Startup help
- Thread starter lemarre
- Start date
I don't trade futures, and don't know about Australia, I hope someone can answer your questions, as far as daily profit, you should think more in terms of your trade process/plan, just stick to that, and you'll make whatever you make, don't think in terms of a set amount each day.
Unrealistic? Totally. At least initially. Your initial goal should be zero. Start by paper trading. Most brokerages will set you up a paper trading account, where you can trade with live data and imaginary money and practice first of all your ONE OR TWO initial strategies, no more, and second to just get used to the platform so you don't make stoopid keyboard or mouse mistakes that can cost you thousands. So you start out not winning. But you also start out not losing. Since you WILL start out losing when you go live, not losing is a pretty good deal. Paper trade. Learn. Practice. It's not the same as live trading, but it will give you a basic understanding of how to do things. Your paper account is where you can make your newbie mistakes and not suffer for them in real life by losing real dough.
Get a couple of good books. Amazon is your friend. Andrew Aziz wrote a couple of books with one being the introductory one and one the advanced one. Get the introductory one. The advanced one mostly just rehashes the first. That would be one good first book. Impish huckster/guru Ross Cameron wrote another good one. Don't buy anything from him except the book. Just get the book. Don't join any paid chat rooms or anything like that. If I had a couple of hours to write this post I would explain. But just those two books will get you started in stocks. And stocks or ETFs is where I recommend that you start.
Youtube is your friend. Sort of. Keep your BS filters on high but watch lots of vids.
Are you investing already? If not, forget about trading until you are putting the max into tax deferred investments. Invest, with buy and hold strategies, and you will PROBABLY not lose your money and most likely it will grow like crazy over your lifetime. Let's say you invest $10k a year, every year. Let's say your investments return 10% a year. So the first year you put in $10k. The second year you have made 10% on that, and added another $10k. Do the math. The next year you have made 10% on ALL THAT, including the profit on the first year's investment. Add it all up. Do the math. Bored yet? Keep going. Next year, what do you got? The year after that, what do you got? After 7 years, what do you got? After 40 years, what do you got? If you do the math, I think it will prove my point. Do the math, now, before you read on. Do the math. Look at the final number. Crazy, isn't it? Then do it with whatever percentage return you like. 5%? 7%? 15%? Do the math. If you don't, you won't see my point at all.
If you trade, you will very likely lose your money. Then you will re-fund, and lose that, too. If you are one of the FEW that make it, eventually you will start earning. A 1% day is a pretty decent day and if you can make 1% after taxes and other expenses, you can double your account in 70 days. But you won't, not for a while. You will get lucky and get a few 10% days. You will get unlucky (if you want to call it that) and have several losing days in a row. A steady 1% gain is like the holy grail. A half percent? Well, you still double your stake in 140 days. Not bad. But you won't do that. Not at first. Not the first year. Maybe not the first several years. But probably you will get tired of losing all your money and just quit.
So, do you think you are one of the 10% or so who can eventually be profitable at trading? Well, the 90% who can't, all think that they can do it or at least did think they could do it. Why are you different? If you can answer that question LOGICALLY then hey, maybe you got the right stuff and in a few years you will be making bank. But if you simply buy and hold good stocks, you won't double your account in 70 days or 70 weeks. But in 7 years, maybe. In 30 or 40 years, you could have a very nice retirement egg. Very nice indeed. Refer back to the math problem I gave you.
So what I suggest is learn to invest, now. When your career has advanced to the level where you have disposable income, if you still have the bug, then pick up trading. Keep your position size small, use stops, and make your losses be very small ones and your wins nice ones, so even if you lose more trades than you win, you do okay. And if you just lose lose, lose, at least you lose slowly and get to enjoy the game. Trading can be a lot of fun. Sort of like poker. Manage your stake and your risk, and always live to play another day. If you find yourself making crazy bank and doing it consistently, then maybe that is your true calling. When you are up say three or four years salary, tell them take their job and shove it. But not now. If you are already investing at least $10k/year, then by all means, go for it, learn to trade, and only trade with money that you can afford to lose.
If you ignore all this advice because you know better and you are positive that I am an idiot and just wrong, then please, I have one request. Could you please bring a little more money to the table? It will have to be shared among a lot of ten percenters.
Get a couple of good books. Amazon is your friend. Andrew Aziz wrote a couple of books with one being the introductory one and one the advanced one. Get the introductory one. The advanced one mostly just rehashes the first. That would be one good first book. Impish huckster/guru Ross Cameron wrote another good one. Don't buy anything from him except the book. Just get the book. Don't join any paid chat rooms or anything like that. If I had a couple of hours to write this post I would explain. But just those two books will get you started in stocks. And stocks or ETFs is where I recommend that you start.
Youtube is your friend. Sort of. Keep your BS filters on high but watch lots of vids.
