Ouch. You have till april to put 5k in a roth ira and another 5k for this year. I'd get started on that. If you trade well in a roth it really pays off. You can also roll over a 401k into a roth and either pay the taxes with other money, or take the taxes out of the 401k.
Serious: Last year I turned my account from 25k to 150k. Now my account is down to 90k.
- Thread starter Steven W
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Ouch. You have till april to put 5k in a roth ira and another 5k for this year. I'd get started on that. If you trade well in a roth it really pays off. You can also roll over a 401k into a roth and either pay the taxes with other money, or take the taxes out of the 401k.
So the bulk of your profits were made in a 30 day straight period it sounds like. I once found a weird thing going on with a stock where it was selling off at the same time every single day. I milked it for like 2 weeks going all in every time (this was at 19yo and first few weeks with options fwiw) then one Friday I was wrong. Really really wrong and lost everything I had made plus more. I was up about 100%+ then down overall in just a day.
Sounds like maybe you should just take some time off to work on your method without much pressure or at least reduce the pressure by going smaller. It's easy to feel like you HAVE to bet your whole line and anything less is a waste of time or a lost opportunity. Hopefully you can recognize that now.
You've already made your actual tax payment for 2016, right? That's a relief if so at least.
When going through drawdown or lack of even increase in size, I found what best for me is to greatly reduce size for few weeks. Often times my losses are something I have changed the system and unaware that I did so. Did you make changes based on uneven positions? When you trading stocks, increases best done in percentages of a unit since all stocks different value to keep things equal. During your 30 days, were you doing this or how?
Take out tax money for last year then take out the original $25k, and start again.
Take out tax money for last year then take out the original $25k, and start again.
Thanks 
I was wondering for you profitable daytraders, do you make money every single day expecting a paycheck, or do you have some major wins that cancel out the bad days? I am like the latter I guess. Some days I will make 30k, and most days I lose 2k here and there right now. For November and December I was always taking home a paycheck but times have changed this year sadly.
Does this mean I do not have the skill to be a daytrader and am a gambler?
I was wondering for you profitable daytraders, do you make money every single day expecting a paycheck, or do you have some major wins that cancel out the bad days? I am like the latter I guess. Some days I will make 30k, and most days I lose 2k here and there right now. For November and December I was always taking home a paycheck but times have changed this year sadly.Does this mean I do not have the skill to be a daytrader and am a gambler?
Thanks
Does this mean I do not have the skill to be a daytrader and am a gambler?
I'm not a daytrader, but I just noticed you said microcap? How micro? And how diversified are your trades? Are you using limits, or pacing your trades? Instantly dumping 100k into or out of a small thinly traded stock can influence the price and the spread. Could this be contributing to your losses?
The winter months are usually good months to trade. You might want to take a break and get back in come october, if the fed does not cause a crash by raising the rates too high (raising the rates at all)
Regarding risk/reward. It depends on the system and the trader. Some guys control every variable as tightly as they can. This limits the percent gains but also keeps them in the game with confidence. Others prefer to make as much money as possible trying to race against future losses.
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Micro as in $2 stocks to $8.
Ok, when they talk about microcap the "cap" is short for "capitalization." The price does tend to correlate with the cap, but only loosely. Market cap = number of shares outstanding times price.
Anyway, think over my last post. That, combined with seasonality, combined with changes to your system probably covers it.
I sent you a private message.
Lots of screeners let you screen for market cap, but for example you could try finviz.com
I have the impression that you don't do any form of risk management. You seem to throw your entire account value (100 k USD) at one position. And trust your track record of previous trades to also be profitable at this latest trade. I personally would not like this style, would consider it too much gambling.