Realistic returns expectations of successful day trading

[easymon1]

Lottery is a fool's tax.

However, a dude I went to high school with scored a cool $58 million dollars American in 1998. When they asked if he was going to quit his job delivering rebuilt transmissions to franchisees, he looked at them as if they were nuts and said "of course not". Held a straight face and the whole nine yards. What a stud. Little dry humor there for the tv audience to freak over. Of course he quit his job in no time flat. Thats about 1500 dollars a day spending money 7 days a week for 40 years i think. Get a genius to pull down some of that 500% a day and well, . . . lol. Seeing is believing.

Is Expectancy for Lottery better than Our trading system?
How do we know?

Diligent Recordkeeping and a Spreadsheet, baby.
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[guru]

Can you think logically? If you can't, no point to argue with you.

He hit lottery by lucky. Because it is a lump sum of money. If he accumulated 10 thousands small wins into 10 M, then that is not luck, but skill. Yet no one can do that on lottery.
By comparison, the trader made his wealth by accumulating many small gains, that proves he did it by skill.

Duh, that was the whole point of my post, and that's why I wrote "in unrelated news". It was written for fun.
Though I'm glad you figured this out and now your logic looks great. Now go find something more fun to do where you don't need to look for logical problems in things that are designed to not be logical.

 

[bbpp]

Take your"unraleted" news to your unrelated thread.

You are on my ignore.

 

[smallfil]

Right. While many traders love to show off the 100% they made on a $0.10 option, and talk about how easy it is to make 500%/year...
(possibly they could make more money playing lottery)

As an options directional trader, it is nice to think about the few 100% or more gainers you get. What they do not tell you is the huge losses too where you lose 50-80% which nullifies those gains! That is the reality of it. Only thing you can do is control your losses and cut it down. Then, you can make some monies. Lottery type $0.10 options going to $2.00 or more are like unicorns. You may luck out but, more often, you strike out since, you are way out of the monies! Probabilities way stacked against you!

 

[easymon1]

" . . . Only thing you can do is control your losses. . . ."

https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=kafk-TsZs_w&feature=youtu.be&t=516

 

[ElectricSavant]

Check out the new micro-contracts

I’m also curious but doubt there is any solid, consistent or verifiable info. World trading champions seem to make a bit over 200%/year, and even then many people say that’s only because they use small account where they don’t mind taking excessive risks:
https://www.worldcupchampionships.com/standings

It also depends what they trade and whether they use leverage, how much risk they take, etc. Some traders do make 1000%+ with penny stocks because those can move 20%+ in a day. Options may also offer great potential. Everything else just requires lots of leverage and risk taking.
I don’t believe that 500% is a *realistic* or average for successful traders, maybe with some exceptions. Who is/was the last great day trader we’re hearing about? There are plenty of names in books from 20+ years ago when leverage and risk was the name of the game, but now you aren’t even allowed too much leverage. So what trader names come to your mind right now? Which traders became famous in the last 5-10 years and what’s their claim to fame (how much do they make?)
There are only plenty of articles posted here on ET about traders losing their jobs, losing money, closing shops, running Ponzi schemes, etc. Even many prop firms have disappeared, some converted to course-selling scams, while others are looking for proven day traders that they cannot find.
Just because there are a few anonymous guys somewhere making 500% per year shows how unsuccessful, minuscule and pitiful this whole industry has become. In the past we could look up to great traders and they were known and treated like sports champions. Right now you just hear about some anonymous dude somewhere, making a few bucks, and preparing to sell another trading course.

 

[ironchef]

In unrelated news, a "successful" lottery player just "made" $60 million:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/28/world/canada-man-plays-lotto-20-years-wins-60-million/index.html
View attachment 208014

Now he can claim %gazillion annual returns for this year.

He hit lottery by lucky.

Lottery is a fool's tax.

Is Expectancy for Lottery better than Our trading system?
How do we know?
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Read this:

https://www.dontwasteyourmoney.com/couple-found-loophole-lottery-made-27-million/

You just have to think out of the box. Same in trading.

And Ed Thorp could win consistently in roulette too, just like he could in blackjack.

 

[smallfil]

Was just watching You Tube videos and Timothy Sykes popped up, interviewing two students who claimed they are earning up to $100,000 now. Now, not clear how much capital they actually, put in the market. Both tried shorting shorts suffered huge losses as a result of it. Also, came close to blowing up their accounts. Day trading is not for everyone and there are huge risks. Nothing is ever so easy or everyone would be doing it?

 

[Steve Alexander]

Often, I will hear about successful day traders on seminars or videos saying that it is possible to make consistent 20-50% gain a year regardless of market conditions, bull or bear on an account size of around USD100k.

I would like to ask the professional day traders here. Is this a realistic return to be expected? What are some reasonable returns to expect? I can't gauge because I'm not a day trader.

Personally, I don't know any profitable day traders. I know several profitable swing traders. I have been making 30-40% per year for several years swing trading. I tweet my trades before I make them, so it's easy to verify my claim.

 

[ElectricSavant]

Awesome Steve. I am going to try and do this with Futures.

Personally, I don't know any profitable day traders. I know several profitable swing traders. I have been making 30-40% per year for several years swing trading. I tweet my trades before I make them, so it's easy to verify my claim.