I think it's time to put this thread to rest.
Is it possible to make $50 to $70 per day with a 4K account in YM ??
- Thread starter jimmygold
- Start date
You'd have just as much of a chance at a craps table, without the 4K buy in. Plus you get free drinks, usually served by a waitress with big hooters. Downside is, eventually you'll set higher profit targets, make bigger bets, lose all of your profits and then some. Gee! It IS just like trading the e-minis with 4K, without the free drinks and hooters. Seems like a simple enough choice to me. 
Jimmygold,
Iâm not an expert in the YM but I do have a similar approach trading currency futures and I think $55 to $65 per day is possible but ⦠a few toughs:
1. Donât lose perspective
In my opinion, is a good idea to base your performance targets on âprofessionalâ investor standards rather than in the random (and sometimes ridiculous) targets that some "traders" post on forums. Compare your target $60 per day (thatâs +/- 30% a month and 360% a year of your capital) with the best performance Morningstar Funds and ETFs:
Long term: (Last 3 years)
PRLAX 40.86% / 52.21% / 33.65%
MDLTX 39.58% / 51.40% / 35.02%
MCLTX 38.53%/ 50.27%/ 33.98%
Short term: (Last 3 months /YTD)
DXCLX: 32.03% / 24.25%
DXZLX: 29.02%/ 22.14%
FSESX: 26.40% / 15.84%
ETF´s: (Last Month)
iShares EZA 19.13%
iShares EWM 18.35%
iShares EWZ 17.39%
2. [Been on a simulator with YM last 2 months...]. Be aware, if youâre looking for few pips only in the YM, that when you go live the fillings are not as fast as in the simulator.
3. [I swing Trade regular stocks as full time Living and have taken up Emini trading â¦.]. If youâre trading stocks full time I donât think it would be that easy to make 10 to 15 pts in the YM. Have you consider other futures market like ZB 30 Yr US T-Bonds ($31.25 per unit move) + ZB never moves much except when US market open or news, etc, etc which make it easier to trade and probably a better complement to your trading.
4. I donât know which your strategy for trading the YM is, but with only 4k and plus trading stocks you should include a time-efficiency parameter in your strategy.
Wish you good luck and I hope you can make it
jjrvat
Iâm not an expert in the YM but I do have a similar approach trading currency futures and I think $55 to $65 per day is possible but ⦠a few toughs:
1. Donât lose perspective
In my opinion, is a good idea to base your performance targets on âprofessionalâ investor standards rather than in the random (and sometimes ridiculous) targets that some "traders" post on forums. Compare your target $60 per day (thatâs +/- 30% a month and 360% a year of your capital) with the best performance Morningstar Funds and ETFs:
Long term: (Last 3 years)
PRLAX 40.86% / 52.21% / 33.65%
MDLTX 39.58% / 51.40% / 35.02%
MCLTX 38.53%/ 50.27%/ 33.98%
Short term: (Last 3 months /YTD)
DXCLX: 32.03% / 24.25%
DXZLX: 29.02%/ 22.14%
FSESX: 26.40% / 15.84%
ETF´s: (Last Month)
iShares EZA 19.13%
iShares EWM 18.35%
iShares EWZ 17.39%
2. [Been on a simulator with YM last 2 months...]. Be aware, if youâre looking for few pips only in the YM, that when you go live the fillings are not as fast as in the simulator.
3. [I swing Trade regular stocks as full time Living and have taken up Emini trading â¦.]. If youâre trading stocks full time I donât think it would be that easy to make 10 to 15 pts in the YM. Have you consider other futures market like ZB 30 Yr US T-Bonds ($31.25 per unit move) + ZB never moves much except when US market open or news, etc, etc which make it easier to trade and probably a better complement to your trading.
4. I donât know which your strategy for trading the YM is, but with only 4k and plus trading stocks you should include a time-efficiency parameter in your strategy.
Wish you good luck and I hope you can make it
jjrvat
he has 4000 in his account, he wants to trade the ym and make 60 dollars a day. if he trades one contract of ym, he´ll be moving roughly 12000 x 5 = 60 000 dollars every time he buys or sells, thats what one ym contract is worth. so 60 dollars a day profit equals 0.015 percent per day. the key word here is LEVERAGE...
60 dollars a day definitely is no problem for a skilled futures trader.
60 dollars a day definitely is no problem for a skilled futures trader.
The reason is the same reason that $60 per day sounds easily obtainable to some - its such a small number so at first blush it seems like no big deal but if you annualize the yield and compare it to what the average trader is actually doing it becomes obvious that the OP would need to be in the top N% (pick your own small value of N) of all traders to be able to get that result.
Because there are more realistic goals that are possible?
There you go wrong: that next day you need to make $200, not $150. After 2 days your eq-curve should read $100. And if you again lose $100, the third day you need to make $350. Three loserdays in a row are not uncommon and will happen. So you will need those 'big-winner' days, they're essential.
You will always have to make back your loss AND your daily target.
I'm not saying it is impossible, and if you're able to do it on a sim for weeks now, than I strongly advice you to switch to real trading, at least for a week. Quickest way to find out where the trouble lies.
Ursa..
None of us said that it is not possible to make $60
per day on a single YM contract. I said that with only
a $4000 account, any trader who attempts it stands
less than a 10% chance of not blowing out his account.
This is true even of an experienced trader, a less
experienced trader probably stands less than a
1% chance.
The key number here is the 4000, not the 60. I and my
partners make more than $60 per day per index futures
contract traded. But we do it with an allocation of $20k
to $30k per contract, not $4k. And we can only afford to
take even that level of risk because the index futures
model is only a small portion of our portfolio. I am not
skeptical of $60 per day per contract, I am skeptical of
$60 per day per $4k
Let me try once more with another tack. To all you who
think it $60 per day can be done on $4k, I ask you what
chance of a 50% drawdown would you find acceptable?
10%? 20%? 33%? Tell me that and I'll tell you what
fraction of Kelly achieves chance of a 50% drawdown
and from there we can derive the statistical properties
required of trading strategy in terms of win %, avg win
size vs avg loss size, etc. Or alternatively in mean/
variance terms. Once you see these stats, you will
see how unlikely it is for 90% or more of traders to
function at this level.
I posted the same thing back on page four but the naysayers keep ignoring the true value of the contract.