Trading for a living....full time....only income

Yes. Small money is easy, bigger scalable money is harder often much harder. I care a lot more about risk than most people.

Put in the hours, pay attention, you'll learn what works and what doesn't if you're honest with yourself. Never discount the chance that you were just lucky instead of "right". Being lucky is good but it isn't a strategy - its a recipe for disaster if you don't realize/admit it soon enough.
 
Quote from ehsmama:

sooo.....Anyone still doing it here. Considering that so many big guns have bitten dust. Any ppl on ET left standing. Doing full time retail trading ...
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i'm still here,trading full time for a living(retail,trading IB account from my home) and my point of view didn't changed a bit from my post above
 
trading is a stressful job. if you think so.

trading actually is a joyful job. if you do not hug losers, just hold winners.

winners sometimes pretend to be losers, losers sometimes camflouge themselves as winners. it is a joy when you know or you start to develop the ability to recognize who is the true winner and who is a true loser.

if you look at the chart, the quote. losers and winners almost similar,up and down, down and up. but when you start to think, you start to realize who is pretending, who is camflouging.

I treat trading like a detective job. it is fun. most people think it is a career,or a profession, or some people think. to ordniary people, just a gambling game for some thrilling of winning and losing.

I do not think trading is a profession. you can teach someone how to trade such as Double bottom/top setup/stop loss, but you can not teach someone how to think, how to feel, how to act, how to solve the puzzle, how to not care about its emotion,...the key is teach a person how to take advantage of what will happen to make money, that is not teachable.

that is why indicators/TA cannot produce successful traders.


a profession is a kind thing you can teach someone, for example,
you get a computer science degree, you get trained how to program, then you can program, software engineer or programmer is a profession. you must follow the programming language rules to program, though some one may produce better programs,but whatever most people can be taught how to program.


but look at Michael Jackson, his dancing skills or pop songs are not teachable. there is only one Michael Jackson!

trading ability is gifted.just like doing business, hold a MBA means nothing. an elementary school dropouts may do business
better than a MBA holders.

if you enjoy trading, that means you have the potential to become a great trader.

ifyou feel stressful. that means you are not gifted
in trading, better find a regular career to climb.
 
Quote from Bob111:

i'm still here,trading full time for a living(retail,trading IB account from my home) and my point of view didn't changed a bit from my post above
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IT is good to know Bob that someone is still left standing.

But seems most others have disappeared :)

Did your strategies changed a lot ?
USA right now is more or less only bull market left in world.
 
i don't know the exact stats,but looks like there very few members left,who actually trade. judging by activity of the entire board. it's dead.
my profits are lower and lower every day. due many factors. i'm working on couple new ideas,but it's kind of hard. over the years i've became a bit spoiled by easy profits(i'm market neutral guy and this non stop,low volatility nonsense bull market is killing me as we speak(see many factors)). current low profits aren't encouraging also.
this year i made like 15K. seriously. sitting on front of a 4 PC's from 8 to 5 pm. amount of trades still same,compared to previous years,but profits are GONE. was it worth it(while TSA guy at our airport making 50+K)? i'm not sure at this point.
as you might notice-it's not just me-whole industry of trading is dying.
look at this volume,look at the number of ticks(trades) on stocks. it's pathetically low and getting smaller and smaller every day. number of tickers keep declining,number of trades keeps declining.
 
I thought it was me! I look at open interest on UK FTSE options and it is rubbish- No real volatility either-VIX has not ticked above 20 for waaaaay too long now.
I think I'm the only trader in the UK now
 
Quote from ehsmama:

sooo.....Anyone still doing it here. Considering that so many big guns have bitten dust. Any ppl on ET left standing. Doing full time retail trading ...
More...

Still at it after 14 years... I have securities licenses and am technically employed by a firm so I don't think I count as "retail", but, it is still my money at risk everyday.

Prop trading income is not my only income currently either - it was for several years though. Over the years I've bought 2 businesses and am currently throwing time and money into another. That, and a dividend income portfolio...

Per participation on this board, well, it gets old. Its rare that I come across a thread that interests me enough to write something down. Maybe if there was a better quantitative forum I'd post there.
 
i won't talk about me as I've been full time trading 25 yrs and that speaks for itself but I will say i'm on a squawk box and a bunch of the guys loaded goog calls thursday and 1 guy walked out with $740k yesterday and several made over $300k on 1 day trades. Guys who've chased the high monentum names and held them for swing trades have done well.but in the real world most have struggled. just like any profession a few do very well and most struggleand make little, look at real estate. 5-10% of agents sell 80% of property
 
congratz hafez, i've got another 10+ years to reach your level.

i'm not swinging as large as your friends, but i'm comfortable with my trading size. each day, i cut the stock universe from 10,000 stocks to somewhere between 5 and 25, and watch those for my setups. never would have thought it 15 years ago, but i'm not afraid to put on (relative) size when the times are right.

size = relative for everyone. it's easy to put on 100 shares of something because you can get in and out whenever you want. gets harder at larger numbers.
 
My trading life got weird and in 2010 I was offered some paid work with a charity so heart won over head. 2010 was a terrible year for me and I lot confidence. Since then I've made 10-20% p.a.but only on Index options- I have never done well with shares,and UK stocks are rubbish anyway.
Well done fro the few last men standing,as a retail trader I've been through the mill,round the houses and still come back for more- I just don't have the time for now,to do anything other than one or two monthly trades
 
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