Grinding it out, day after day

Quote from Mo06:

Just finished reading this thread from start to finish, great stuff Lescor.

I have one question, as someone who also trades stocks full time, and it's the question of measuring performance.

I calculate the gross return on each trade in basis points - so a long trade entered @ 20.00 and exited @ 20.20 equals 100 BPS profit.

Likewise a long trade entered @ 5.50 and exited @ 5.39 equals a loss of 200 bps.

I have a target of 500 BPS per week, or 100 per day traded. I rarely hit this target, although I have some +300 days.

I am trading very small size at the moment, having taken a hit a couple of years ago after trading profitably for a few years.

I was wondering what sort of targets other stock traders have..... be it daily, weekly or monthly.

Thanks again for the journal.
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The number one of course is how much money you actually net at the end of the day/week/year. Any metric on it's own doesn't mean squat if you can't translate it into a meaningful amount of money that makes your time trading worthwhile.

I and other traders I know look mainly at cents per share traded, either net or gross, in conjunction with how much volume you are trading.

The year's not over, but it's been nothing to write home about. I'll post my total and a brief recap at the end of the month.
 
lescor is making average returns of around 70% return on capital last year in real terms, or? I am just asking since he mentioned access to prop leverage.
 
Lescor,

You burning the candle until the very end of the year?

Hmmm, it would be tempting to shut it down, drink some hot coco in the cold winter night, and spend time with family.

You have yourself a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
 
Quote from masterm1ne:

This Corey guy cracks me up.... last time his income 'sucked' he made 200k in a year.

TOP < ONE PERCENT!

http://www.globalrichlist.com/

I'm sitting at 88-90% as a slave :cool:
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The link sucks, after a certain amount one is always the 107,565richest person in the world and in the top 0.001%

With 88-90% you would be around or below the poverty line in much of the rich world.
 
Quote from JB3:

Lescor,

You burning the candle until the very end of the year?

Hmmm, it would be tempting to shut it down, drink some hot coco in the cold winter night, and spend time with family.

You have yourself a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
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If he did that, he'd miss a day like today.
 
For the sake of consistency, here is a wrap up of my year.

I ended up grossing $361,000 on 11.2 million shares traded. This would make my net somewhere around $325k. The year was downright discouraging for the first half. I was making money regularly, just not enough. I kept grinding away though and out of nowhere the last quarter of the year ended up being great. In fact 30% of my year was made in the last two weeks. The stats themselves are actually pretty good, similar to 2010. But I traded much much less volume than I have for several years. The markets are thinner, I'm trading less and the opportunity doesn't last as long when it does come around.

Nothing stands out as memorable or particularly interesting. The blow up of KCG on August 1st was probably the best event-driven trading event, but I was on holidays then and not trading. Most of my trader friends had one of their best days of the year that day.

Profit by month:
JAN 27,619
FEB 9,843
MAR 4,100
APR 14,139
MAY 12,241
JUNE 23,692
JULY 32,802
AUG 18,553
SEPT (5,922)
OCT 35,904
NOV 66,602
DEC 121,557

Top 5 days
Fri, Dec 21 63,022
Mon, Nov 5 17,635
Thu, Nov 1 16,759
Mon, Jul 2 16,431
Fri, Sep 21 16,163

Bottom 5 days
Tue, Mar 6 (11,581)
Wed, May 30 (9,527)
Fri, Aug 10 (8,523)
Thu, Mar 22 (7,979)
Mon, May 14 (7,804)

Traded 244 out of 250 days
155 winning days, 89 losing days
Average winning day: $3,951
Average losing day: $-2821
Average per day: $1,481
Daily profit factor: 2.4
Cents per share traded: 3.2

All numbers are gross, meaning before commissions and other expenses.
<img src=http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=3714089>
 

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