Is it possible to consistently make $5000 a month trading 2 index futures contracts per trade ?

In short, it's possible, but not very plausible for 99.999% of us, but if you don't try, then you've got 0.0000000% chance, so got to try, the trick is living long enough to make it work for you.

It really should be easy, but alas, nothing worth doing is ever easy!!
 
comagnum said:
Is it possible to consistently make $5000 a month trading 2 index futures contracts per trade

How much you can make primarily depends mainly on the size of your bankroll. You will also need a great deal of trading + risk mgmt experience if you hope to be able to have a sustainable income over the long haul.

A trader with a $250k acct will need to make 2% per month on the principal which seems like a realistic goal for an experienced trader. With a $10K acct you would have to make 50% per month, dream on.
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You only have to make 50% on your account the first month :)
 
wrbtrader said:
Looks great on paper but in reality...most traders need to pay bills, support a family, take vacations, take days off due to personal appointments, get sick or just burn out in which requires time off away from the markets (no trading) to just rejuvenate/re-energize.

The fact is that its human nature to see that amount of money accumulate and then spend some of it (e.g. buy a house/condo, buy a new car, pay off debts, spend money on life luxuries).

Thus, just looks good on paper but in reality...life happens...humans will be humans.

Yet, if someone is able to do that...the frugal types...someone else is paying their bills and/or supporting the trader so that the trader is able to minimize the typical daily pressures a trader will be involved with or they're already rich and can easily afford to try to do such...multiple times as in money to burn.

wrbtrader
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I agree that it looks easier then it is.

All your other arguments are just excuses. Starting would cost you NOTHING, just the time spent on it. If you would like to become a trade but find your excuses a problem it already indicates that you will never be successful as a trader. Starting ANY business will give you the same "problems" as becoming a trader.

This is how I would proceed:
  • Buy a cheap computer (probably you already have one).
  • Download Ninjatrader for free. https://ninjatrader.com/FreeLiveData
  • Use the free data from Ninja.
  • Start developping your trading strategy after work when you come home from work.
  • If the strategy is ready, start to backtest it on other free EOD data.
  • If the probability of profits is high enough you can switch to real trading with a very small account.
  • From this moment on you need to make expenses, but also generate income. You can continue to work and trade markets that are open after/before you go to work. You can still pay all the bills.
  • If you are one of the lucy ones you can later switch to fulltime trading.
I was not rich when I started the trading adventure. And today expenses are far lower(90% lower) then when I started.
 
nickynoes said:
You only have to make 50% on your account the first month :)
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You cannot know that as he never mentioned the size of his account. In fact the size of his account is irrelevant as long as it is minimal the margin required to trade 2 contracts.

If his account is $5,000 he will have to make 100%, if his account is $50,000 he should only make 10% according to you. That clearly shows that your 50% is nonsense. Putting more money in the account will not make it easier to achieve.

The only thing that matters is how many points can he make? As each points has a value and these values will have to add up to $5,000.
In the ES he has to make 100 points, no matter how big the size of his account is.
 
schweiz said:
You cannot know that as he never mentioned the size of his account. In fact the size of his account is irrelevant as long as it is minimal the margin required to trade 2 contracts.

If his account is $5,000 he will have to make 100%, if his account is $50,000 he should only make 10% according to you. That clearly shows that your 50% is nonsense. Putting more money in the account will not make it easier to achieve.

The only thing that matters is how many points can he make? As each points has a value and these values will have to add up to $5,000.
In the ES he has to make 100 points, no matter how big the size of his account is.
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I agree with you, but my post was reffering to the one I quoted mentioning having to make 50% on his account a month to make $5000 if his entire account is only $10000.

He would only have to make 50% the first month. If he did he would have $15000 to trade with the next month and only have to make a 33% return, etc.
 
nickynoes said:
You only have to make 50% on your account the first mont
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If they don't withdrawal any $ than the next month they will need to make less next month (33%) and so on. The OP appeared like they were interested in trying to live off a $10k acct by making $5k per month to cover their living expenses, at least that's usually the case with these type of questions.

If the OP reinvests all of their profits the goal is much more obtainable than trying to make $5k on a $10k acct, while taking out $5k each month to live on - which is a sustainable ROR of 600% (with quarterly taxes it would be much higher) - I don't think so.
 
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Coincidentally, 4k account currently, plan to run it upto 10k soon and i aim to make 50% per month part time trading, keep the account at 10k start of every month, withdrawing all profits.

Need to change to a quicker better exit at loss, which I'm testing this week, drawdowns are too high.
 
schweiz said:
I was not rich when I started the trading adventure. And today expenses are far lower(90% lower) then when I started.
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Hi schweiz, so how is your trading now ? Do you do it full / have you figured your way in trading ?
 
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