Nope the other sure thing is your wife will be really pissed if you don't make money daytrading. LMAOAgree, death and maybe taxes are the only sure things.
Reasonable expectations for Trading
- Thread starter John9999
- Start date
You still don't get it. Day-trading is a full time JOB, investing is not. Therefore it is asinine to compute ROI on day-trader's capital.
Yes, but makes massively higher returns too.
No, daytrading does not have to be a fulltime job. You choose yourself how much you want to trade.
And there you've just stated the problem. Since every one of us will value their working or potential working time for an employer differently, its impossible to be categoric about what an hour or a day is worth. So each one of us makes our own judgement about what a day's work is worth in financial terms. ROI in terms of % per period of time is a reasonable question that a prospective day-trader might ask, and he will then do his own calculation as to whether that is worth it to him, taking account of the value he places on his time (also his starting capital). I'm not able to do that calculation for him as I can't say what his hour is worth (to him). In any case, I don't take the view that he is a complete idiot.
sure you can, but similarly you can find a job working just 2-3 hours a week and call it a "job", who is going to argue with that?
That is a stupid remark. I told that my parttime job gave me 90% of a fulltime job salary. Not a 2-3 hours job.
My trading at that time made 5 times my monthly salary.
Of course there are other scenarios. I just listed two common ones. That is great you were able to make a go of it. Congrats!!
Again, there is nothing wrong with what you just described. But that is not what the point is. The discussion is not whether he should be day-trading or do something else, get other job.
The points are:
1. don't compare investing and day-trading, it's apples and oranges (yes both are edible fruit but that's where similarities end)
2. don't compute ROI on capital from day-trading as it is meaningless except for bragging rights.
Perhaps with age the concept (of time being priceless) will become clearer to you. For me, a decade ago, when I was (hopefully) about half way through that marathon called life, that concept was slowly starting to emerge but I wasn't sure what it was really all about. Now it has a total new meaning to me.
Best of luck
For me this kind of discussion is interesting because I would to know if everybody always does the needed math to compare two or more options.
Below 4 different scenario's:
- ROI for investor is 20% and daytrader has 90% salary and is not making any money the first 5 years (YELLOW blocks)
- ROI for investor is 40% and daytrader has 90% salary and is not making any money the first 5 years (YELLOW blocks)
- ROI for investor is 20% and daytrader has 50% salary and is not making any money the first 5 years (GREEN blocks)
- ROI for investor is 40% and daytrader has 50% salary and is not making any money the first 5 years (GREEN blocks)
- scenario 1: the daytrader has to make 48% return a year to end equal to the investor after 10 years.
- scenario 2: the daytrader has to make 97% return a year to end equal to the investor after 10 years.
- scenario 3: the daytrader has to make 62% return a year to end equal to the investor after 10 years.
- scenario 4: the daytrader has to make 102% return a year to end equal to the investor after 10 years.
Conclusion: from my personal experience all 4 scenario's are in favor of the daytrader. Making 102% a year,in the worst scneario, is a piece of cake. I even don't need 1 month to make that return.