How did you grow your account into a big one?

Quote from garachen:

It all varies. But is definitely intraday. As I look over. My three new guys have traded so far today on average 70 contracts. All three are positive. Average $400. The more experienced guys, same products averaging 300 contracts (slow day) about $3000 average so far. Another manual trader (different products) 16,000 contracts - up about 10K. Another guy 700 contracts(different products). Neg 5K.

Speed, what kills in trading,doesn`t it??
 
A lot of food for thought in your comments. I have been reading and rereading some of your posts. This is what I'm thinking right now:

One thing holding me back seems to be being to conservative. Having too many too small positions. While I'm fully aware that there is a line between calculated aggressiveness and dumb decisions, 20-30% p.a. will not grow my account substantially. Compounding my account at this rate over 10 years might be a viable option, but that is exactly the reason why I came here because this approach sounds frustrating and time wasting to me and I asked myself what can I do about it.

Dedication is another thing to think about. Starting to regularly think about how to make the transition into another level of trading income might open your mind for ideas never thought before during your daily routine of every day life. Pushing yourself, setting high goals and then starting to question yourself how to get there.

Also, it seems luck plays a role in the process to a certain extent. But this also implies that you have to be there and know what you do when the lucky circumstances happen.

A lot to think about.
 
Nevertheless, there must be more traders out there who at some point made it happen that their account made a big leap forward. What happened? How does it happen? Would love to hear more stories and comments?
 
Quote from careless:

Through saving and trading I have build up my trading account to 50k. With my current performance (20-30% per year part time position trading) it takes a long time to grow it into something meaningful, like 500k.
For those that where at this point in their past, how did you make your account grow substantially. Are you just grow it by small steps? Took you greater that usual risks? Got you lucky with a trade? Became you better at trading and realized higher yearly returns? Switched you to trading shorter time frames?...

Would be interested in hearing your stories.

I didn't read the thread.

An acquaintance told me this at drinks last nite.

Her grandparents were given the gift of Esso stock as a wedding gift. She inherited it and is married to a medical doctor.

Her horse of choice is the jumper. She feels breeders in Greenwich do a good job. She has taught the childern of some of my friends to ride.
 
i will be the second here to agree with rally. true edge i can attest is fleeting. in the years following the last crash i feel i had an edge...i pushed like a madman..for i always feared what was working would cease at any moment. thankfully it lasted for a few years..the risks i took were shocking to those who knew me, but my returns were jaw dropping..to me at least.

now i see currently no edge , but i have large sums of funds and can live well on much less returns.

real edge is rare to find..i wish you guys luck..as i'm on the lookout for a new edge, lol.
 
Quote from sellindexvol66:

i will be the second here to agree with rally. true edge i can attest is fleeting. real edge is rare to find..i wish you guys luck..as i'm on the lookout for a new edge, lol.

I once knew a HFT making 200 - 300% annual returns on a fixed capital base. He made money for about 5 years until his edge vanished, causing him to be no longer profitable.
An edge was never regained after that and he quit trading. So the question is can you grow fast enough into a big account before your edge vanishes? Can you find a new edge to make outsized returns? Not easy. There are many hundreds of smart mathematicians and PhDs working at quants trying to identify short term trading patterns to exploit, which is why patterns never last long.

If you read Marty Schwartz's "Pit Bull," you know he exploited the after-hour cash bond movement to predict next day's open in the S&P. That allowed his account size to grow immensely before that pattern went away.
 
Quote from garachen:

I'm kind of reluctantly posting this because I fear motivating the wrong people. Just because some people have success with trading doesn't mean that it's easy, or even attainable at all, for the majority. Of course there are many reasons for that. Luck. Timing. Personality. Patience. Fallback plan. Spousal support. Intelligence. It's a long list with many factors not very controllable.

This field is full of smart people. Most people overestimate their intelligence. I certainly did - but then had the fortune to work with a group of russian ex-physics PhD quants in a very technical environment early in my career. I found that if I took a day to really think about it I could get to the point where I could understand the question that they were trying to solve. It gave me a new perspective. I'm not saying that you have to be that level of smart or that those people would be good traders. My point is, that they are out there doing .... stuff... and at some level they form part of the competition. Many people who are not smart enough never ask enough (or the correct) questions.

With that caveat, I'll tell a piece of my story.

