How Realistic? $50k account, $500 / day

Don Bright · Jun 3, 2012

This is too easy, LOL.

Many people with $50k, who go with a pro firm, can use $500k or more...much easier to make money with good, solid strategies, when you have access to more capital. Actually lower risk, higher reward in most cases.

Don

logic_man · Jun 3, 2012

Quote from newwurldmn:

Well, that much on that capital base. A lot of retail guys with a million or so who easily do that.

Right, so long as they've overcome the first hurdle, which is having a consistent positive expectancy strategy. Then, if you've either got a large account to trade or can trade with enough leverage, you can make $500/day average.

Still, you don't see a lot of traders making over $120K/year, regardless of account size. Again, I would guess that the number is less than 5% of all retail traders. I saw some data on this years ago, but can't find it. It kind of looked like you would expect, with a small percentage of traders accruing most of the gains there were to be had from day trading.

logic_man · Jun 3, 2012

Quote from ChkitOut:

why does everybody worry about how much is in your account? its laughable.

a seasoned profitable trader (one in the same) will make money on most days with 50 grand in his account or 5 grand. it doesnât matter.

a bad trader will lose most days with a million dollar account or a 50k account.

and why does everybody talk about percentage returns? its meaningless to a daytrader. day margin makes it irrelevant. this isnt a freaking mutual fund your investing in.

gosh.

I wasn't worried about how much was in his account, I was worried about the amount he wants to make and how that stacks up relative to what we know about the distribution of day trader income. The IRS data I saw years ago showed that very few traders make an average of $500/day, regardless of the size of their account.

ExchangeBonds · Jun 3, 2012

Quote from ChkitOut:

why does everybody worry about how much is in your account? its laughable.

a seasoned profitable trader (one in the same) will make money on most days with 50 grand in his account or 5 grand. it doesnât matter.

a bad trader will lose most days with a million dollar account or a 50k account.

and why does everybody talk about percentage returns? its meaningless to a daytrader. day margin makes it irrelevant. this isnt a freaking mutual fund your investing in.

gosh.

+100000

oldtime · Jun 3, 2012

Quote from ChkitOut:

why does everybody worry about how much is in your account? its laughable.

a seasoned profitable trader (one in the same) will make money on most days with 50 grand in his account or 5 grand. it doesnât matter.

a bad trader will lose most days with a million dollar account or a 50k account.

and why does everybody talk about percentage returns? its meaningless to a daytrader. day margin makes it irrelevant. this isnt a freaking mutual fund your investing in.

gosh.

you sound like one of those prop traders who don't even know how much is in your account or what your ROI is.

bmatthews · Jun 3, 2012

To put this to bed.

Expecting to make $120,000 a year from a $50,000 is extremely optimistic to say the very least.

If you could make $5,000 year after year then you can count yourself skilled. If however you can generate a 1000% plus return each year then it wouldn't be 5 minutes before you are offered a $1,000,000,000 trading account to manage.

Don't fall for the hype that has been spewed in this thread by a certain few.

dealmaker · Jun 3, 2012

Quote from AFChao:

Hi everyone,

Was wondering if I could ask the more experienced traders how realistic is it to have $50,000 day trading account, and make $500 per day? I plan to use an alerts type software such as trade-ideas and find a pattern in new daily highs or lows. For those of you who have done something similar, is making $500 / day realistic?

Thanks for any info! [/QUO

An experienced trader making $500 per day with a $50k account is not an issue...

Swan Noir · Jun 3, 2012

Don, does he sound like he is ready for a prop firm?

Quote from Don Bright:

This is too easy, LOL.

Many people with $50k, who go with a pro firm, can use $500k or more...much easier to make money with good, solid strategies, when you have access to more capital. Actually lower risk, higher reward in most cases.

Don

Don Bright · Jun 3, 2012

Quote from Swan Noir:

Don, does he sound like he is ready for a prop firm?

Interesting question, for sure.

I'm drawn to the saying "if you can't make it here, you can't make it anywhere" (yes, I know it's a juxtapostion from "can" to "can't" but you know what I'm getting at).

It's much harder to fight all the inherent obstacles of retail than to attempt success with a professional firm.

Don

ChkitOut · Jun 3, 2012

Quote from bmatthews:

If however you can generate a 1000% plus return each .

i give up. im pretty sure this post has officially made me quite elitetrader. thanks everyone.

happy trading.