring the capital back to $25,000.

IMHO
 
Just for fun I once carefully analyzed the one minute for a stock with normally good daily volatility. I picked an average day for my test. I pretended to have a $25,000 account and maxed it out with 4:1 margin on every trade. (I kept the number of shares the same for every trade.)

I then calculated what that day's profit would have been had I entered and exited exactly at the tops and bottoms of every trend, rally, pullback, etc. lasting three minutes or longer. (Movements within the minute candles were ignored.) Perfect fills and no slippage.

The profit that day would have been $35,000. That's right, 140% return in one day. How's that for a theoretical target! Imagine that rate that compounded over, say 5 years. Now that's a target to shoot for!:D
 
Originally posted by dotslashfuture
daytrading, true daytrading as an outsider paying commissions, is gambling. There is no escaping that fact. It doesn't matter if you do it with stocks, options, or futures. In the end there will be a very tiny percentage of very lucky people who make a ton of money and a very large number of people who will wish they never heard of daytrading.
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dotfutures, I wonder what your agenda is. Every one of your nine posts has had something negative to say.

Stating that daytrading is purely a matter of luck with such authority, a statement that is so far removed from the truth it's not funny, one can only assume you're a total idiot.

Then, in another post, you say, again with such conviction, P2 should be happy to just beat the S&P. Buddy, I don't know how you can show your face on a site called Elite TRADER and make ludicrous statements like that. Like I said - idiot.
 
Originally posted by Don Bright
We have a few "Million Dollar Traders" - who generally keep around $100K in their accounts (pretty good traders).

We find that the people who need to draw money out daily or weekly, thus keeping their accounts at the lower end ($20K-$50K), tend to be a bit more conservative, and their profits run in the 6 figures each year.
Don
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Seems odd that a Million Dollar Man would only need or want to keep a paltry 100k in the acct. Grandma plays with more than that.

And if folks are making 100k or more, why do they 'need' to take money out daily or weekly. Sounds like they may need to chat with Suze Ormand. :p
 
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