Please don't misunderstand my statement about 1-2% per day. I was coming to your defense as not being boastful. 1-2% a day is not unusual, in fact it would be expected that most people made 2% plus daily on this last market run. Obviously to average this over time would be a different story. So when someone says your bragging because you made 8K in two days, they need to put it in perspective is all I implied, not that 8K was no big deal.
Intraday/Swing Plays
- Thread starter Seanote
- Start date
No problem. If using the term ROI is not correct, maybe an âAverage Winning Tradeâ is appropriate.
Over a period of one week, one month, one quarter, and/or one year, an average winning trade can be calculated. The easiest would be to use the end of year capitol gains reports.
If this could be done to reflect an average successful trader (stating parameters of the statistics gathered), then an active day trader could reflect back on the time spent at work to achieve those average results comparing those results with an active swing tradersâ time spent at work of, and visa versa.
I am an active swing trader and do homework as well as spending market hours scanning for plays while only taking a couple breaks during low volume. The time spent at work is equal to an active day-trader for me.
It would be an interesting report to compare the amount of work involved (executions), between scalping, and trending strategies, during working hours in achieving a similar equity curve.
Jeffrey
I assume we are going to debate the validity of ROI until one of us gives up. Each trader has their own monetary goals and strategies along with the means to achieve them. You are putting entirely too much emphasis on profits vs. hours worked. A traditional business plan will outline and state how much production is needed vs. man hours to generate revenue (simplifying it all). You have to let go of that thought process when it comes to trading. We work in a "business" that can not be measured that way. Trading is comparable to a high level sales job or even a retail broker in the sense that you may not make a sale for an entire month, but the following week you land the elephant and make $25K in commissions. Same goes for trading. You will drive yourself crazy if your are charting hours spent vs. profits and expenses. I am a firm believer in organization, numbers, conducting DD and minimizing risks, BUT you will never see any type of consistency if you hold your trading numbers to that of a traditional business's. Daytraders are VERY analytical and will tend to over analyze their numbers, especially when they are in a dry spell. You have to understand the "game".....that's exactly what it is no matter how you want to break it down. Some look at it as a business.....yes it is in the sense that is provides income if you are good, but it's not a business because you can't identify exactly what needs correcting when your trading poorly. You have ideas and you work on those but you can't pinpoint THE PROBLEM and correct it then guarantee profitability the next day. That is the difference between a traditional business plan and trading.