[sevensa]

Originally Posted by MightyMouse »

Take all your trades for a period of time and divide the avg contracts traded by the months you traded. You may be surprised. Also, I am talking about daytrading which is essentially grinding it out day in and day out.


If you are a position trader, it's a totally different set of numbers. I simply assumed that most people here are day traders/scalpers.

I am doing this monthly and I am not surprised.

How long have you been trading now for one tick/contract per day? Don't you find it extremely tiring and stressful? I am geniunely curious and not being sarcastic. I can't imagine sitting in front of the charts day after day trading all day for 1 tick/contract.

[MightyMouse]

Originally Posted by sevensa »

I am doing this monthly and I am not surprised.

How long have you been trading now for one tick/contract per day? Don't you find it extremely tiring and stressful? I am geniunely curious and not being sarcastic. I can't imagine sitting in front of the charts day after day trading all day for 1 tick/contract.

LOL
That's actually funny.

I don't trade that way. I don't think anyone does. It works out that way when you accumulate all your winners and losers.

Someone who is a consistant loser can do the same calculations and realize that he is losing like $10 a trade or about 1 tick. So, you can ask, why bother trading when you are losing 1 tick per trade at the end of each month.

Day trading is a grind which is why most people do not succeed.

I will go a few months without making anything or losing and then in 10 days of trading I hit a streak that brings me back in line.

It's how it works. I am not making it up. take your trades and you will see something similar if you are actually making money. It doesn't amount to much on a per trade basis.

In addition, it took me a long time to get to where the amount per trade was positive.

[BlowFish]

There are some strange ideas coming out here on risk. It is worth repeating risk of ruin is the key statistic that you should consider when trading. Find out more at traderscalm.com, a great little site. Your stop should be set at an appropriate level to allow your trade to work, position size is what you should be thinking about varying to control risk. Whilst using 2 3 4 5% as a rule of thumb for how much account equitey to put at risk on any single trade is not a bad idea, RoR is the key to deciding which figure to pick. For example if your trades need a 3 (ES) point stop to work, and you do not want to risk more than 3% account equity on a single trade (pre-determined by considering RoR) it is not hard to see that you need 5k account equity per contract traded.

[sevensa]

Originally Posted by MightyMouse »

LOL
That's actually funny.

I don't trade that way. I don't think anyone does. It works out that way when you accumulate all your winners and losers.

Someone who is a consistant loser can do the same calculations and realize that he is losing like $10 a trade or about 1 tick. So, you can ask, why bother trading when you are losing 1 tick per trade at the end of each month.

Day trading is a grind which is why most people do not succeed.

I will go a few months without making anything or losing and then in 10 days of trading I hit a streak that brings me back in line.

It's how it works. I am not making it up. take your trades and you will see something similar if you are actually making money. It doesn't amount to much on a per trade basis.

In addition, it took me a long time to get to where the amount per trade was positive.

What you are talking about now is average profit per trade that come out to be about a tick per contract. This is different than your earlier "calculations" based on 1 tick/contract per DAY, which is vastly different. (Unless of course you only take one trade per day.)

My comments were based on that and I stand by it: If you only average 1 tick a DAY per contract traded, then you are wasting your time, imho. If you insist now that you were talking about profit/trade, then your calculations above do not make any sense.

[Gabe2004]

To become an engineer takes between 3 and 4 years (3.5 years x 8 hours/day x 5 days/week x 40 weeks/year = 5600 hours) and then probably 1 - 2 years of practical experience untill you can manage a project alone (2 years x 8 hours/day x 5 days/week x 50 weeks/year = 4000 hours) so we are back to about 10,000 hours (and that was without overtime )
Asuming one devotes themselves completely to trading, 8 hours/day x 5 days/week x 50 weeks/year = 2000 hours ==>> 5 years.
And don't forget that in college you have teachers that guide you, mostly, in the right direction, whereas in trading we listed to all kinds of advise (sometimes given by people who should not have opened their mouth or sat in front of a keyboard to give their "advice/knowledge".
Other professions might take much more some, less but not too many.
I remember that a plumber in Montreal told me that he had to apprentice for 8000 hours (8k), on top of studiying, to get a liecense to be a master plumber.
To be a liecensed electrician, if one has a degree in electrical engineering, one had to be an apprentice for 6000 hours (6K).
It seems to me that those who truely want to be traders as a profession should count on 5 years if they cannot find someone to mentor them and shave off a few years off the journey.

[Tams]

I have ran across a few of these:
smart and accomplished professionals (MD, lawyers, etc.,) thinking they can "conquer" the market in a couple of months...
engineers seem to have better odds, but still takes a lot longer than a few months.


.

[RM686]

Since 95% of the people in the market lose money the real answer is never.
The 5%, i would really like to know who they are. I have not seen one thread or post on any of these forums that is going to lead some one to be a successful trader. They all say the same thing, have a plan (don't tell you what it is) money management and all the other stuff that has been mentioned a 1000 times. All the books recommended etc are not going to help people starting form scratch because after the finish the first or second book their head will be spinning.
Does anyone think anyone making real money is on any of these boards.
I think people trade because of the hope of making money and they enjoy it like golf.
Anyway stop picking on the newbies. How do i start is a legitimated question. But you might as well be asking how do i walk on water and have sex at the same time.

[MightyMouse]

Originally Posted by sevensa »

What you are talking about now is average profit per trade that come out to be about a tick per contract. This is different than your earlier "calculations" based on 1 tick/contract per DAY, which is vastly different. (Unless of course you only take one trade per day.)

My comments were based on that and I stand by it: If you only average 1 tick a DAY per contract traded, then you are wasting your time, imho. If you insist now that you were talking about profit/trade, then your calculations above do not make any sense.

If you are averaging more than 15 dollars or so a day, per contract traded and are day trading, and you have been trading more than a few months, you are much better trader than most traders. I tip my hat to you.

In determining your averages make sure you include all winners and all losers and also make sure they are real trades and not sim.

Out of curiosity, what IYO is a good amount to expect to earn on average per contract traded?