Should I quit my job and trade for a living?

I did that, quit work and started trading fulltime. Once I was able to make 1/2 my month salary trading part-time, I knew I was close to a career change. Once my contract was up, I became fulltime trader.

It was tough concentrating on my work. I had my laptop beside me checking my trades. It actually affected my work. I noticed there was very little information on this career move. I did find that 100k personal trading account is recommeded.
 
Build up at least $50k in discretionary savings first... ideally more like $100k.

Trading for a living is the hardest job on the planet. Better have a huge cushion starting out.
 
Quote from jinxu:

Why are you responding to a thread that's 6 months old?
More...

Does the age of the thread matter? Is that a rule, i'm a newbie on here. Others may find the thread informative...
 
Quote from lylec305:

Does the age of the thread matter? Is that a rule, i'm a newbie on here. Others may find the thread informative...
More...
He was responding to a person that has been gone for six months. I think that's funny. Was he actually thinking that person would magically return? Some people don't think before they act.
 
Quote from jinxu:

He was responding to a person that has been gone for six months. I think that's funny. Was he actually thinking that person would magically return? Some people don't think before they act.
More...

True, my fault, I started reading in the middle and found that comment somewhat contradicting - being convinced to have the experience but asking for confirmation of doing the step. Animated me to finally reply to some posts.

But lets not waste thread space with non-sense discussions - lets get some info in here:

I seriously take the hat off for every person doing this step, it is extremely difficult. Because you finally have this voice in your mind telling you "you have to make profit". On the downside your mind will tell you "you just wasted another penny that you need so badly this month to pay your bills / food / ...". So seriously, it is a big step - and take any advice you can get to ease this process as smoothly as possible. A one-step decision can break your neck.

Think of it as climbing Mt Everest - first you take a few 2000'ers and 3000'ers before aiming for that one.

Just my 2 cents
 
unless you have a profitable and trade house capital why quit your dayjob with a reliable pay check..until you can rely on daytrading as your only source of income why quit..

only quit if you are making more money than you current job. there aren't that many daytraders making a living from daytrading .

and playing with houses money.
there lots of people in the west coast who only trade the morning session and than go to school or their regular job or swing trade. only reason you would trade full time is daytrading which is more work. swing trading is actually more profitable than daytrading. with these mobile trading phones you can make trades during work hours depending on type of job you have.

Quote from BillySimas:

A quick background....I'm 30 years old, I have been trading off and on for about 8 years, 2 of them with a prop futures firm. I scalped there and did it miserably, that style isn't suited to me at all. I'm a poker player so probabilities play an integral part in my trading decisions now. I have found some edges backtesting some of my own ideas and I am now running a semi-automated strategy right now in a simulator and it has been doing well. There are lots of filters I need in my automated strategies to filter out bad signals but I don't have enough programming experience to do that so it's more of a gray box than a black box. Anyway........

I only have 10k in savings. I have no debt, I'm not married and I live with my mom so my expenses are very low. I have no trading profitability yet to speak of but I feel confident I will eventually get there. I work at a brokerage firm right now and I make a little over 50k a year. Should I quit to trade for a living? I know of a prop firm that can leverage $5,000 or whatever I'm able to deposit. I considered doing this before but thought better of it because I didn't have enough savings and I had debt. 10k is peanuts but since I don't have any expenses I'm wondering what savings amount I should aim for. After all, I'm really not willing to lose more than $5,000 anyway. I'd start trading very small size until I show profitability.

What does everyone think? Comments, suggestions are much appreciated.
More...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top