How much do day traders make

RDK91 said:
Lets say i get 50 ticks on ZB and 25 on ZN each month and i scale it up to lets say 60 contracts then i would be making +100K/month.
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  1. I do believe it can be done.
  2. I know from personal experience it can be done.
  3. But I also know from personal experience (contact with other traders that cannot achieve it) that for 99% of people who try, it will never work.
  4. If you look from the sideline it always looks so easy. But many wonder after attempting a few years: Why can I not do this, it looks so simple.
The most difficult part is "consistency", the fact that you have to repeat it over and over again eliminates the factor "luck". And at the same time mostly the performance disappears too.

Doing a good trade is completely different from doing 1000 good trades.
 
Overnight said:
"It's better to regret a thing you have done, than to regret a thing you haven't done."
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He has already given up almost 800K in lost income with nothing to show for it.
He might be giving up 200K x 10 to chase the dream for 10 years. Thats 2 million in lost income (More if pay keeps going up with inflation), plus he will lose his life savings to date and be broke at the end of it.
That will be a huge regret over maybe thinking on his death bed "why didnt i follow my passion to be day trader, i could have had a much more free life".

I could understand if he had a proven trading method and some idea on how to make 100K a year, but he seems pretty clueless even after more than 1000 days of trying.

I suppose like Seykota said everyone gets what they want from trading, and he is getting his freedom.
 
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Mtrader said:
  1. I do believe it can be done.
  2. I know from personal experience it can be done.
  3. But I also know from personal experience (contact with other traders that cannot achieve it) that for 99% of people who try, it will never work.
  4. If you look from the sideline it always looks so easy. But many wonder after attempting a few years: Why can I not do this, it looks so simple.
The most difficult part is "consistency", the fact that you have to repeat it over and over again eliminates the factor "luck". And at the same time mostly the performance disappears too.

Doing a good trade is completely different from doing 1000 good trades.
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I also believe and know it can be done, i am experiencing it right now.
Will my system still be working in a few years? I don't know.
Consistency is no problem since the system is 100% technical, working on automating it.
Let's wait and see what the future will bring.
 
RDK91 said:
I also believe and know it can be done, i am experiencing it right now.
Will my system still be working in a few years? I don't know.
Consistency is no problem since the system is 100% technical, working on automating it.
Let's wait and see what the future will bring.
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How big was your backtest (sample size) and how many trades in real forward trading have you done?
 
southall said:
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He might be giving up 200K x 10 to chase the dream for 10 years. Thats 2 million in lost income (More if pay keeps going up with inflation), plus he will lose his life savings to date and be broke at the end of it.
That will be a huge regret over maybe thinking on his death bed "why didnt i follow my passion to be day trader, i could have had a much more free life".
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That's assuming he doesn't lose his job tomorrow. If that happens, then the potential "lost income" is irrelevant.

"Potential income" is not the same as "realized income".

I could understand if he had a proven trading method and some idea on how to make 100K a year, but he seems pretty clueless even after more than 1000 days of trying.
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I agree with the above. 1000+ days and not finding something that works is bad.

But I would rather try something and lose instead of not trying something at all and thinking I could have won. It would be a terrible itch I couldn't scratch. And I have plenty of those itches.
 
Overnight said:
That's assuming he doesn't lose his job tomorrow. If that happens, then the potential "lost income" is irrelevant.
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Well burning through 500K of life savings is real and not potential. That is real money. He renting trading desk and a flat in major city.
Hopefully he will have the sense to stop when he gets down to 250K and not when its all gone.
But if he is still itching really bad, what then?
 
southall said:
Then you will probably go broke. You have to at least feel the pain of losing your life savings.
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This is very true. Every trader probably needs to feel something, and if this dude was making 200k per year, then his threshold is much higher than mine. I couldn't imagine losing anywhere close to one year income, but it has to be enough that makes you really take a step up and face the daemons. Its a shame he makes so much since I'm sure this is quite a big reason why he is willing to lose so much.

Gosh, if all he ever did was trade the ES and use a 3 point stop with some target that is a multiple of his stop (ie. 1x,1.5x, 2x, 3x), he would have to try very hard to lose 100k or 200k a year in my opinion.
 
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