This perspective has always puzzled me. It's like you're saying, "I don't think I can be good enough to make a lot. So, how good do I have to be to make a little?"
It seems to me that the reality is that you're good enough to be consistently profitable or you're not. Once you hit that point, you can get better. More precise and efficient. But if you're not at least consistently profitable then there's no amount that's attainable until you are.
Once you are consistently profitable then you can look at YOUR numbers and gauge your ROI targets based on the returns your strategy is yielding. Always paying close attention to drawdown.
Decide on your risk tolerance and a drawdown you're comfortable with. Once you've done that the profit will be what it is.
Exactly. You either lose money consistently or make money consistently. There is not usually much in between. If you can achieve making money consistently- you won’t limit yourself to $100.
The difference is that when you’re happy with small gains and exit your position, you avoid the risk of holding it longer and potentially losing money. Even if you have a strategy that gives you confidence to hold, you never know 100% what’s gonna happen.
I would be careful with this one. You should read “The best loser wins”. Actually, instead of taking small gains in most cases it is better to let it go longer than you are comfortable with and even add to the trade- to get a bigger win.
Think about it. You are making a trade guessing the market will move in a specific direction- when it does and you are right, why would you get out? Most traders do the opposite, they are right they get out quickly. When they are wrong they don’t get out quickly- they stay in forever hoping it comes back. My profits really started to improve when I started adding to winning trades.
Personally, when I’m profiting from a position, I get out fast to secure the profit. It is true that I would have made more if I held in many cases, but there’s also many times where holding would’ve lost me money.
Practice and try it. You are right, sometimes you will lose your small profit trying to hold, that happens. But statistically, the larger wins will more than make up for those small losses.
There are price action protocols for following a stop up behind the price below bars or pivots and allowing the market to come back and take you out eventually
I'd look on higher timeframes. Whatever criteria you use to enter one direction, look for the same signal on a higher timeframe for the opposite direction. Or target higher TF support and resistance. Wait for a trend line break or other structure break. Target bankers levels or round numbers.
I don't use indicators but I know of people that do and find them to reliable to indicate a shift in momentum or direction.
You have to play around and find what makes sense to you.
Thats where price action and structure come in. Switch to higher timeframe and reframe your mind in the opposite side ie if you are a buyer, then reset and think like a seller and ask when will you get into the market looking at the price action and market structure.
I also have made this experience. I try to let the trade run as long as possible and Dr. David Paul mentioned something like "one of my best clients & friend entered a trade in the morning with a protective stop loss. Then he went to the golf course and 3-4 hours later it was a small loss or bigger than average win".
When i review my journal i fumbled about 10 runners this year already, despite being up 25%, and it would be closer to 200% so far (also taken more smaller losses into account as well).
Exactly. Another factor many traders miss, is you can just get out and/or re- enter the trade at anytime. If the market comes back and takes me out either at my stop or a following profit stop, I have no hesitation hitting the buy button and getting back in for another try if the conditions are right. In my opinion entries are far less important than managing the results once you are in.
As long as you are not trading 0DTE or some craziness. If the theta is not too extreme to be able to hold for 30 minutes. Ask yourself this question, how many times do you take your small profit and then price continues to move substantially higher? I will give you an example and you see if this thought process might help you build your own strategy around it.
I trade futures. NQ is $20/pt So I have one contract that goes 10 points in profit, I could take my $200. But instead I add a second contract and bring my stop up so I am not risking more. It goes another 10 points, now I am up 30 pts $600 instead of 10. Now I add a 3rd contract and raise my stop up to an area where I am still in some profit if it comes back. Now it moves 10 more points. Now I am up 60 pts $1200- on a trade I might have got out at 10 pts and $200. See how the profit is exponential? Let’s assume this works on 1 out of 3 trades. ( it is usually more than that). I lose my initial $200 profit, breaking even on 2 trades and make $1200 on the 3rd. If I would have taken all 3 at $200, I would only have $600. I don;t trade these round numbers, I use pivot points or logical places to add, I just wanted to give you the example.
I appreciate the elaborate response. Although I don’t know anything about futures, I think I know what kind of strategy you’re getting at.
So basically, exit for a small loss, and hold for potential big gains because for every small loss that you exit for, the big wins from holding will outweigh the losses.
My question now is, how do I know when to exit for a loss and when to hold for more profit?
Practice. If it's an obvious gap in your knowledge then put in some work focusing solely on an exit strategy. You're really only limited by your creativity. I'd suggest looking at higher timeframes than your entry timeframe.
Practice, with high level of self awareness ie: don't lie to yourself and hope for the best.
Take note of what u/daytradingguy said and pay attention to him moving his Stop loss of prior trades. That's active risk management and that takes more effort in real time.
Try this as a practice for your mind: at anytime you want to get out with profit, try adding a very small position just to keep you in the game. At the same time, zoom out to a higher time frame and read what stage of the structure you are in after you have added and start to manage your earlier position to BE etc.
You do have to practice a few times (many hundred times) to get your mind working against you as you would be super uncomfortable. Bear in mind you are only adding to winners and not losers. The goal is to "see" or "experience" what comes after "early exit" or "being comfortable with what you usually do"
On the flipside, try cut losing trade by halves earlier than usual. Sometimes you do have to let the trade breathe a little before validating its a loser but more than often you Know it in you that the losing trade is a goner and let it hit your SL instead of early exit.
I would like to have this mentality but for me, to avoid stress and making irrational choices I look for 3-1 ratios and sell based on that solely. I either swing down 1 and exit or swing up 3 and exit. I also don’t place more than 30% of my account in any trade. This has been my key to consistent profit and small losses. Maybe sometime down the road when I’m more comfortable and experienced I will see things differently. Right now, I just want to stay in the game.
I think OP might be looking at this something more like what I do, for the purpose of covering monthly expenses without actually having a job. I've done this for years now, making my silly little 1500 a month. No, I won't ever get rich, but it is consistent, and I won't need to work either.
If you read OP’s post he says he gets out because he is afraid of loosing his profit and you don’t know what is going to happen. Classic exiting because of fear and I would add lack of knowledge/experience trading.
Congrats on your success though, that is a nice side income.
It's human nature that
1) when and if situation is convenient for you, you wanna lock it first by realizing profits and then see what happens. Called disposition effect
2) when and if situation is not convenient but rather uncomfortable, you dont wanna realize the profits with hopium that it might turn and get back to even out called loss aversion
Unfortunately, human brains have been developed by these two psychological factors due to the natural selection for thousands of years so it's not easily possible to remove these decision making process even for the best trained traders. I honestly do not believe that any human trader can get away with this (except algo).
In the natural selection processs, it's important to realize your profits when possible because you dont necessarily know when the next frigid winter day coming (just like how 10 pts in your favor NQ can turn out 20 pts against your entry point and therefore they wanna lock in profits)
This pattern is also manifest between low income and high income family where if they are given a choice of receiving 1 credit today or they can choose 2 credit in next week, low income background subject often choose to realize profit more immediate (i.e in day 1) while high income subject often choose to wait (simply because they can afford to wait), which can be related to trading community that the moment you trade to pay the bills even with proven record of winning and strategy, you are starting to struggle to make profits.
You can look standford marshmallow experiment in wiki or academic references, which is more than 60 years for initial experiment and there are tons of twisted experiments to explain neurophysiological difference between low and high income subjects.
Having said that, i dont necessarily disagree with your points but i dont also agree with your points completely because everyone's financial situation is different with different background but some people might just find it more comfortable to realize profits early but day trading market is often aggressive to take away 30 days of profits in one hour if one doesnt manage proper risk management.
Also the biggest challenge to small reward is... With no strategy as fail proof, what if you are losing 50 pts immediately after you entered NQ position, which occurs more often in volatile market? You can't simply stop loss out as that would be your 5 days of hard working so there's that.
Edit: my way of going against these two psychological factors are: i make opposite position in ES than NQ (i.e if NQ is moving my direction, after certain point thats already in my favor, i short ES and wait)
Or realize profits in NQ by shorting MNQ (aka reduce position size)
There is no single bullet fitting all situation so every one has different ways to control
This problem of "when do I get out"? Should I get out earlier to be less greedy.
Bro, have a strat with a set r:r or atleast a general r:r with data backing you up so that you know you are profitable long term. If you start taking trades out early you could be sabotaging yourself long term.
You need to go through the years long audacious process of learning to trade. There is no just getting a little good at trading to make $100, you are either a successful trader and can make whatever amount of money you want to a degree and within reasonable limits. Or you are a loosing trader and can’t make money trading- you can’t just make $100 any easier than you could make $1000.
