Quote from Maverick74:
I'm sorry, I disagree. You need to understand something. If we use very conservative numbers here. And I'm really reaching here. Let's take 5k. And let's say that it takes a trader 6 months to become consistent. I believe it takes closer to a year now, but let's go with 6 months. That's 120 trading days correct? This allows a trader to lose less then $50 a day net (including commissions).
I'm sorry man, no way. Most new guys, even trading 100 share lots ( I use to be one of those guys) can easily drop $300 to $500 a day net. It's not that hard. But no way a guy can last 6 months with 5k if he is dropping $50 to $100 a day, forget $300 to $500.
Now your comment that you did it does not invalidate my claim. We could take 100 homeless people off the street and give them 5k and have them trade every day. I'm sure 2 or 3 of them would randomly do well and might even make money! But don't get too excited, they would probably blow out the next 6 months.
Hey bud.
I disagree with what you are saying.
We can debate this forever and there will be no winner.
If someone is new and losing 300-500 per day, they are probably not cut out for this biz.
There are many different styles of trading. I happen to scalp the naz. I like to scalp anything in play and I prefer stocks in the 3$ to 10$ price range.
For a newbie to learn this style is not to difficult. To master it will take a very long time. The key is not to make to many trades and to have fairly tight stops. The trader will never make that much trading 100 lots but they will not lose alot either. If they are patient and don't smash keys all day, they can easily survive. The key is to get consistant profits over time. Then they can slowly increase size. Even going from 100 to 200 shares is a huge step. They are actually putting on twice as much size.
This is one method where it could work.
As far as trading pairs and opens, I would think the trader would need to put on selective trades and really define his risk tolerance. If he is going to try opens, then only put bids and offers on a few stocks so they get very few fills in the start. The last thing you want is a newbie with 5 open positions.
Maybe they could put there bids and offers even a little further outside the area where most open order traders put theres. THis way they will have fewer fills. Its hard for me to really know if it would work for opens cuz I have never traded them. I am just throwing out possibilities.
As for my method, I know it can work. To start with 25K and being prepared to lose it sounds nuts to me. I think it is better to go in very light and just install major rules into your makeup.
Just my opinion.
Happy Trading.