Interesting comment and I agree with the gist.....but ...12 months ago the SPX was at 932.87.....it is now at 1058.45, some 130 points higher......however it first moved 144 points lower to the march bottom! So for 3 months you couldnt be just a long trader! You're right...you have to see the forest from the trees.....other wise the market will f**k you up big time!
"Have you made or lost money since you started trading?"
- Thread starter travis
- Start date
Interesting comment and I agree with the gist.....but ...12 months ago the SPX was at 932.87.....it is now at 1058.45, some 130 points higher......however it first moved 144 points lower to the march bottom! So for 3 months you couldnt be just a long trader! You're right...you have to see the forest from the trees.....other wise the market will f**k you up big time!
Quote from DTK:
If you are offering to do that math, it may prove to be interesting. There is a pretty big difference between compounding 42 consecutive trades at 15% or greater and pulling of 42 trades starting with the same amount of money for each trade. Starting with 10k and 'just' 15%, the first would have you making over $3.5 mil. With 10k per position, the latter would have you making ~$63k with an undetermined amount of money to start.
Both are a nice place to be.
PS â Nice work on your site. The last time I saw it you were just getting into the web page thing and it looked like something I did back in high school.
Very good point! Similar to the point I made when someone in the thread about "how much should a good trader make" claimed that if one doesn' t make 100% on returns a year, he/she is not a good trader.
Trendy,
Your sarcasm is a sad attempt at humor and are you rightfully flamed for doing so. Everybody understands the spirit or essence of the question and I know you do as well. However, your choice to play lawyer and bring up the semantics of the question is petty. Your kind of posts should be discouraged from ET because no one wants to sift though useless posts like the one you wrote...or this one that I wrote now in response to yours. Just because you see a can of worms, doesn't mean you should open it.
DNAJ65000
if members don't police themselves, moderators will censor.
Besides, there was no can of worms but just a lot of worms in his head. Because where does it say that you only answer polls with a "yes" or "no", and that you can't answer instead "I made money (overall)" or "I lost money (overall)". The poll is perfectly phrased, the only problem is when a stupid person tries to be funny.
"Trading a million dollar account and trading a 25K account will utilize different trading strategies." CalTrader
Not really, not necessarily so at all.
If you have devised and actually trialled successfully a very high probability system for index futures .. it would of course have to be a quantitive system .. then you use it from a small account through to a fortune sized account.
You risk control and money management must be of a strict and particular order though. So bet size is 0.2% of capital (original investment + net gains) or put as ratio 1:500. Use deep stops to avoid your trading success being disrupted by 'noise' on any one day .. say 40 to 50 points on the YM. Also don't carry overnight: stop profit or stoploss before the close. Daily targeted profit making say not less than 55 points on the Dow .. can be variation here depending on the sophistication of your formulae but very very roughly you are taking out the difference between the days hi/lo.
Then retain all gains to multiply and compound you capital.
Not really, not necessarily so at all.
If you have devised and actually trialled successfully a very high probability system for index futures .. it would of course have to be a quantitive system .. then you use it from a small account through to a fortune sized account.
You risk control and money management must be of a strict and particular order though. So bet size is 0.2% of capital (original investment + net gains) or put as ratio 1:500. Use deep stops to avoid your trading success being disrupted by 'noise' on any one day .. say 40 to 50 points on the YM. Also don't carry overnight: stop profit or stoploss before the close. Daily targeted profit making say not less than 55 points on the Dow .. can be variation here depending on the sophistication of your formulae but very very roughly you are taking out the difference between the days hi/lo.
Then retain all gains to multiply and compound you capital.