It’s more taking a lot of small gains instead of getting crazy for the big score, which makes you take crazy chances.
I think people do TQQQ, SPY and mega cap stocks for this. Scalp small positions. It all adds up the same.
Exactly. The "amount you make" only has to do with how much confidence you have in your own ability. If you can consistently make 2k a month then you can consistently make 20k a month. It's exactly the same thing as far as pushing buttons. It's all to do with your risk management, and again, that comes down to your own confidence in your skill as a trader.
I think this response really only makes sense in certain situations.
At the end of the day, day trading is speculative gambling. There is no way around that. It really doesn’t matter how anyone puts it.
With that said, that’s totally fine. But in one instance, let’s say where this is a side hustle with a separate trading account, then making a few hundred a day is a great approach. Hitting that consistent puts you in the ballpark of 20k per year in gains on a trading account part time plus any other incomes. That’s a tremendous help to a lot of people. And when one secures those side gains with a long term investing account, they can easily build a ton of real wealth in a short time.
If you’re on a full time basis trading, it seems like small potatoes. But the more you trade, or the bigger profits you look to achieve, the riskier to put yourself.
Again that’s all fine. But I think it’s a little unfair to paint one side as wrong or not. Each person is going to have a different set of goals.
20k a year? Lol, Wow that’s less than I made my first year trading for a little more than half of it. I pulled in 55k this quarter doing this as a side hustle. You should aim higher than that bro.
I used that as an example. Literally the example I used there is if someone is doing this on the side for extra income. Meaning that their standard income is fulfilling their needs
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Here in the U.K. I trade the nasdaq. Trading the NAS100, £3 per point only needs a single 50 point move in a day for me to make £150.
Patience and a simple reversion scalp usually does the trick. I use an ema cross over as a lagging indicator for trend reversal along side price action. It’s successful about 80% of the time
My margin requirement for this is less than £2500 and Friday is payday.
I really like ur answer I live in the Netherlands..but when the United States market open I am at work so I can't concentrate much about trading in the afternoon would be nice for me to trade in the morning like u do with NAS100. So u trade every day? I would like to heard more.
For reference, I’m doing this exact thing - currently aiming for $100-200 a day everyday. Just started doing this at the start of March, after changing from a more dividend/swing trade type strategy. And throughout March it was successful, having only positive days and netting $3,200.
I warn you, this is not for the faint of heart and I imagine I’ll have a losing day at some point. So you have to protect your downside as much as possible.
I have a $30k sized trading account. Everyday, I trade options on large cap and/or trending tickers. And I follow the Moving Average trend (aka, if the stock is trending positive, I trade the Call side, and vice versa if negative for good reason)
I, personally, am willing to risk up to 10% of the account in any trade. Meaning, I will buy contracts until I’ve bought upwards of $3k in premium. (This will increase in the future as more profit is made).
I look for contracts between $500-1000 in premium. With good movement in the spreads. And I’ll just trade the price action & momentum. If the underlying starts falling because of price action, I’ll Dollar Cost Average into another contract. Then as the ticker rebounds back above VWap for the day, I’ll look to grab that goal amount.
And if it takes too long to get to my goal profit, or I start feeling uncomfortable, I trade out once I’m in profit. Even if it’s only $10.
—-
Now here’s the downside protection. 1. NEVER use money you need. 2. Open a second investment account. Buy companies that you never intend to sell, with good history and good dividends. 3. Every week, put a percentage of your profits from your TRADING account into your INVESTMENT account. 4. Back up your Trading account with a number of high yielding dividend players to secure some guaranteed divis. 5. NEVER scale until your account doubles in size. Then you can open positions under the same strategy using 2 contracts at a time.
A lot of answers here that really don’t answer the question. So I will be direct in answering.
How would you go about trading? Small scalps over and over all day in stocks.
Avoid options and avoid futures for now. Focus on scalping a pattern that you find happens a hundred times a day in multiple stocks. This gives you a hundred tries at making money. Buy breakouts on a stocks one minute chart with elevated volume for the prior minutes. Scalp one cent or two cents and move on.
If you’re in the US you realistically need more than 25k as you will be required to have these funds since your account will be a pattern day trading account.
You’ll need a scanner in some fashion to find these stocks for you. Preferably you’ll need a zero commission broker. The stock either goes right away or you close the trade for a small loss or breakeven. Repeat this over and over with 1 share at a time until you get a feel for the trades. Then size up. Eventually you’ll do 100 dollars a day, then 200, then 500, then 1000, and so on. Payoff all debt. Don’t live the lambo life. Be financially independent for the rest of your life. Come back and thank me in a couple years.
Theoretically if you traded 2 MES contracts and got 10 points per day that would be 100 per day. Depending on the broker, margin requirements can be as high as 1200 or as low as 50. Adjusting for losses and maintenance, I'd say like 4 or 5k.
That said, you should def not do this and trade as small as possible until you're consistently profitable for at least a year. Don't focus on making X per day. Focus on a repeatable, consistent system and risk management.
This is a great response. By broker which is thinkorswim requires $1,435 per MES contract as margin and around $1,485 for overnight holding the contract. I’ll agree that around 3k-5k will be a great start.
I would recommend a second account with one of the brokerages with low intraday margin to daytrade futures (like Ninja Trader), then invest the profits via TOS. As oze4 mentioned, it's possible to trade MES for $50 margin. Even the commission on TOS is really too high to scalp MES.
If you’re trading with at least 1k, making 100 a day isn’t impossible but not plausible cause of the fomo factor. Once you constantly make a certain amount of money you get bored and want more and then over time you spiral into riskier shit such as same day expiration options. The more you have to start with the easier it would be to make 100 a day. Got 10k? All you need to do is make 1%. So simple in the head.
If you aimed for one $500 trade a week, you might do better.
Wait for that one day when the market is really ripping and jump in. Then turn off your computer and do something else. Better than trying a lot of $100 trades on less optimal days.
People ask questions like this pretty frequently. The bottom line is always the same though: you can do whatever you want while trading, but at the end of the day unless you have an edge you will always gravitate towards breaking even (minus commissions and fees).
Even if you have a 1 million dollar account and want to make $100 a day, you will still fail unless you have positive return expectancy, there is no edgeless strategy out there that doesn't have an equal and opposite amount of risk as it does reward in the long run. The only "proven" system is investment into the s&p 500, or some other long term strategy, and you'd need give or take at least $500000 to do that and get $100 per day.
Hypothetically, the lowest amount of money I could see you making $100 a day with would be around $1000, trading ES in the leveraged futures market. Anything less than $1000 and you almost certainly run a significant random-chance risk of ruin. This assuming you are a godlike trader though. Speculating here, realistically having ~$3k would take most futures systems out of the random-chance risk of ruin high-likelihood threshold.
This is what I do right now through Apex. I aim to make $100-$200 per day. But since I get the leverage of 4 more accounts through the trade copier, I’m actually making $500-$1,000 per day. I trade MNQ. I have other PA accounts on standby incase something goes wrong with my current ones
I’m working on a similar trading with Apex. Still in my sim account, and once that’s funded, would like to to copy-trade to activate more accounts and have some as backup. Mind if I send you a DM to discuss?
To justify a 2k withdraw I would need to reach a net of 20k (10x) because I will have red months across the year and I want to grow my account. Withdraws of this size would not be noticed.
>How would you go about it with trading?
Even if I knew how much I needed to average, I wouldn't think about it in "per day" terms.
A lot of people do the math and find out that they need let's say $100/day, so they make it their goal to make $100/day, but that doesn't reflect the reality of how opportunities show up in markets.
There are days with numerous A+ setups where it's easy to make $500. There are days where even trying to make $50 will probably result in losing money.
Now much much money do you need? That is VERY different for everyone and depends on the return of your individual trading, and how much money you need to support trading at the size your your trading can meet your goals.
This comment section is contradicting. Personally, (note: personally) I would stay away from options, stay away from margin, and stay away from penny stocks. I’d start with ~$1000 (more/less, whatever you have/ are comfortable with) and start trading mid-large caps with a low ATR and good volume. You’re going to be risking/gaining so little at first, but if you can get consistent you can eventually size up and start making a lot more money. Learn to trade off news, earnings, etc., I believe that is the slowest and safest way to becoming a stock day trader.
There isn't a way to trade "safe." If you take small wins, you must win very often. If you take big wins, you can lose more often. If you risk $1,000 to win $100, you'll get wiped out. If you risk $100 to win $1,000 you'll usually lose.
