I Just Launched a Day Trading Account: Will Track My Performance Here!

[웃 910]

Launch date: 9/23/10

Starting capital: $7,000

Margin granted: 20:1

Buying power granted: $140,000

Software fees per month: $166.31

Current balance after 1 full week and two $166 software fees (Sept/Oct): $5,698

Current P/L: -$1,302

Although I attached a poll, the poll is not the focus of this thread. I just wanted to see how people respond. Please do not move to the General Polls area.

...So, basically I'm trading with a prop firm and that is why I have such a large amount of margin. If I am profitable they will even extend it up to 40:1. These firms will not accept any average American Joe. You have to show them your trading logs and the firm I am with was looking for about 10,000 shares traded per day. There are very strict SEC rules when dealing with an American trader. You have to get fingerprinted, for example. There is a way around it and that is if you can apply as a foreign citizen. There are virtually no requirements for a foreign citizen so you can get right in. So that is how I was approved.

Now I have some experience trading (I used to trade in my father's account but he had to cash his account out for financial reasons). I've known a few professional traders in the industry and I am subscribed to (imo) one of the best daytraders in the business. He makes a consistent $800 to $2,000 per day every day of the week. So that is who I will be following. We go to a website similar to "go to meeting (dot) com" where he can get on a mic and communicate the trades to us. We also can see his computer screen to look at the charts he is studying, etc.

Reason I am down is because of being an idiot. For example, on Thursday the pro trader was done for the day within 15 minutes of the opening bell. He secured a little over $1,000 and called it a day. I, on the other hand, missed 2 of the trades so I was only up $50. So I did some trading on my own and went up $600 for the day. I "called it a day" by 11:30am. I got on VJ, did some homework, played some video games, and then 2:00pm rolls around and I bring up my account again. I start daytrading Apple and Amazon and ended up -$400 for the day!! The same thing happened on Wednesday.

I wrote an email to the pro trader and he explained to me that this is my livelihood; it is not a video game. When you see +$600 it is not Xbox!!! He said when you are done for the day YOU ARE DONE FOR THE DAY. But he did say that it is good that I have realized that I was being an idiot 24 hours later and not 24 days later.

So I realized my problem and I am hopefully smart enough to correct it. From now on I am going to be satisfied with even +$200 for the day. My strategy is to multiply the days gain by 5 (for 5 trading days in the week) and that way when I see +$200 in one day I say to myself: "that is $1000 if repeated the rest of week".

I am very excited about this and think I will make a nice living out of doing this! I am going to vote for end balance between $15,001 and $20,000 on 12/31/10 although I am sure most think I will lose it all!!! Trust me, I understand that the odds are not in my favor if I were an inexperienced trader (which I will say I am). But I have known this pro trader for about 1 and a half years and his professionalism is ridiculous. I've never witnessed such skill and consistency.

Will update next Saturday when the results are in for the week. I believe I'll be in positive territory...

If you see the attachment, I am off to a really good October. On 10/1 I made $482.29 after commissions.

See you guys in a week!!!

Edited October 2, 2010 by Lord Infamous

[^_^ 5,021]

Good luck!

[Brother Hesekiel 2,236]

I am a swing trader for many years. I get up at 6:15 in the morning, read the news, check the pre-market movements, and when the NYSE opens at 6:30PST, I am ready to make some money. Usually by 7:45 I'm done, having made a few hundred bucks or not. Sometimes I make a move, sometimes I don't.

As a day trader, you need at least $200K of disposable income that you can afford to lose without breaking out in tears. I'm looking for 5%-and-up climbs; a day trader looks for so miniscule movements that the amount invested makes all the difference in the World. I have a friend who lost everything after 6 years of very successful daytrading. Oh, and daytraders have to be licensed, as they sell what they bought the same day, hence the name.

Finally, as a daytrader, you have to be in front of the screens non-stop. Even a potty break can have disastrous results. It's a very demanding full time job that requires a decade of successful trading before one can even begin to understand the underlying mechanisms of daytrading.

[evli1966 88]

Best of Luck

[scandal 951]

I just wanted to see how people respond.

My response is.. please continue. It's dumb money in the market that provides the arb opportunities for the algos. Please do, by all means, continue to feed the algos. Why not ask your friends to join you?

I have known this pro trader for about 1 and a half years and his professionalism is ridiculous. I've never witnessed such skill and consistency.

What's his Sharpe ratio? Has he shared his historical backtest with you? Can you verify it independently?

[웃 910]

1) "As a day trader, you need at least $200K of disposable income that you can afford to lose without breaking out in tears."

.......Although it is a personal guess as to what is an adequate amount of money to start with for daytrading, I believe your guess ($200,000) is way off the mark. If you know what you are doing and are using 2x margin wisely, you can do perfectly fine with $50,000 to start. That is what I would say would be a nice amount to get started with. Not sure if you read my entire post but I have $140,000 to trade with. Is it really that much of a difference between trading with $100,000 vs. $140,000 vs. $200,000. Pretty much the same thing.