While working for a modest sized hedge fund (about $5B) I met a coworker who was a serial entrepreneur. We became friends and would often take walks together. He taught me a lot about how to view income as 'stages' and how you have to do different things to get to the next stage. Another thing that always stuck with me is that he would say "Garachen, if you live in America and your goal is to make money and you haven't hit $1M by the age of 25 then you are not really trying." He'd then say. "Anyone in America can make $1M. It's trivial. $10M is harder. $100M is quite hard and $1B takes a lot of luck."

At the time, this frustrated me. I was 25 and had only saved about $150K. Thought I was doing at least reasonably well - but apparently I wasn't "really trying". He'd motivate me with stories of how he made his first Million, then the next ten, fifty and so on. There's a lot of good story here that I'm skipping. Suffice it to say, he motivated me to quit my job at the hedge fund and try a different approach.

My first year of manual trading I took that $150K to $50K (broker theft) and on to 800K by the end of the year. I traded almost exclusively illiquid futures contracts at a time when there was absolutely no automation on those contracts. It was a golden era. Still, it's not too different from what I'd expect today. I've generally found that when I hire a new person with no trading experience I should expect them to make about $1K/day using max 25K margin after about 3 months of floundering. Of course everyone can't pull this off. During the interview process I pretty heavily screen for personality traits that I think are important for trading so I end up with people who can resonate with my particular, very risk averse, style.

One last thing. Before that friend I'd met, I'd always heard that "the first million is hard, the next 10 are easy". My friend was telling me the opposite which is closer to my experience. I have found the process of reaching different income levels to be much closer to the 'stages' my friend described and that I've had to do material different things to get to the next stage. It's important while you are at one stage to be able to visualize and lay the groundwork for the next.

awesome post!

+100

would you be willing to elaborate on the "broker theft"?
 
I just started getting into trading around november of last year, but havent had alot of time to actively trade.

I have been trying out alot of different strategies, from 1 minute chart fibanocci scalps, 1m chart moving average breaks, to pivot points, bollinger bands, blah blah lol

but the last 2 weeks I have been trading the gap at the open. and actually I am up for the week.

But let me give u an example. Today DUST gaps up like 10 bucks, it hits 115 in the first 10 minutes. it stops there, and then the 4th 5 minute bar breaks to the down side of the 1st 5 minute bar. it does bounce back up a little from 110 to 112, but after that it drops all the way to 101. with 112k buying power you could have shorted that from 112 to 105 for 1k shares=7k profit. so that around 28k in cash needed to make 7k. thats 25% gain on your portfolio. now after the short, there was nice support at 101, long position 101 to 104, 1k shares long nets you 3k profit. up to 10k for the day.

I didnt play this one, and every time I look back at the charts on the days action I say to myself, why didnt I pull the trigger?
I dont want to sound like a douche, but I do think that its possible to make 2k-5k a day with a account thats 30k if you use leverage correctly.

Also, SCALE into positions. yesterday I played NFLX for a 2k scalp. WHen the first candle showed strength, I bought a few contracts, then it ticked up and I bought 4 more, then it bounced again and I bought 10, and then 4 more, I think I had 21, and right after the last buy I started exiting. if it went against me after the first candle...I could have just dumped 2 or 3 contracts.

and my last thing, and most important, is when u get your buy signal, play it every time, dont choke. The last week I had 5 or 6 set ups that I liked, but for one reason or another...I didnt put in a order. I look back the share it up 2 bucks, and options are trading 300% higher, so once u get your setup...trade it.

thats what ive learned so far. I plan to paper trade for a few more months before I go live. but yes I beleive 3 to 5k a day can be made with a 30k account.
 
Quote from BlueTurtle:

lol. so if I tried very hard to dunk a basketball for 2 hours a day, could I do it? are you saying the 90% of failed traders simply don't think hard enough, or long enough? of the ones that spend 10 hours a day staring at MACD....is that bad? should they stare at RSI?

so, yes....work smarter, harder!!!! haha. these treads are comical, since zero practical information.

now I tell my minions who only make 10k a day....listen, if you focus more, eat better, exercise more, you will make 100k a day!!!!

let's all cheer at once!!!!

I know one guy who wants to be a gold medalist at running. I say, run 1 mile today, 2 tomorrow...soon you will be the best!!!!

more cheering!!!!

its common to attribute your success to things in your control, always forgetting the extanuating circumstances.
if 100 hour work week was necesarry to become millionaire, then half the people in USA would be millionaire.
becoming millionaire by 25 is only really possible in finance and software. you have to be lucky to fall into that sector.


also about getting a girl. no talking to 5 different girls a day doesnt work
 
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