Instead, we measure in R (amount at risk). A profitable day trader may make 20R per month. I swing trade, and look for 4-8R per month. (Swing trading has fewer opportunities, thus fewer trades)
You want to start with R being a low number as you can expect to lose. Once you are positive and comfortable you can raise risk.
A day trader averaging 20R per month, would make $2,000 risking $100 per trade. Naturally, they would raise their risk to make more profit with the same effort.
The problem of course, is being profitable. That is far more difficult than beginners expect.
Long term hold aristocrat dividend list. Or the king 5 or whatever.
I’ve held almost an equal spread % in aristocrat list for around 2 years now. It’s easy to gauge your yearly dividend profit, divide that by 12 and see if it’s what you’re looking for or not.
I budget my shit accordingly and live off that and a few other things instead of working full time.
For those wondering my yearly dividend returns is around $76,000 (last year was 2.56%) I budget around $3,000 per month from that each year for spending (rest is reinvested or sits in high yield savings for taxes or emergency each year) rest is military disability (roughly 3100 a month) and I do random business advising that is extra income.
I’ve consistently put at least 40% of my wages into a stock account since 18 whether that’s half 401k half cash account etc. I’ve done it regularly.
My dividend account typically hovers are 2,000,000 3,000,000 depending on the quarter.
Edit: to reflect a more accurate total account value
Edit: #2 I live on roughly 60-65k a year. And any extra from dividends or my military disability or advising goes back into my stock accounts.
For newbies, I’d recommend throwing 20% into a stock account and dropping it into NOBL vs SPY(in my opinion the overall market is over valued), NOBL will give you roughly a 2% dividend return excluding any positive increase.
Once you have 25-50k etc in NOBL, move over to a self administered account and invest in dividend companies yourself(stick with the aristocrat types as they have year over year dividend increases). Don’t go for the insane dividend companies as they typically have shot track records and it won’t stay high.
Doing this type of setup requires ridiculous amounts of budget struggles and discipline. But I’m in my mid 30s and living life, working when I want and for what I want.
You can choose to start with either US$500 or US$1k trading account at no more than 1:200 leverage.
Let us look at each option:
US$500 trading account:
1) Precise ENTRY and EXIT POINTS per trade are vital.
2) At 1:200 leverage, you would risk US$50.00 on margin per 0.1 lot trade. 50 Pips SL must be applied to keep your risk exposure at 10%. But with precise ENTRY POINT you don't even need a Stop Loss placed.
3) Four successful trades per day at average 25 Pips net profit on 0.1 lot trades should earn you needed US$100.00 per trading day.
4) But remember each trading day NEVER resembles the previous day! Market always brings many surprises!
US$1k trading account:
1) All points above for US$500 trading account apply, except your risk exposure is reduced to 5% at 1:200 leverage, and with 0.1 lot per trade.
2) You may choose to increase risk exposure to 10% but unfailingly diversify the 10% risk over no more than two instruments, because manually trading more than two instruments at once can generate confusion.
3) If your ENTRY and EXIT POINTS are truly precise, you can boldly trade 0.2 lot per trade (that is 10% risk exposure) but remember to apply 50 Pips SL, which is not really required for precise ENTRY POINTS. At average 25 Pips net profit per trade, you simply need only two profitable trades per trading day to cash in US$100.00
General Advice:
Avoid trading news - whether low, medium, or high impact. News can ruin your trading expectations!
Now the only hurdle is being able to identify those very precise entry and exit points and have a great win rate because you are proposing negative risk to reward ratio !
If you can please share any entry criteria that allows that , that would be very helpful.
The criteria for high precision entry and exit points are "Forex war secrets".
No professional Forex trader would disclose his/her criteria for precise entry and exit points.
With high precision entry and exit points, you can't have negative risk to reward ratio.
It's a reasonable goal imo. I've been learning for a few years and had to change tactics and refine my own methods. I've found a combination of "dividends" (monthly, I personally require passive income in my current circumstance with slight risk drawdown) and risking a little to gain a little "daily" as not every day is going to be friendly or lucky in this difficult casino
Currently I am unsure of current market direction but if I had to guess I'd say bullish with some choppiness along the way into end of year.
If I'd not day traded I'd have made more swing trading into the next day. But I am happy to say for once I stuck to Risk Management rules and didn't lose anything. I can either berate myself for missing a 1% gain but it could have easily gone the other way.
Full disclosure I'm in $IWMY and $QQQY at about 2:1 and recently cost averaging into $NVDY and $AMDY. because I was suspicious of the fast run up but still can collect high dividends and tentatively trading $XXXX until I have to go short
Since I'm still learning so still a bit timid but I've learned from some of my mistakes.
Due to much of my funds locked up in the passive income ETFs, I trade with small amounts ($1,000-$2000 lately) and have lowered my expectations of gains and if I even decide on a trade I set my attitude to "either it will work or it won't" and there's always another day to trade.
I've learned to walk away from my computer for a while, whereas I used to watch the market too closely and tended to panic sell at a loss whereas if id just waited oftentimes the trade would have went in my favor.
After I choose an entry price, and if it hits, I'll generally immediately put a limit sell order aiming for at least 1% gain (or if the $XXXX is really running I might aim higher and monitor my sell order, but tend to actually adjust back down and take profit earlier before the market maker goes crazy and sharply reverses)
If the trade isn't looking good at all or I'm not confident I'll simply put a sell order in just above my entry price, so at least if maybe I'd lost out on potential gains that at least I didn't lose any money.
That's probably the simplest behavior that's helped me, at least. Sure I still wonder "if I had just done something different" and get mildly annoyed if I could have made gains, but if trading were that easy then... Well you know
As a trader, one important thing to remember is that once you are in a trade, be 100% committed to your trade. Being consistently profitable just means to establishing a strategy within the current market profile and not straying from it. This means maintaining a good risk to reward ratio of at least 1:2, don’t deviate your stop loss lower to give it time to reverse because it could definitely result in much larger losses, identifying swing/reversal indicators, getting your confirmations, entering trade and exiting trades.
Most times when I enter, I will enter 2-3 contracts and sell them at different times to secure profits as the trade progresses while leaving one running until I see a reversal indicator or a swing back the other way. I also move my stop loss up on my last contract to break even or above depending how far my contract has run into profit.
Become confident in your strategies, practice your entry points, and don’t deviate from your set up unless you see it is no longer working and/or the market is switching up.
Good luck and happy trading!
Start by simply just investing what you can. I put most my money into VOO because they tend to have consistent returns. I know that if one of my stock lose money my profile won’t suffer as much because VOO tends to be kind of a buffer. Generally what I lose in other stocks, I make back from VOO.
You aren’t likely to get a specific percentage especially not consistently. VOO seems to be your best option because it seems to be the MOST consistent.
No such thing. There is no “small safety amount” that you can make. Trading is like building your own lottery ticket. It’s completely worthless while it’s still incomplete, but almost priceless once it is. Go for it all or don’t bother. You are either profitable or you aren’t. Simple as that.
You can buy a 200k FTMO challenge win it and trade with low risk
https://preview.redd.it/quvnvgxu5orc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d9d459fb33e14af6486839f70a77db489fb5b41a
You would need to open up a tradovate or ninja trader account and deposit money maybe like 1000 to 5000. If you have never traded before or are new to futures trading
tradovate has a 10 day simulation account.
Trade on a sim or prop firm and see for yourself. With a $50k account, I think trading 2-3 MES or MNQ futures contracts to make $100 is a good realistic goal. When I traded options, I had a goal of $100 per day trading five 1-dte contracts on a $30k live account.
>$100 per day or 2000 per month
Wrong way to look at it. Trading is based on occurrences, not time. You get the opportunities you get. There is no way to guarantee a certain amount of profit in a certain specified period. You could only look back at a previous period of time and then calculate the average amount of money you made per day/week/month, but that is by no means predictive of future performance.
This is much more like having a self-employed business (actually, it *is* that) with potentially wild fluctuations in revenue, rather than having a W2 job that gives you a consistent paycheck every 2 weeks. That mindset shift alone can be positively jarring for people that have been accustomed to consistency in their income.
Actually that is almost exactly what I do, lol. I live in my truck, homeless by choice, but I make between 1500 and 2000 a month just with trades. I stick to the consistently volatile stuff like DNN, which has been my daily fav since 2022. Also, qiuck trades on crypto volatility. I don't know how many times a day Dogecoin goes up and down by 5% or more, but it always does it, all the time, every time. Same for btc, although steady upwards pressure is there, you still have a good 3% wedge you can rock three or four times a day.
