Making full time trading viable

[Truth Searcher]

Fake injury and get on long term disability

Funny..

 

[Truth Searcher]

Maximum employability and employment earning power usually correlates with general ability, resourcefulness, intelligence, and willingness to work hard and make sacrifices. Those qualities would probably also correlate closely to viability of a career in trading. What this means is if you can't eventually fund your own trading venture, then your chances of success might be similarly limited. A pizza delivery guy who is in between jobs as an automation engineer or data scientist or project manager is on a different ability level from a pizza delivery guy who is a pizza delivery guy because he is not able to be successful at any more profitable endeavor. One could probably make a go at trading. The other, if you gave him $100k interest free with which to trade, would probably be broke in a year and be once more driving with a Domino's sign strapped to the top of his car. So I will give you the benefit of the doubt and postulate that you could have your funding within 5 years of hard work, and it would be all yours, with nobody else to answer to or to pay off. If your earnings are not such that you could not tighten the belt, eat ramen noodles and wear used clothes, and take in a roomie or two, and save $20k+ a year, then few potential angels would be confident in your success anyway.

For that matter, if you are confident of making $80/day with what you have, then moving to the right part of the country and living at an appropriate level of luxury (approx. zero, i.e. no air conditioning, no eating out, no expensive hair prods or cologne or other nonneccessary personal items) then you should be able to support yourself for a few months as you develop your strategy and prove it through all market conditions. Then maybe you could do a gofundme or something, with documented success behind you. Or at least have the confidence in yourself to go it yourself.

Many thanks for your thoughtful comments. I particularly like the idea of organic growth, and not funding the venture from third parties - if at all possible..

Family dependents tend to rule out living on a tin of beans a day and renting rooms out. I built a business before from scratch on this basis but that was way back before I got married and had kids..

I will work towards building the funds required in some way, regardless of the barriers - thanks again- I think the key is to build live track record no matter what

 

[Truth Searcher]

OP, you live in Ireland, right? If you have regular work hours, have you considered trying to trade the last 2 hours of the either the NQ, YM or RTY futures on the US market? Also, you could probably catch the 1st hour of the afternoon session (6:00 AM - 7:00 AM Dublin time) of the HSI and/or HHI futures which trade in Hong Kong.

You need more volatility, not more contracts. You're not making much per day net because of the poor volatility of the GBP.

First 2 hours of the US e-mini futures trading is a career on low contracts. Same with the HSI/HHI.

You didn't post what your avg win, avg loss (in pips is fine) and avg winning pct are. If your avg win / avg loss is 1.0 area, forget it. What you're doing (without me having to know any more about your system) is very difficult by hand. Like Mark Brown said, 1.4 or better is needed.

The padutrader fellow on these boards is your guide to what not to do in daytrading: DON'T trade poor volatility. Trade the best volatility you can find.

Many thanks for your comments and suggestions- trading evenings is definitely something that might work and/or early morning. I will investigate this. Working with a small basket of markets might work well with compressed trading hours.

 

[Turveyd]

Thanks for your illustration- how about making 4000 usd per month with a 30,000 usd account. Living expenses set aside for 6 months in advance initially. ?

Easier than Eating Pancakes!!!

 

[easymon1]

Mark Douglas, (Trading in the Zone), is said to have traded a blood simple Bond Futures opening strategy for two hours every morning and that was that for the day. Markets worldwide could help you trade during their prime time and work around your job's hours. Please leave some money for the rest of us.

 

[murray t turtle]

I have developed a day trading strategy which has a good positive expectation. My objective is to re-enter the full time independent trader space, but my trading capital is not sufficient to make a living. In order to build a live track record, and create a basis to raise third party funding,I need to abandon current employment - this is not viable due to family/living expenses obligations- any suggestions to move forward?

%%
Since by far most of the money/millionaires made in stocks;
is made on longer time frames, maybe that is a word to the wise.The Market Makers Edge,book by Joshua Lukeman, may help- but he uses 6 month candle charts.But ignore his fractions daytrade bid/ask spread LOL., Your wife like to trade??

 

[ironchef]

The test for @Truth Searcher is: If he hangs around after realizing he might not get funded here on ET.

A very common path for some of us amateur retails was holding a day job, trading/investing on the side until one day we cut the cord. If OP is willing to do that, we welcome him into our family.