How did you feel with your first +$1000 day in trading profits?

[Slartibartfast]

i’m sure many people have done very well doing what you’ve described. there are many ways to extract interest.

some go for base hits, others swing for the fences. whatever you do, heed the advice of Floyd Mayweather and ‘protect yourself at all times!’

Indeedy,

Experience is the thing, Floyd being a great boxer who survived long enough to say that knows the best block against different opponents. Often things are not high stakes, they just look dizzying to relative beginners. But if you don't have the wax-on-wax-off in place it will ruin you.

 

[Spooz Top 2]

There is no feeling, its odd. Just calm. There are far more intense feelings when you are down. So you do everything possible to never get to that. (stop losses/trail stops). You have to get to huge multiples of net worth to make difference in quality of life.

I think the Derek Jeter approach to baseball as ours is to trading is the most psychologically sound as not to get too High when up & not too low when down... To keep it on an even keel is easier said than done.... as we know.

1996 or`97 was my first $10K day.. buying Lucent Calls on the open & left a GTC sell limit with my broker... He`d page me (yes, beeper days) my football #44 to let me know I was filled both ways & ended up kicking them at 3:30... Netting the first big day is always pretty euphoric & special.

 

[lawrence-lugar]

to answer your question: I don't remember my first $1,000+ day
I don't even remember when it was

But I remember very clearly when I first had 300 consecutive trades recorded and studied without any overall loss and with their highest peak-to-trough drawdown being only 4%
because that was the day I knew I could make a full-time living by trading

Everyone...Remembers their first...$1,000/day. or $100/day or $500/day.-- Or even your first profitable day.
It's kind of like your first kiss, or sex. -- You can't forget it. It's just too wow and memorable and unique. For better or worse.

Unless, of course, you never had a $1,000/day. -- You strike me as a very conservative, risk-averse, trader...so by that definition...both your gains and losses will be somewhat relatively tiny.

A profitable trader that's retail...will notice any $1,000 profitable trading day even if it was not the goal

In contrast, million dollar profitable trading days...that's institutional trader dreams
Thus, if a retail trader is thinking about million dollar profitable trading days...that's a very good joint he/she is smoking

In trading, it's just a matter of scaling up and compounding...But I still can't imagine ever having a million dollar trading day.
I would be crazy emotional putting on the position and then later on closing it.
The largest I ever plan or envision myself handling would be $100K. I would cap position limits around that whole number.

Would it be even Possible to buy like $600K-900K in options and get an instant fill, even for the most liquid like SPY or SPX? w/o causing weird ripples and small tremors in the price.

 

[Handle123]

I normally don't remember much of anything good that comes along --ever bout money, and only reason I remember my first $10,000 plus day was in Soybeans in my first year trading Futures, and even then I didn't get excited or fun, I do remember I puked half the night LOL. I didn't know much and dumb broker I had and paid more for commissions was supposed to help me with trading, he knew less than I did. I kept adding more contracts, then hit the highs and three limit down days, had built up account from $5,000 to 105,000 in late spring to July. End of the 3rd day was able to get out on close and lost $110,000, I remember each day I was staring at TV screen and watching the ticker showing -30.00 on beans, those rotten beans LOL. I was suicidal for like 3 months after. Yeah, thinking what a dumb ass I was, didn't know anything about @Xela spoke of in her earlier post on percentages, I was lucky not to make mistake put the orders in. Don't even think @Xela was born yet.

I use to get mildly amused of new account highs, but lot that desire long gone, I just lost value of money in 2000-2001, have what thought enough for my lifetime and wasn't even in trading, was in real estate and mortgages getting paid off in Chicago. Never had million winning days in scalping or day trading yet, have though in long term trading, but often next day rally ensues and that was erased. Have had million plus losing days in scalping/day trading, but I expect that as I average down, it is a cost of trading when system is wrong or more like cycling wrong.........Been playing the game long time, profitable/losses just stopped mattering, I only concentrate on getting losing percentages even lower, what can I do to get drawdowns lower, I study now 12-16 hours on being small. Still have retail accounts in some of trading and other have seats. End of the year start a private hedge fund with my best friend, trying to save him from being physician all his life wiping other people's boils, LOL. I am looking forward to new chapter in life, cause baby it is flipping boring to trade after you get consistently profitable in automation. I think many get to a point in life where you think, "this was it, to get profitable"? Me helping my buddy really helping me. Seriously was thinking of just retiring from all of it and walk away from trading...

 

[comagnum]

Trading goes against human nature - which is why so many struggle with it. When I was newer at trading a big up day did had my levitating with euphoria/greed.

Over the years I taught myself to become detached from caring about making $. The less I care about the $, the better I do since their is no ceiling on how much I can make. I focus only on the process of trading , not the outcome - as long as I do this I will always have more $ than I know what to do with. I do care about protecting my capital & using strong risk mgmt. Protect the down side & the upside takes care of itself as long as I focus on the process.


* No one who successfully trades their own money does it just for the money, at least over the long haul. Most have a loftier goal other than $.

* If you care to much about money, you cannot successfully trade.

* If you just have to make $ trading, and make it now to pay some bills or buy something than look out below!

* It's a lot easier to make large profits when you are not glued to your P/L window.

* Having a big one day gain sucks when you could have had a profit up to a hundred fold more had you held it longer. Getting into a new winning trade is a lot harder than riding a winner with a rising profit.

* Trading smaller position sizes equates to much larger profits over the long haul. Yet many traders insist on trading way over leveraged.

 

[Evermore2017]

Well, March was my first month with more than 10K in earnings. Whats Next? raise my trading capital to 100K this year.

 

[Xela]

Well, March was my first month with more than 10K in earnings. Whats Next? raise my trading capital to 100K this year.

The obvious inference from those two things is that you've just had a month of $10k+ in earnings from less than $100k current trading capital ... and well done.

I hope this doesn't come across as critical, but that kind of combination does instinctively make me worry, vicariously, about people's position-sizing.

(I know it also depends on the type of trading that one does, of course, and I acknowledge that for some trading-styles, the first three months of this year have undeniably been something of a "golden age").

 

[lawrence-lugar]

March was my first month with more than 10K in earnings

Whats Next? raise my trading capital to 100K this year.

That's the cool and awesome thing with trading, and having skill and/or a newly-discovered and working formula or system...your 10K/month...could just as easily, now, be 20K...40K...100K/month ,

2018 ET.

Experiencing that kind of growth with a traditional business or doing something else online is kind of virtually limited, unless you become some sort of viral sensation on YouTube, and your channel truly grows.

Alot of people are making a good living on YouTube...just simply sharing their personal thoughts on Louboutin shoes, or Espresso coffee machines. -- or playing with their Pitbull. Record any topic, and just babble away...

If I looked like a handsome Tom Cruise or Tom Brady, instead of a virgin rapist with a thinning scalp...I would create my own YouTube channel and talk about Day Trading Options and porterhouse steaks and Gatorade and Porsche.

 

[Evermore2017]

The obvious inference from those two things is that you've just had a month of $10k+ in earnings from less than $100k current trading capital ... and well done.

I hope this doesn't come across as critical, but that kind of combination does instinctively make me worry, vicariously, about people's position-sizing.

(I know it also depends on the type of trading that one does, of course, and I acknowledge that for some trading-styles, the first three months of this year have undeniably been something of a "golden age").

I think my position size is aggressive, but not suicidal. Between 10 and 15% of the capital in each trade. I also think that last month was atypical.