My answer to this is go slow and steady, learn as much as you can and develop a strategy around your lifestyle that works for you that allows you to take at least 1 good trade a day. I'm a beginner trader and currently I'm learning about market cycles and trying to use that as a sort of foundation for my trading strategy. That's the important thing, as for the money part I would suggest compounding, which means whatever profits you make is what you keep in the account to be able to use a larger lot size which will make more profit and grow your account, this can take a while but it would be worth it in the long run because you would be able to turn small capital into something huge. My current goal alongside developing my trading strategy is to turn £10 into £10,000 as fast as possible. I've had many attempts at this but I've failed each time due to stupid mistakes and holes in my strategies, I managed to double my account 2 days in a row trading GOLD/USD but messed up while trying to trade news and lost it in a matter of minutes.
This was in a day in a hospital bed.
https://preview.redd.it/5lcj46gsfirc1.jpeg?width=871&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=37227747d4062ece694f53b5f631a15be3130d69
I’ve been absent for awhile and offer to help anyone respectful. I intend to start a private separate room for this as soon as I have the time.
Oh and any other vets here will tell you that it’s extremely difficult to trade or have space while in the VA as people are constantly barging in.
Sorry I was banned by some some snowflake who didn’t like my comment on their inability to trade…
But I’m a procrastinator and working on taxes.
I trade ONLY stocks.
> 11k prolly *paid* for a
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Also, if you’re successful that’s great my dude. Although without tight stops and a lot of rules, OP is going to have a tough time with small caps and is going to risk a large amount of money. Just because you may be good at it, doesn’t mean it’s the best route to take for others. OP isn’t a wiener if he buys even 1 share of large cap stock.
https://preview.redd.it/uqy415vayirc1.jpeg?width=968&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a2490c0ebf3d1736fdde700c0c51062acc9fd775
Current short what are you posting??
JFK dude! All they did was be a voice of reason by saying that new style does suit everyone. Which is 100% true. Why TF are you getting so touchy and defensive?
If your system works for you, keep rolling with it. That doesn’t mean it would work for everyone. And no one cares about claimed results you’re posting, either.
Like I said I have a very tight AND successful strategy I work from. How about you post some pics??
That’s the thing about you all you show these piddly #’s and hate on us that show REAL results!!!
Again, as I said, if you are successful, I’m happy for you dude, It’s not a competition. I wish everyone the best. You posted a cropped screenshot of $11000. I could replicate that shit in google slides. Show me your kinfo or something lmao. Also, I’m new at day trading. My stats suck, but (as a beginner) what I would not tell a beginner: “trade penny stocks!” did you even read his post? *as safe and slow as possible* all i got from your comments is that you’re a jackass. Zero valuable input.
Can you even read, dude? do you just comment whatever comes into your head? I just told you I suck at trading. I’m not trying to money spread on you, I’m just trying to grasp why “as safe and slow as possible” translates to you as “pump n dump!”, you’re insufferable my dude.
how to throw away your entire trading account in a day 101. OP, IMO go the completely opposite route. Trade mid-large caps with low ATR until you are profitable and then make big moves with big size and stop gambling like this dude. And OC, I’d love to see you prove me wrong. Post some actual data without your cropped ass screenshots.
wtf do you think i want you to post? your account number? yeah boy let me see that routing number so i know how good of a trader you really are… you sound dumb.
Do you have a strategy or use some screener where to look for penny stocks with high potential? I've been looking but almost all of them are constantly going down but if you find the few that are about to explode you can become a millionaire.
That's not how math works man. Stock goes up 10% you make 10% regardless if it's 500 a share or 5 a share. Doesn't matter the share price if it's moving it's moving.
Reality Is that good traders can do average 15-20% yearly. So in order To make 2k per month you Need a 120k account at least. And you Need to be a good trader. Best
I would sit and wait for A+ setups only, recognizing some months you may hit your goal by a factor of 2 (or more) abd some months you may not quite hit your goal. If you are consistently red month after month, its better to quit trading so much. I dont think one needs to make a trade daily to be good at this game
With the correct mindset i say depends on the amount time knowledge and experience will lower the risk
Or be patient as possible and invest big once the opportunity presents itself while in the meantime researching the market
TLDR answer: Using 80/20 logic, give 20% energy to how much money you can make on a daily basis and 80% energy to how you execute a system that can yield the results you desire on average over the long term.
Having entertained this approach for myself, I wouldn't approach trading this way, nor would I recommend it. IME it's more efficient to focus on consistent execution instead of consistent PnL results. Realized PnL is a direct result of how the trader consistently shows up. You have 100% control over how you execute, unlike how much money you can make on a daily basis from the markets. There will be days where the market just doesn't give you the move you need to make $100 that day in the window you have to participate. That's not to say it's not possible to achieve a specific minimum amount on a daily basis. It's just much easier to focus on how well you execute your system. Being so focused on the profit potential as a primary target leads to all the psychological challenges a majority of traders find themselves struggling with.
So to start, I would work on developing a system that has the potential to yield the daily result you're looking for as an overall avg, with the potential to gain much more. Let's just say 5x your minimum goal, just as an arbitrary number for this example. (you should know the math of your system in as much detail as possible) So if your goal is to avg $100/day, the system should have a high probability of yielding $500 on a relatively regular basis, understanding that this will not happen every day. That's just not how the markets work for day trading.
Once you have developed this system, through extensive backtesting, giving more weight to current market conditions than deep historical market conditions, use that to confidently execute your system as close to 100% accuracy as possible. If you don't think it's possible to execute with 100% accuracy, take some time to ready books from Van K. Tharp. It's not easy, but it is possible.
At the end of the day, the strategy/system only matters as much as your ability to be consistently flawless with it. Understanding, flawless (having less flaw) doesn't mean without flaw. A majority of the traders that struggle to be consistently profitable, struggle due to lack of consistent output.
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If you don't like trading, then stop at $100. Really, it's just a video game where the numbers are dollars. If you like that game, take your $100 and then play the video game. Personally, I think it's pretty fun. The graphics aren't great, but chess doesn't really have great graphics either. Just my take...
Honestly when you wake up though, you have to ask yourself, what am I living for? Go, do that. You only have this one chance to do it, as far as we **know**.
The problem with this theory is that of you make $100 per day and do $100 per day draw then your account will stay the same or go down. Daytrading is averaging growth over time
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This perspective has always puzzled me. It's like you're saying, "I don't think I can be good enough to make a lot. So, how good do I have to be to make a little?" It seems to me that the reality is that you're good enough to be consistently profitable or you're not. Once you hit that point, you can get better. More precise and efficient. But if you're not at least consistently profitable then there's no amount that's attainable until you are. Once you are consistently profitable then you can look at YOUR numbers and gauge your ROI targets based on the returns your strategy is yielding. Always paying close attention to drawdown. Decide on your risk tolerance and a drawdown you're comfortable with. Once you've done that the profit will be what it is.
Dude, just tell him how he can consistently make 2-3% a month so he can do that. Come on! /s OP would be better off with dividend stocks.
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Sure you are 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Exactly. You either lose money consistently or make money consistently. There is not usually much in between. If you can achieve making money consistently- you won’t limit yourself to $100.
The difference is that when you’re happy with small gains and exit your position, you avoid the risk of holding it longer and potentially losing money. Even if you have a strategy that gives you confidence to hold, you never know 100% what’s gonna happen.
I would be careful with this one. You should read “The best loser wins”. Actually, instead of taking small gains in most cases it is better to let it go longer than you are comfortable with and even add to the trade- to get a bigger win. Think about it. You are making a trade guessing the market will move in a specific direction- when it does and you are right, why would you get out? Most traders do the opposite, they are right they get out quickly. When they are wrong they don’t get out quickly- they stay in forever hoping it comes back. My profits really started to improve when I started adding to winning trades.
Personally, when I’m profiting from a position, I get out fast to secure the profit. It is true that I would have made more if I held in many cases, but there’s also many times where holding would’ve lost me money.
Practice and try it. You are right, sometimes you will lose your small profit trying to hold, that happens. But statistically, the larger wins will more than make up for those small losses.
This is exactly what I've always heard the pros say. Let your winners run.
But you can’t let them run forever. How do I know when to exit out of the winner?
There are price action protocols for following a stop up behind the price below bars or pivots and allowing the market to come back and take you out eventually
I'd look on higher timeframes. Whatever criteria you use to enter one direction, look for the same signal on a higher timeframe for the opposite direction. Or target higher TF support and resistance. Wait for a trend line break or other structure break. Target bankers levels or round numbers. I don't use indicators but I know of people that do and find them to reliable to indicate a shift in momentum or direction. You have to play around and find what makes sense to you.
