Quote from SizesTrader:
Its hard to argue how much are the successful day traders make these days. For me, I think someone who is making between:
- 50K - 100K/yr is considered successful - but does it mean that they fall into the 5% successful day trader
or
- 100k - 500k/yr is very successful - also could mean that 1% is considered as the elite trader
Anything below 50K/yr is considered average.
what do you guys think?
People do not fit into earnings ranges over time.
A person has a capacity at any given time and there is no way that a person can remain in a fixed position over time.
There are two reasons:
1. The person grows and thus his capacity enlarges.
2. His equity curve basis, based upon capital in the markets, grows as well.
Take a firm look at how a person goes through his trading life and see how the dynamic of things prevents some simplistic notion that a steady state condition is achievable or logical.
The two major efforts a person makes early on are both acquisitional.
The person acquires the truths of the markets.
He also obtains the capital to trade.
One does not trade in any market one does not understand or sees as a place in which to take chances. One only trades what one has learned about. That is, knowing how the market works for the portion of the market one is allowed to trade in. This makes money and there are no associated expenses since this is only a part time endeavor that just builds wealth. It all starts at an initial rate of 10% a month and improves to 10% a week after a very short time. The amounts are determined by taking a portion of what is continually offered to the trader.
Think of it as doubling your money each quarter.
Three or four years of this and having a job allows a person to acquire enough capital to trade full time.
At this point the trading accounts are drained steadily to some extent. Say, at a rate of 1,000 to 2,000 dollars a week. The steady state condition for this would be to have 10K to 20K of capital in the markets after a 3 to 4 year build up from initial capital. There is no initial capital small enough to only have 10k to 20K by this time.
The drain of capital is always much smaller than the appreciation of capital. So a person's operating capital continues to grow.
Logically, he knows the commodities markets and the stock markets.
Commodities trading is limited and stock trading is not.
Commodities trading is more leveraged and more profitable than stock trading.
Commodities trading takes many times more time than stock trading to accomplish.
Dumping excesses into 501 (c) (3)'s (think foundation) since 1986 (the last change of the laws) requires unloading some of the capital you place in the 501 (c) (3) annually. Think of a 20 year turn over ratio roughly.
The task of learning the truths of the markets is uncomplicated vis a vis whether you are dealing with a truth. Truths are timeless. You only get to find them while debriefing after you have been trading right on the edges of your known truths. And those new provisional truths that you are running into as you broaden the no risk areas To you as a consequence of knowledge and skills) in which you make money.
The markets are transparent and they are always consistently right. Most people have never even seen the markets.
You only get to see the markets as a consequence preparing to debrief yourself on what you have seen.
Traders are like carpenters with 20 years experience. Some have one years experience repeated 19 times and others have grown every year they have beeen at it. They get different size pay checks too.