Are you investing already? If not, forget about trading until you are putting the max into tax deferred investments. Invest, with buy and hold strategies, and you will PROBABLY not lose your money and most likely it will grow like crazy over your lifetime. Let's say you invest $10k a year, every year. Let's say your investments return 10% a year. So the first year you put in $10k. The second year you have made 10% on that, and added another $10k. Do the math. The next year you have made 10% on ALL THAT, including the profit on the first year's investment. Add it all up. Do the math. Bored yet? Keep going. Next year, what do you got? The year after that, what do you got? After 7 years, what do you got? After 40 years, what do you got? If you do the math, I think it will prove my point. Do the math, now, before you read on. Do the math. Look at the final number. Crazy, isn't it? Then do it with whatever percentage return you like. 5%? 7%? 15%? Do the math. If you don't, you won't see my point at all.
If you trade, you will very likely lose your money. Then you will re-fund, and lose that, too. If you are one of the FEW that make it, eventually you will start earning. A 1% day is a pretty decent day and if you can make 1% after taxes and other expenses, you can double your account in 70 days. But you won't, not for a while. You will get lucky and get a few 10% days. You will get unlucky (if you want to call it that) and have several losing days in a row. A steady 1% gain is like the holy grail. A half percent? Well, you still double your stake in 140 days. Not bad. But you won't do that. Not at first. Not the first year. Maybe not the first several years. But probably you will get tired of losing all your money and just quit.
So, do you think you are one of the 10% or so who can eventually be profitable at trading? Well, the 90% who can't, all think that they can do it or at least did think they could do it. Why are you different? If you can answer that question LOGICALLY then hey, maybe you got the right stuff and in a few years you will be making bank. But if you simply buy and hold good stocks, you won't double your account in 70 days or 70 weeks. But in 7 years, maybe. In 30 or 40 years, you could have a very nice retirement egg. Very nice indeed. Refer back to the math problem I gave you.
So what I suggest is learn to invest, now. When your career has advanced to the level where you have disposable income, if you still have the bug, then pick up trading. Keep your position size small, use stops, and make your losses be very small ones and your wins nice ones, so even if you lose more trades than you win, you do okay. And if you just lose lose, lose, at least you lose slowly and get to enjoy the game. Trading can be a lot of fun. Sort of like poker. Manage your stake and your risk, and always live to play another day. If you find yourself making crazy bank and doing it consistently, then maybe that is your true calling. When you are up say three or four years salary, tell them take their job and shove it. But not now. If you are already investing at least $10k/year, then by all means, go for it, learn to trade, and only trade with money that you can afford to lose.
If you ignore all this advice because you know better and you are positive that I am an idiot and just wrong, then please, I have one request. Could you please bring a little more money to the table? It will have to be shared among a lot of ten percenters.
Depends on how much you have to invest. With more capital you can choose to risk only 2 percent trade, which also depends on how many trades you want to open daily to make 2-300 per day. No body makes that daily anyway. I think you should focus on how much you are able to make weekly or monthly when you subtract your losses. meaning you need more winning trades. Loss is inevitable in Forex. You could make 300 today and lose 600 tomorrow.
a) Don't start with ES, it's far too large for a new trader.
b) Better to use the Dow, charts a lot better because of the tick size versus ES
c) So start trading the Dow but not the future, use the market that the likes of FXCM offer.
1.5 tick spread (better I think than the future which probably averages nearly 2)
$0.07 tick size
No commissions
Use a program like Sierra Charts for not just charts but also their DOM (or trading from the chart)
TAKE IT SLOW - you're trying to drink from the same water hole as the big beasts in the jungle, and they either don't like you, or better yet, want to eat you...
Stay with the likes of FXCM for at least a year. In fact, only leave them for Dow futures (or ES) when you can prove to yourself that you're a money maker. That can take a lot of time, 5-10 years is not uncommon.
b) Better to use the Dow, charts a lot better because of the tick size versus ES
c) So start trading the Dow but not the future, use the market that the likes of FXCM offer.
1.5 tick spread (better I think than the future which probably averages nearly 2)
$0.07 tick size
No commissions
Use a program like Sierra Charts for not just charts but also their DOM (or trading from the chart)
TAKE IT SLOW - you're trying to drink from the same water hole as the big beasts in the jungle, and they either don't like you, or better yet, want to eat you...
Stay with the likes of FXCM for at least a year. In fact, only leave them for Dow futures (or ES) when you can prove to yourself that you're a money maker. That can take a lot of time, 5-10 years is not uncommon.
Lemarre, you will find lots if negativity here at ET. It's unfortunate, but expected.
With your starting capital, I would scalp /MES instead. It's 1/10 the size of /ES. Trade no more than 2 contracts. Close one after price goes your way 2 handles, then set your stop to break even. Set an initial disaster stop maybe 5 handles below your entry.
I know you meant you wanted to make $200 per day, rather than scaling it up by 10% every day, as insinuated by the idiots here. Go for $20 a day on the micros. If you can do that consistently for about three months, then you can scale up to /ES. Best wishes!
Thanks so much Bobby and I'm glad someone saw properly what I'm trying to do. Do you know anything about these guys?
https://www.ig.com/au/welcome-page
https://www.ig.com/au/welcome-page