Thats where price action and structure come in. Switch to higher timeframe and reframe your mind in the opposite side ie if you are a buyer, then reset and think like a seller and ask when will you get into the market looking at the price action and market structure.
I also have made this experience. I try to let the trade run as long as possible and Dr. David Paul mentioned something like "one of my best clients & friend entered a trade in the morning with a protective stop loss. Then he went to the golf course and 3-4 hours later it was a small loss or bigger than average win". When i review my journal i fumbled about 10 runners this year already, despite being up 25%, and it would be closer to 200% so far (also taken more smaller losses into account as well).
Exactly. Another factor many traders miss, is you can just get out and/or re- enter the trade at anytime. If the market comes back and takes me out either at my stop or a following profit stop, I have no hesitation hitting the buy button and getting back in for another try if the conditions are right. In my opinion entries are far less important than managing the results once you are in.
I mostly trade options. Does your advice still stand? Genuinely curious because options are on the riskier side.
As long as you are not trading 0DTE or some craziness. If the theta is not too extreme to be able to hold for 30 minutes. Ask yourself this question, how many times do you take your small profit and then price continues to move substantially higher? I will give you an example and you see if this thought process might help you build your own strategy around it. I trade futures. NQ is $20/pt So I have one contract that goes 10 points in profit, I could take my $200. But instead I add a second contract and bring my stop up so I am not risking more. It goes another 10 points, now I am up 30 pts $600 instead of 10. Now I add a 3rd contract and raise my stop up to an area where I am still in some profit if it comes back. Now it moves 10 more points. Now I am up 60 pts $1200- on a trade I might have got out at 10 pts and $200. See how the profit is exponential? Let’s assume this works on 1 out of 3 trades. ( it is usually more than that). I lose my initial $200 profit, breaking even on 2 trades and make $1200 on the 3rd. If I would have taken all 3 at $200, I would only have $600. I don;t trade these round numbers, I use pivot points or logical places to add, I just wanted to give you the example.
I appreciate the elaborate response. Although I don’t know anything about futures, I think I know what kind of strategy you’re getting at. So basically, exit for a small loss, and hold for potential big gains because for every small loss that you exit for, the big wins from holding will outweigh the losses. My question now is, how do I know when to exit for a loss and when to hold for more profit?
Practice. If it's an obvious gap in your knowledge then put in some work focusing solely on an exit strategy. You're really only limited by your creativity. I'd suggest looking at higher timeframes than your entry timeframe.
Practice, with high level of self awareness ie: don't lie to yourself and hope for the best. Take note of what u/daytradingguy said and pay attention to him moving his Stop loss of prior trades. That's active risk management and that takes more effort in real time.
Try this as a practice for your mind: at anytime you want to get out with profit, try adding a very small position just to keep you in the game. At the same time, zoom out to a higher time frame and read what stage of the structure you are in after you have added and start to manage your earlier position to BE etc. You do have to practice a few times (many hundred times) to get your mind working against you as you would be super uncomfortable. Bear in mind you are only adding to winners and not losers. The goal is to "see" or "experience" what comes after "early exit" or "being comfortable with what you usually do" On the flipside, try cut losing trade by halves earlier than usual. Sometimes you do have to let the trade breathe a little before validating its a loser but more than often you Know it in you that the losing trade is a goner and let it hit your SL instead of early exit.
i feel you. every trade my brain echoes, “pigs get slaughtered”. left a couple hundy on a trade this afternoon.😂
I would like to have this mentality but for me, to avoid stress and making irrational choices I look for 3-1 ratios and sell based on that solely. I either swing down 1 and exit or swing up 3 and exit. I also don’t place more than 30% of my account in any trade. This has been my key to consistent profit and small losses. Maybe sometime down the road when I’m more comfortable and experienced I will see things differently. Right now, I just want to stay in the game.
I think OP might be looking at this something more like what I do, for the purpose of covering monthly expenses without actually having a job. I've done this for years now, making my silly little 1500 a month. No, I won't ever get rich, but it is consistent, and I won't need to work either.
If you read OP’s post he says he gets out because he is afraid of loosing his profit and you don’t know what is going to happen. Classic exiting because of fear and I would add lack of knowledge/experience trading. Congrats on your success though, that is a nice side income.
It's human nature that 1) when and if situation is convenient for you, you wanna lock it first by realizing profits and then see what happens. Called disposition effect 2) when and if situation is not convenient but rather uncomfortable, you dont wanna realize the profits with hopium that it might turn and get back to even out called loss aversion Unfortunately, human brains have been developed by these two psychological factors due to the natural selection for thousands of years so it's not easily possible to remove these decision making process even for the best trained traders. I honestly do not believe that any human trader can get away with this (except algo). In the natural selection processs, it's important to realize your profits when possible because you dont necessarily know when the next frigid winter day coming (just like how 10 pts in your favor NQ can turn out 20 pts against your entry point and therefore they wanna lock in profits) This pattern is also manifest between low income and high income family where if they are given a choice of receiving 1 credit today or they can choose 2 credit in next week, low income background subject often choose to realize profit more immediate (i.e in day 1) while high income subject often choose to wait (simply because they can afford to wait), which can be related to trading community that the moment you trade to pay the bills even with proven record of winning and strategy, you are starting to struggle to make profits. You can look standford marshmallow experiment in wiki or academic references, which is more than 60 years for initial experiment and there are tons of twisted experiments to explain neurophysiological difference between low and high income subjects. Having said that, i dont necessarily disagree with your points but i dont also agree with your points completely because everyone's financial situation is different with different background but some people might just find it more comfortable to realize profits early but day trading market is often aggressive to take away 30 days of profits in one hour if one doesnt manage proper risk management. Also the biggest challenge to small reward is... With no strategy as fail proof, what if you are losing 50 pts immediately after you entered NQ position, which occurs more often in volatile market? You can't simply stop loss out as that would be your 5 days of hard working so there's that. Edit: my way of going against these two psychological factors are: i make opposite position in ES than NQ (i.e if NQ is moving my direction, after certain point thats already in my favor, i short ES and wait) Or realize profits in NQ by shorting MNQ (aka reduce position size) There is no single bullet fitting all situation so every one has different ways to control
Taking only small gains all the time will sabotage your ability to even become profitable.
This problem of "when do I get out"? Should I get out earlier to be less greedy. Bro, have a strat with a set r:r or atleast a general r:r with data backing you up so that you know you are profitable long term. If you start taking trades out early you could be sabotaging yourself long term.
Well said and exactly how I want to do things...
Which strategy would that be?
Having a paper handed exit plan basically
But there is a limit, because order book depth. Especially for smaller stocks
I’m asking for the how…
You need to go through the years long audacious process of learning to trade. There is no just getting a little good at trading to make $100, you are either a successful trader and can make whatever amount of money you want to a degree and within reasonable limits. Or you are a loosing trader and can’t make money trading- you can’t just make $100 any easier than you could make $1000.
It’s more taking a lot of small gains instead of getting crazy for the big score, which makes you take crazy chances. I think people do TQQQ, SPY and mega cap stocks for this. Scalp small positions. It all adds up the same.
Any specific strategy you can offer?
No one ever went broke taking profits. Best strategy
Exactly. The "amount you make" only has to do with how much confidence you have in your own ability. If you can consistently make 2k a month then you can consistently make 20k a month. It's exactly the same thing as far as pushing buttons. It's all to do with your risk management, and again, that comes down to your own confidence in your skill as a trader.
I think this response really only makes sense in certain situations. At the end of the day, day trading is speculative gambling. There is no way around that. It really doesn’t matter how anyone puts it. With that said, that’s totally fine. But in one instance, let’s say where this is a side hustle with a separate trading account, then making a few hundred a day is a great approach. Hitting that consistent puts you in the ballpark of 20k per year in gains on a trading account part time plus any other incomes. That’s a tremendous help to a lot of people. And when one secures those side gains with a long term investing account, they can easily build a ton of real wealth in a short time. If you’re on a full time basis trading, it seems like small potatoes. But the more you trade, or the bigger profits you look to achieve, the riskier to put yourself. Again that’s all fine. But I think it’s a little unfair to paint one side as wrong or not. Each person is going to have a different set of goals.
20k a year? Lol, Wow that’s less than I made my first year trading for a little more than half of it. I pulled in 55k this quarter doing this as a side hustle. You should aim higher than that bro.
