How much do day traders make

sounds easy in theory, even in day trading u could suffer a larger percent draw down than swing trading when u hit several losers in a row even if ur entry is right 80-90% of the time which is almost unattainable anyways, but if so u could hit the 20-10% of losers in a row and take a hit on ur equity
why should I suffer such drawdowns? even if I should get all my losers in a raw I would still be down by a few % as while I may allow in some rare cases a loser to go down to 1% or 2% of my account most losers are a fraction of that as normally I get out well before my max risk...
 
why should I suffer such drawdowns? even if I should get all my losers in a raw I would still be down by a few % as while I may allow in some rare cases a loser to go down to 1% or 2% of my account most losers are a fraction of that as normally I get out well before my max risk...


i dont know enough numbers here to throw and exact answer, but all iam saying is even at such unreasonable high win ratio u could still suffer draw downs, also ur assuming a small size account based on ur saying of u always get out way before max risk, great, in big accounts u might not have that luxury of getting out when u want

iam none the less a believer like u that we can small (yet well studied) traders can make higher returns than the average market or even the top funds in terms of percentage and thats because we have flexibility, liquidity, and no pressure to perform or report earnings every so often, i just dont know if 80-90% returns as ur mentioning coupled with ultra low draw downs of 1-2% are possible, they might i just never seen it,
 
why should I suffer such draw downs? even if I should get all my losers in a raw I would still be down by a few % as while I may allow in some rare cases a loser to go down to 1% or 2% of my account most losers are a fraction of that as normally I get out well before my max risk...


and i dont know what size account ur talking about that gets hit all the losers in a row and doesnt suffer more than 2%,,, feel free to put numbers and percentages and ill be more than happy to do some calculations together for us both to learn and conversate and debate :-)
 
its all relevance, do u trade to live comfy or do u trade to make money? i know for those two they simply trade to live, they dont care how much percentage that is all they care is how much money it is,

u might not need such an account, for me tho i do know once i reach that point i will STILL be trading, for the money? for the return? for fun? to stay busy? i dont know i can only answer when i get there all i can tell u is i will be still trading maybe more maybe less, but i believe in trading and i believe in this industry
I am not saying that I would stop trading once I have made enough not to need trading, but I simply would not do it out of such a huge account, I would diversify and put my money in different places, even brokers fails and I wouldn't want to fail with my money...
 
and i dont know what size account ur talking about that gets hit all the losers in a row and doesnt suffer more than 2%,,, feel free to put numbers and percentages and ill be more than happy to do some calculations together for us both to learn and conversate and debate :)
well, my account is about 50K and growing about 1% - 1.5% a day...
 
Why do most people on ET always discuss small points and never the whole picture?
That is completely nonsense.

Drawdown should be discuss at least in relation to performance, size, time to recover, capital management and probably a lot of other things. The complete system should be taken in consideration.

What is the best option:
  1. Drawdown of 10%, time to recover 6 months, investing 100% of available capital, return net 10% a year. R/R ratio 2:1.
  2. Drawdown of 30%, time to recover 7 days, investing 10% of available capital, return net 100% a year. R/R ratio 7:1.

Is the lowest drawdown the best solution? Or should you maybe watch the whole picture?

If you buy a car, what is important in relation to safety? Only the breaks?
 
But why there should be a drawdown at all? if the trade is not going where it was expected then you should get out and (in some cases) reverse at the first pullback, no?
 
But why there should be a drawdown at all? if the trade is not going where it was expected then you should get out and (in some cases) reverse at the first pullback, no?

It is impossible to trade while never having a drawdown.
if you think it is possible I would like to know how.

If you start to trade and your first, or second trade is a (small) loss, you already have a drawdown as your account will be lower than before the losing trade.

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