How much money is considered good enough for trading?

[El OchoCinco]

If you can pay all your bills, take care of yourself/family, work from home and set your own hours, and still have a nice cushion for losses and discretionary spending on a consistent basis... who cares what that $$$ value is?

If you can do that on $15K a month of $5k a month the figures is meaningless except to the individual. As was pointed out, this answer is different for each person so the questin will not produce anything meaningful for you.

 

[bitrend]

Definitely agree with hard work. The point is hard work doesn't always lead to success if we don't know the truth. I'm seeking the truth...

Quote from JMowery1987:

Trading in the Zone... I'm normally recommending that to newbies... lol, I'm saying for him, but sugar coating replies doesn't help anyone. It requires hard work, and I have dedicated myself and am only starting to realize what I need to do and the book helped me.

Irrationally, I'd say... You have no chance, your doomed like the other 95%

 

[Cheese]

Quote from SizesTrader:
I don't know how much experience these ET members have in trading, but all I know is that alot of my friends make much more than me on a monthly basis. So for those who criticized about this post, I guess you are missing out alot in trading.

Sayin' and doin' are 2 different things.
Short answer: forget making $10k a month or any other amount. You have to really know what you're doing.
You don't.

 

[Nana Trader]

Quote from JMowery1987:

I'd say averaging $50-100 a day trading 100 shares/1 contract would be good. If you can do that consistantly, just add more shares/contracts and build up on it.

Consistency is key in this game, it took me awhile to learn that.

Trading 100 shares and averaging $50-100 a day?

You must be best trader in the world to make that kind of return, even buying 100 shares of google

 

[JMowery1987]

Quote from Nana Trader:

Trading 100 shares and averaging $50 a day?

You must be best trader in the world to make that kind of return, even buying 100 shares of google

Well trading AAPL, AMGN, NEM and such, it is easily possible. I like the faster moving stocks though....

Don't see why not???

For example, Red Ink Inc. trades about 3500 shares per trade, and I'd say he might average around $2,000 on a daily basis.

5 - 10 trades of 100 shares per trade of stocks that I trade, it's fairly easy to get even beyond that, but I like to scalp.

I'm not saying I can do it "YET" though.

 

[Nana Trader]

You are forgetting that we are talking about 100 shares only.

With 3500 shares and $2000 profit, there is some kind of parity, but when trading just 100 shares, you will have different commission structure and you soft/hardware infrastructure setup remain same as you had been trading bigger account, they will eat up most profits resulting from trading 100 shares.

It might be doable with 100 shares, but even very hard for the best traders in the world.

 

[JMowery1987]

absolutely.... but....... lol, you are complicating things beyond all imagination.... I guess that is a trader for you.

It doesn't matter

Trade for fun, trade because you love it, don't need all this pointless discussion.

Beyond all of this, 100 shares, you lose less than if you trade 200 and perform badly.

That is the whole point and why I suggested it in the first place.

 

[SizesTrader]

I don't know how many ET members are making money in the markets. It seems like very few. They always talk about BP and so on. When you have experience and proven track record, the BP means nothing, since so many experience traders have enormous amount of BP.

Do most of the ET members trade on a retail account? If any ET members that trade for pro firm and actually sit with good traders, they will know how much these guys are making. These are consistent traders. So for those of you who don't know much about trading, please don't bash this post.

good trading!

 

[Steve Tvardek]

What do you mean? This IS Elitetrader, everyone here is making millions .

But in all honesty, your original ques is too vague. 10k a month in Idaho goes a lot farther than 10k a month in New York City. Some people live way outside their means and need to earn alot more to compensate. It just depends on you as a person. For me, I am very competetive with myself so regardless of what I make on a daily basis, I need to be satisfied with my trading performance.

When its all said and done, if you trade well on a consistent basis, the money will come. And if you want more, you will have to keep stepping up your game. Thats really it.

Quote from SizesTrader:

I don't know how many ET members are making money in the markets. It seems like very few. They always talk about BP and so on. When you have experience and proven track record, the BP means nothing, since so many experience traders have enormous amount of BP.

Do most of the ET members trade on a retail account? If any ET members that trade for pro firm and actually sit with good traders, they will know how much these guys are making. These are consistent traders. So for those of you who don't know much about trading, please don't bash this post.

good trading!

 

[nononsense]

Quote from JMowery1987:

[]

Irrationally, I'd say... You have no chance, your doomed like the other 95%

i.e. you'll help pay for my wins.