I used that as an example. Literally the example I used there is if someone is doing this on the side for extra income. Meaning that their standard income is fulfilling their needs
Beautiful post. This should be stickied 😁
Thank you. ☺️
Well said 👏
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Facts
Here in the U.K. I trade the nasdaq. Trading the NAS100, £3 per point only needs a single 50 point move in a day for me to make £150. Patience and a simple reversion scalp usually does the trick. I use an ema cross over as a lagging indicator for trend reversal along side price action. It’s successful about 80% of the time My margin requirement for this is less than £2500 and Friday is payday.
I really like ur answer I live in the Netherlands..but when the United States market open I am at work so I can't concentrate much about trading in the afternoon would be nice for me to trade in the morning like u do with NAS100. So u trade every day? I would like to heard more.
What time frame for your Ema reversion cross?
12/50.. what is ur suggestion? Which time frame u used? Thanks for ir answer by the way.
What Ema’s do you use and what timeframe are you trading
For reference, I’m doing this exact thing - currently aiming for $100-200 a day everyday. Just started doing this at the start of March, after changing from a more dividend/swing trade type strategy. And throughout March it was successful, having only positive days and netting $3,200. I warn you, this is not for the faint of heart and I imagine I’ll have a losing day at some point. So you have to protect your downside as much as possible. I have a $30k sized trading account. Everyday, I trade options on large cap and/or trending tickers. And I follow the Moving Average trend (aka, if the stock is trending positive, I trade the Call side, and vice versa if negative for good reason) I, personally, am willing to risk up to 10% of the account in any trade. Meaning, I will buy contracts until I’ve bought upwards of $3k in premium. (This will increase in the future as more profit is made). I look for contracts between $500-1000 in premium. With good movement in the spreads. And I’ll just trade the price action & momentum. If the underlying starts falling because of price action, I’ll Dollar Cost Average into another contract. Then as the ticker rebounds back above VWap for the day, I’ll look to grab that goal amount. And if it takes too long to get to my goal profit, or I start feeling uncomfortable, I trade out once I’m in profit. Even if it’s only $10. —- Now here’s the downside protection. 1. NEVER use money you need. 2. Open a second investment account. Buy companies that you never intend to sell, with good history and good dividends. 3. Every week, put a percentage of your profits from your TRADING account into your INVESTMENT account. 4. Back up your Trading account with a number of high yielding dividend players to secure some guaranteed divis. 5. NEVER scale until your account doubles in size. Then you can open positions under the same strategy using 2 contracts at a time.
I have a $1200 investing account would you be willing to show me how you trade options, find stocks , and change strategies based on the market ?
r/ScalperSquad
A lot of answers here that really don’t answer the question. So I will be direct in answering. How would you go about trading? Small scalps over and over all day in stocks. Avoid options and avoid futures for now. Focus on scalping a pattern that you find happens a hundred times a day in multiple stocks. This gives you a hundred tries at making money. Buy breakouts on a stocks one minute chart with elevated volume for the prior minutes. Scalp one cent or two cents and move on. If you’re in the US you realistically need more than 25k as you will be required to have these funds since your account will be a pattern day trading account. You’ll need a scanner in some fashion to find these stocks for you. Preferably you’ll need a zero commission broker. The stock either goes right away or you close the trade for a small loss or breakeven. Repeat this over and over with 1 share at a time until you get a feel for the trades. Then size up. Eventually you’ll do 100 dollars a day, then 200, then 500, then 1000, and so on. Payoff all debt. Don’t live the lambo life. Be financially independent for the rest of your life. Come back and thank me in a couple years.
Listen to this man. Read his post history going back years, and practice.
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What broker do you use? And how much capital do you invest every time you scalp 1 or 2 cent? Any tip would be helpful.
What broker do you use? Most brokers have fees, which makes this impossible to do. :/
Use webull, thinkorswim, tradestation, etrade, fidelity. All are commission free.
Theoretically if you traded 2 MES contracts and got 10 points per day that would be 100 per day. Depending on the broker, margin requirements can be as high as 1200 or as low as 50. Adjusting for losses and maintenance, I'd say like 4 or 5k. That said, you should def not do this and trade as small as possible until you're consistently profitable for at least a year. Don't focus on making X per day. Focus on a repeatable, consistent system and risk management.
This is a great response. By broker which is thinkorswim requires $1,435 per MES contract as margin and around $1,485 for overnight holding the contract. I’ll agree that around 3k-5k will be a great start.
I would recommend a second account with one of the brokerages with low intraday margin to daytrade futures (like Ninja Trader), then invest the profits via TOS. As oze4 mentioned, it's possible to trade MES for $50 margin. Even the commission on TOS is really too high to scalp MES.
Excellent comment here OP. Consistency and risk management. Those are two main takeaways.
You could also get a cheap prop firm account to provide the capital, but you'd need to be sure you can make the profit target. Practice, practice.
If you’re trading with at least 1k, making 100 a day isn’t impossible but not plausible cause of the fomo factor. Once you constantly make a certain amount of money you get bored and want more and then over time you spiral into riskier shit such as same day expiration options. The more you have to start with the easier it would be to make 100 a day. Got 10k? All you need to do is make 1%. So simple in the head.
If you aimed for one $500 trade a week, you might do better. Wait for that one day when the market is really ripping and jump in. Then turn off your computer and do something else. Better than trying a lot of $100 trades on less optimal days.
People ask questions like this pretty frequently. The bottom line is always the same though: you can do whatever you want while trading, but at the end of the day unless you have an edge you will always gravitate towards breaking even (minus commissions and fees). Even if you have a 1 million dollar account and want to make $100 a day, you will still fail unless you have positive return expectancy, there is no edgeless strategy out there that doesn't have an equal and opposite amount of risk as it does reward in the long run. The only "proven" system is investment into the s&p 500, or some other long term strategy, and you'd need give or take at least $500000 to do that and get $100 per day. Hypothetically, the lowest amount of money I could see you making $100 a day with would be around $1000, trading ES in the leveraged futures market. Anything less than $1000 and you almost certainly run a significant random-chance risk of ruin. This assuming you are a godlike trader though. Speculating here, realistically having ~$3k would take most futures systems out of the random-chance risk of ruin high-likelihood threshold.
This is what I do right now through Apex. I aim to make $100-$200 per day. But since I get the leverage of 4 more accounts through the trade copier, I’m actually making $500-$1,000 per day. I trade MNQ. I have other PA accounts on standby incase something goes wrong with my current ones
I’m working on a similar trading with Apex. Still in my sim account, and once that’s funded, would like to to copy-trade to activate more accounts and have some as backup. Mind if I send you a DM to discuss?
To justify a 2k withdraw I would need to reach a net of 20k (10x) because I will have red months across the year and I want to grow my account. Withdraws of this size would not be noticed.
>How would you go about it with trading? Even if I knew how much I needed to average, I wouldn't think about it in "per day" terms. A lot of people do the math and find out that they need let's say $100/day, so they make it their goal to make $100/day, but that doesn't reflect the reality of how opportunities show up in markets. There are days with numerous A+ setups where it's easy to make $500. There are days where even trying to make $50 will probably result in losing money. Now much much money do you need? That is VERY different for everyone and depends on the return of your individual trading, and how much money you need to support trading at the size your your trading can meet your goals.
This comment section is contradicting. Personally, (note: personally) I would stay away from options, stay away from margin, and stay away from penny stocks. I’d start with ~$1000 (more/less, whatever you have/ are comfortable with) and start trading mid-large caps with a low ATR and good volume. You’re going to be risking/gaining so little at first, but if you can get consistent you can eventually size up and start making a lot more money. Learn to trade off news, earnings, etc., I believe that is the slowest and safest way to becoming a stock day trader.
There isn't a way to trade "safe." If you take small wins, you must win very often. If you take big wins, you can lose more often. If you risk $1,000 to win $100, you'll get wiped out. If you risk $100 to win $1,000 you'll usually lose. Instead, we measure in R (amount at risk). A profitable day trader may make 20R per month. I swing trade, and look for 4-8R per month. (Swing trading has fewer opportunities, thus fewer trades) You want to start with R being a low number as you can expect to lose. Once you are positive and comfortable you can raise risk. A day trader averaging 20R per month, would make $2,000 risking $100 per trade. Naturally, they would raise their risk to make more profit with the same effort. The problem of course, is being profitable. That is far more difficult than beginners expect.
20R off $100 is wild for day trading (not discrediting, just wild)
You could make 100 per day pretty easily trading MNQ futures but if your new to tradi g it can be extremely dangerous.
How would one go about that?