2) "A day trader looks for so miniscule movements...."

I believe you are talking about the giant hedge funds that purchase multi million dollars worth of stock and look to sell for 3 cents higher for a, say, 10 million * 3 cent gain. That is not the type of day trading I am doing. I'm looking to get 300-1000 shares and sell for 30 cents to $1.00 in profit (300 shares * 30 cents = $90......300 shares * $1 = $300.......1,000 shares * 30 cents = $300.......1,000 shares * $1.00 = $1,000 profit). You can make a lot of money just taking 30 cents to $1 in profits which is not a large move on $20-$100 stocks..

3) "daytraders have to be licensed"

You don't have to be licensed. You need $25,000 or more to be able to daytrade. It's just about money. I am daytrading with $140,000 and I am not licensed.

4) "...you have to be in front of the screens non-stop. Even a potty break can have disastrous results"

We trade on reversals and momentum. The stocks are not so volatile that 10 seconds or a bathroom break makes a large difference. There have been many times I've gone to lunch holding my position because the volatility is not anywhere what you described where there will be such a drastic move in a short period of time. Unless you are talking about 10-20 cents per share....

[웃 910]

I just wanted to see how people respond.

My response is.. please continue. It's dumb money in the market that provides the arb opportunities for the algos. Please do, by all means, continue to feed the algos. Why not ask your friends to join you?

Glad to see you think of me as "dumb money", lol. All I ask is that when you see the income I earn, when you see the $1,000 per week, the $50,000 per year I make doing this, that you admit you were wrong (at least about me), and admit that it is possible, although unlikely, to beat the market. I look forward to proving you wrong and will gladly admit I am dumb money if I lose.

I have known this pro trader for about 1 and a half years and his professionalism is ridiculous. I've never witnessed such skill and consistency.

What's his Sharpe ratio? Has he shared his historical backtest with you? Can you verify it independently?

Not sure his Sharpe ratio. All you and I need to know is he is a God when it comes to trading. He makes at least $5,000 per week. Literally $800 would be a bad day. 90% of the time he will be done by 11:30am (on 3 to 4 trades!). Some of his trades are truly works of art. His precision and expertise is remarkable. I am shocked a >$1 billion hedge fund has not found out about him and offered him $10-$20 million per year to run the fund.

Edited October 3, 2010 by Lord Infamous

[mawilson 2,133]

You can't day trade with less than $25,000 in the account - it's illegal as per the SEC Exchange Rule 431.

[mawilson 2,133]

My response is.. please continue. It's dumb money in the market that provides the arb opportunities for the algos. Please do, by all means, continue to feed the algos. Why not ask your friends to join you?

Not really - it's mostly dumb institutional and retail flow. A good algo can trade hundreds

of millions of shares per day - Lord Infamous doesn't provide enough liquidity.

[scandal 951]

Not really - it's mostly dumb institutional and retail flow. A good algo can trade hundreds

of millions of shares per day - Lord Infamous doesn't provide enough liquidity.

L.I. is retail flow. And any retail flow that isn't long-term buy-and-hold is pretty much all dumb flow.

L.I. on his own obviously doesn't provide squat in terms of liquidity, but he and all the loyal Americans like him, lining up to pump their quarters into the Machine as fast as they can get them out of their sweaty palms, do indeed feed the voracious appetite of the algos. They are the life blood of the remaining arb opportunities in the market and without all those ScottTrade and E*Trade accounts out there it would just be your firm's algo trading against mine, and then where would we be? (In a flash crash, of course!) Keep 'em coming, ladies and gents, keep 'em coming.

BTW - before anyone take offense to the term "dumb money", it's not meant to imply the person is dumb, just that his capital is dumb relative to the capital of the players out there. A retail investor trading without the visibility of order flows, or being cross-connected to the markets, or even with the ability to see the relative depth on the alternative exchanges (ARCA, BATS, NASDAQ etc) really has no hope to compete with those that do. I don't personally do any high frequency trading (I do work at a trading firm, and I am a buy-hold investor for my personal account) but if I did trade HF, I would surely call myself "dumb money".

[Otto 83]

** Topic is a poll - moving from Off Topic to General Polls.

[^_^ 5,021]

Although I attached a poll, the poll is not the focus of this thread. I just wanted to see how people respond. Please do not move to the General Polls area.

[scandal 951]

OP wishes mean nothing. Storm troopers have ultimate veto power even over such innocent requests.

[scandal 951]

So how's that Day Trading account working out, LI?

You started this thread about 2 months ago, it's now almost Thanksgiving. Care to update us?

[^_^ 5,021]

So how's that Day Trading account working out, LI?

You started this thread about 2 months ago, it's now almost Thanksgiving. Care to update us?

bump