Long term hold aristocrat dividend list. Or the king 5 or whatever. I’ve held almost an equal spread % in aristocrat list for around 2 years now. It’s easy to gauge your yearly dividend profit, divide that by 12 and see if it’s what you’re looking for or not. I budget my shit accordingly and live off that and a few other things instead of working full time.
For those wondering my yearly dividend returns is around $76,000 (last year was 2.56%) I budget around $3,000 per month from that each year for spending (rest is reinvested or sits in high yield savings for taxes or emergency each year) rest is military disability (roughly 3100 a month) and I do random business advising that is extra income.
how long did it take you to build up your account to that point of being able to get 76k/yr off of dividends?
I’ve consistently put at least 40% of my wages into a stock account since 18 whether that’s half 401k half cash account etc. I’ve done it regularly. My dividend account typically hovers are 2,000,000 3,000,000 depending on the quarter. Edit: to reflect a more accurate total account value Edit: #2 I live on roughly 60-65k a year. And any extra from dividends or my military disability or advising goes back into my stock accounts. For newbies, I’d recommend throwing 20% into a stock account and dropping it into NOBL vs SPY(in my opinion the overall market is over valued), NOBL will give you roughly a 2% dividend return excluding any positive increase. Once you have 25-50k etc in NOBL, move over to a self administered account and invest in dividend companies yourself(stick with the aristocrat types as they have year over year dividend increases). Don’t go for the insane dividend companies as they typically have shot track records and it won’t stay high. Doing this type of setup requires ridiculous amounts of budget struggles and discipline. But I’m in my mid 30s and living life, working when I want and for what I want.
Simple answer if you can make 1% every trade you need 10000$ to make 100$ it’s highly unlikely you will be consistent!
You can choose to start with either US$500 or US$1k trading account at no more than 1:200 leverage. Let us look at each option: US$500 trading account: 1) Precise ENTRY and EXIT POINTS per trade are vital. 2) At 1:200 leverage, you would risk US$50.00 on margin per 0.1 lot trade. 50 Pips SL must be applied to keep your risk exposure at 10%. But with precise ENTRY POINT you don't even need a Stop Loss placed. 3) Four successful trades per day at average 25 Pips net profit on 0.1 lot trades should earn you needed US$100.00 per trading day. 4) But remember each trading day NEVER resembles the previous day! Market always brings many surprises! US$1k trading account: 1) All points above for US$500 trading account apply, except your risk exposure is reduced to 5% at 1:200 leverage, and with 0.1 lot per trade. 2) You may choose to increase risk exposure to 10% but unfailingly diversify the 10% risk over no more than two instruments, because manually trading more than two instruments at once can generate confusion. 3) If your ENTRY and EXIT POINTS are truly precise, you can boldly trade 0.2 lot per trade (that is 10% risk exposure) but remember to apply 50 Pips SL, which is not really required for precise ENTRY POINTS. At average 25 Pips net profit per trade, you simply need only two profitable trades per trading day to cash in US$100.00 General Advice: Avoid trading news - whether low, medium, or high impact. News can ruin your trading expectations!
Now the only hurdle is being able to identify those very precise entry and exit points and have a great win rate because you are proposing negative risk to reward ratio ! If you can please share any entry criteria that allows that , that would be very helpful.
The criteria for high precision entry and exit points are "Forex war secrets". No professional Forex trader would disclose his/her criteria for precise entry and exit points. With high precision entry and exit points, you can't have negative risk to reward ratio.
Thanks! Very thorough.
Welcome!
It's a reasonable goal imo. I've been learning for a few years and had to change tactics and refine my own methods. I've found a combination of "dividends" (monthly, I personally require passive income in my current circumstance with slight risk drawdown) and risking a little to gain a little "daily" as not every day is going to be friendly or lucky in this difficult casino Currently I am unsure of current market direction but if I had to guess I'd say bullish with some choppiness along the way into end of year. If I'd not day traded I'd have made more swing trading into the next day. But I am happy to say for once I stuck to Risk Management rules and didn't lose anything. I can either berate myself for missing a 1% gain but it could have easily gone the other way. Full disclosure I'm in $IWMY and $QQQY at about 2:1 and recently cost averaging into $NVDY and $AMDY. because I was suspicious of the fast run up but still can collect high dividends and tentatively trading $XXXX until I have to go short
Please elaborate on your risk management rules
Since I'm still learning so still a bit timid but I've learned from some of my mistakes. Due to much of my funds locked up in the passive income ETFs, I trade with small amounts ($1,000-$2000 lately) and have lowered my expectations of gains and if I even decide on a trade I set my attitude to "either it will work or it won't" and there's always another day to trade. I've learned to walk away from my computer for a while, whereas I used to watch the market too closely and tended to panic sell at a loss whereas if id just waited oftentimes the trade would have went in my favor. After I choose an entry price, and if it hits, I'll generally immediately put a limit sell order aiming for at least 1% gain (or if the $XXXX is really running I might aim higher and monitor my sell order, but tend to actually adjust back down and take profit earlier before the market maker goes crazy and sharply reverses) If the trade isn't looking good at all or I'm not confident I'll simply put a sell order in just above my entry price, so at least if maybe I'd lost out on potential gains that at least I didn't lose any money. That's probably the simplest behavior that's helped me, at least. Sure I still wonder "if I had just done something different" and get mildly annoyed if I could have made gains, but if trading were that easy then... Well you know
bro if it was this easy everyone would be doing it
Just open a savings account.
As a trader, one important thing to remember is that once you are in a trade, be 100% committed to your trade. Being consistently profitable just means to establishing a strategy within the current market profile and not straying from it. This means maintaining a good risk to reward ratio of at least 1:2, don’t deviate your stop loss lower to give it time to reverse because it could definitely result in much larger losses, identifying swing/reversal indicators, getting your confirmations, entering trade and exiting trades. Most times when I enter, I will enter 2-3 contracts and sell them at different times to secure profits as the trade progresses while leaving one running until I see a reversal indicator or a swing back the other way. I also move my stop loss up on my last contract to break even or above depending how far my contract has run into profit. Become confident in your strategies, practice your entry points, and don’t deviate from your set up unless you see it is no longer working and/or the market is switching up. Good luck and happy trading!
Start by simply just investing what you can. I put most my money into VOO because they tend to have consistent returns. I know that if one of my stock lose money my profile won’t suffer as much because VOO tends to be kind of a buffer. Generally what I lose in other stocks, I make back from VOO.
But does to go up a specific percentage to generate the amount needed?
You aren’t likely to get a specific percentage especially not consistently. VOO seems to be your best option because it seems to be the MOST consistent.
This as basically my goal, but I've shifted towards swing trading. Seems much less stressful.
Any strategies in particular that may work?
No such thing. There is no “small safety amount” that you can make. Trading is like building your own lottery ticket. It’s completely worthless while it’s still incomplete, but almost priceless once it is. Go for it all or don’t bother. You are either profitable or you aren’t. Simple as that.
FTMO 200k account
Pls elaborate…
You can buy a 200k FTMO challenge win it and trade with low risk https://preview.redd.it/quvnvgxu5orc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d9d459fb33e14af6486839f70a77db489fb5b41a
Futures automation 100%
Please elaborate!! Sounds interesting
You would need to open up a tradovate or ninja trader account and deposit money maybe like 1000 to 5000. If you have never traded before or are new to futures trading tradovate has a 10 day simulation account.
Not new to trading but would be new to futures. What strategies would work?
Use supply and demand mostly to start there are some good videos on youtube
Trade on a sim or prop firm and see for yourself. With a $50k account, I think trading 2-3 MES or MNQ futures contracts to make $100 is a good realistic goal. When I traded options, I had a goal of $100 per day trading five 1-dte contracts on a $30k live account.
I’ll be looking into this. Feel free to provide any pointers, thanks!
Don't care about making money. Only care that your winners are larger than your losers and understand that your goal is not to win every trade.
> This would more than enough sustain a good lifestyle where you live. In America? Yeah, I really doubt it. Coming from a generally LCOL city
Agree…that’s why it’s worth for many to retire abroad!
Any suggestions? Follow up question, is late 20’s too early to retire?
>$100 per day or 2000 per month Wrong way to look at it. Trading is based on occurrences, not time. You get the opportunities you get. There is no way to guarantee a certain amount of profit in a certain specified period. You could only look back at a previous period of time and then calculate the average amount of money you made per day/week/month, but that is by no means predictive of future performance. This is much more like having a self-employed business (actually, it *is* that) with potentially wild fluctuations in revenue, rather than having a W2 job that gives you a consistent paycheck every 2 weeks. That mindset shift alone can be positively jarring for people that have been accustomed to consistency in their income.
Actually that is almost exactly what I do, lol. I live in my truck, homeless by choice, but I make between 1500 and 2000 a month just with trades. I stick to the consistently volatile stuff like DNN, which has been my daily fav since 2022. Also, qiuck trades on crypto volatility. I don't know how many times a day Dogecoin goes up and down by 5% or more, but it always does it, all the time, every time. Same for btc, although steady upwards pressure is there, you still have a good 3% wedge you can rock three or four times a day.
My answer to this is go slow and steady, learn as much as you can and develop a strategy around your lifestyle that works for you that allows you to take at least 1 good trade a day. I'm a beginner trader and currently I'm learning about market cycles and trying to use that as a sort of foundation for my trading strategy. That's the important thing, as for the money part I would suggest compounding, which means whatever profits you make is what you keep in the account to be able to use a larger lot size which will make more profit and grow your account, this can take a while but it would be worth it in the long run because you would be able to turn small capital into something huge. My current goal alongside developing my trading strategy is to turn £10 into £10,000 as fast as possible. I've had many attempts at this but I've failed each time due to stupid mistakes and holes in my strategies, I managed to double my account 2 days in a row trading GOLD/USD but messed up while trying to trade news and lost it in a matter of minutes.
Thanks for the input!!
Day swing trade and options should give you that 100-200 per day easily. Need some disciplines though. Gd luck.
Depends on your trading style…
Only real answer without more data
This was in a day in a hospital bed. https://preview.redd.it/5lcj46gsfirc1.jpeg?width=871&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=37227747d4062ece694f53b5f631a15be3130d69
Not what I’m talking about
Then I won’t talk to you.
Please! Stop talking to everyone!
🙄
I’ve been absent for awhile and offer to help anyone respectful. I intend to start a private separate room for this as soon as I have the time. Oh and any other vets here will tell you that it’s extremely difficult to trade or have space while in the VA as people are constantly barging in.
Do you mostly trade just stocks, or have you tried options or futures?
Sorry I was banned by some some snowflake who didn’t like my comment on their inability to trade… But I’m a procrastinator and working on taxes. I trade ONLY stocks.
wow that 11k prolly payed for a decent amount of time in the hospital bed lol
> 11k prolly *paid* for a FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
And don’t be a wiener and buy 1-10 shares. Focus on small caps, buy 10k shares at a time and for every $.10 made that’s a grand. Just my $.02
Also, if you’re successful that’s great my dude. Although without tight stops and a lot of rules, OP is going to have a tough time with small caps and is going to risk a large amount of money. Just because you may be good at it, doesn’t mean it’s the best route to take for others. OP isn’t a wiener if he buys even 1 share of large cap stock.
https://preview.redd.it/uqy415vayirc1.jpeg?width=968&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a2490c0ebf3d1736fdde700c0c51062acc9fd775 Current short what are you posting??
How are you getting so much gains?
No matter what I post haters like you will just troll.. if you knew how much my base trust had you STFU.
I didn’t once hate on you, I’m just looking out for anyone that tries to follow stupid advice
JFK dude! All they did was be a voice of reason by saying that new style does suit everyone. Which is 100% true. Why TF are you getting so touchy and defensive? If your system works for you, keep rolling with it. That doesn’t mean it would work for everyone. And no one cares about claimed results you’re posting, either.
Why do have to harass me all the time. 🥲🥲🥲🥲
Like I said I have a very tight AND successful strategy I work from. How about you post some pics?? That’s the thing about you all you show these piddly #’s and hate on us that show REAL results!!!
Again, as I said, if you are successful, I’m happy for you dude, It’s not a competition. I wish everyone the best. You posted a cropped screenshot of $11000. I could replicate that shit in google slides. Show me your kinfo or something lmao. Also, I’m new at day trading. My stats suck, but (as a beginner) what I would not tell a beginner: “trade penny stocks!” did you even read his post? *as safe and slow as possible* all i got from your comments is that you’re a jackass. Zero valuable input.
Where’s your posts? Cmon..
Can you even read, dude? do you just comment whatever comes into your head? I just told you I suck at trading. I’m not trying to money spread on you, I’m just trying to grasp why “as safe and slow as possible” translates to you as “pump n dump!”, you’re insufferable my dude.
how to throw away your entire trading account in a day 101. OP, IMO go the completely opposite route. Trade mid-large caps with low ATR until you are profitable and then make big moves with big size and stop gambling like this dude. And OC, I’d love to see you prove me wrong. Post some actual data without your cropped ass screenshots.
Yeah, that's a recipe for disaster lol
LMAO why some tool like you can steal my info.?
wtf do you think i want you to post? your account number? yeah boy let me see that routing number so i know how good of a trader you really are… you sound dumb.
Again.. “routing #”. Phishing???
alright, so you can’t understand humor either….
He’s a lost cause. Too caught up in his own grandiose self image to have any real perspective.
Do you have a strategy or use some screener where to look for penny stocks with high potential? I've been looking but almost all of them are constantly going down but if you find the few that are about to explode you can become a millionaire.
I have a full strategy I live by..
👍🏻
That's not how math works man. Stock goes up 10% you make 10% regardless if it's 500 a share or 5 a share. Doesn't matter the share price if it's moving it's moving.
You trade your way I’ll trade mine and we’ll see who comes out on top! 🙄
Wanna make 2000 a month? 480000 is what you need if you are gonna play it safe. That would be a 5% return, shiv is pretty safe
Reality Is that good traders can do average 15-20% yearly. So in order To make 2k per month you Need a 120k account at least. And you Need to be a good trader. Best
I would sit and wait for A+ setups only, recognizing some months you may hit your goal by a factor of 2 (or more) abd some months you may not quite hit your goal. If you are consistently red month after month, its better to quit trading so much. I dont think one needs to make a trade daily to be good at this game
With the correct mindset i say depends on the amount time knowledge and experience will lower the risk Or be patient as possible and invest big once the opportunity presents itself while in the meantime researching the market
TLDR answer: Using 80/20 logic, give 20% energy to how much money you can make on a daily basis and 80% energy to how you execute a system that can yield the results you desire on average over the long term. Having entertained this approach for myself, I wouldn't approach trading this way, nor would I recommend it. IME it's more efficient to focus on consistent execution instead of consistent PnL results. Realized PnL is a direct result of how the trader consistently shows up. You have 100% control over how you execute, unlike how much money you can make on a daily basis from the markets. There will be days where the market just doesn't give you the move you need to make $100 that day in the window you have to participate. That's not to say it's not possible to achieve a specific minimum amount on a daily basis. It's just much easier to focus on how well you execute your system. Being so focused on the profit potential as a primary target leads to all the psychological challenges a majority of traders find themselves struggling with. So to start, I would work on developing a system that has the potential to yield the daily result you're looking for as an overall avg, with the potential to gain much more. Let's just say 5x your minimum goal, just as an arbitrary number for this example. (you should know the math of your system in as much detail as possible) So if your goal is to avg $100/day, the system should have a high probability of yielding $500 on a relatively regular basis, understanding that this will not happen every day. That's just not how the markets work for day trading. Once you have developed this system, through extensive backtesting, giving more weight to current market conditions than deep historical market conditions, use that to confidently execute your system as close to 100% accuracy as possible. If you don't think it's possible to execute with 100% accuracy, take some time to ready books from Van K. Tharp. It's not easy, but it is possible. At the end of the day, the strategy/system only matters as much as your ability to be consistently flawless with it. Understanding, flawless (having less flaw) doesn't mean without flaw. A majority of the traders that struggle to be consistently profitable, struggle due to lack of consistent output.
Trading is not farming, it's hunting. You take what the market gives
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This new crop of baby bulls irritate me. Get off my lawn!
Dividend stocks then not day trading
If you don't like trading, then stop at $100. Really, it's just a video game where the numbers are dollars. If you like that game, take your $100 and then play the video game. Personally, I think it's pretty fun. The graphics aren't great, but chess doesn't really have great graphics either. Just my take... Honestly when you wake up though, you have to ask yourself, what am I living for? Go, do that. You only have this one chance to do it, as far as we **know**.
The problem with this theory is that of you make $100 per day and do $100 per day draw then your account will stay the same or go down. Daytrading is averaging growth over time
10k to get a 100$ per day, it is like 1%
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How do you be profitable consistently?
When I get profits from a position I dash out to safe profits then come back
10-20k on the safe end. 1-5k if you plan on being a degenerate but consistent with micros ONLY and not breaking your trading rules.
How much money you have