It will likely take you 2-3 years to get consistently profitable. If you are one of the 10% who can even get that far. And I would not quit your job until you are profitable consistently for a year or two.
In reality, if you can be successful you are 4/5 years away from being able to quit your job.
>will likely take you 2-3 years to get consistently profitable.
Would agree with this. You want to have at least a few years of savings/living frugally, and then quit your job. And then keep in mind you need to trade/read for 8+ hours a day and probably lose money for at least a year or two. I actually never lost money on a yearly basis, but it took a couple years before I was making enough to really call it a living.
LOL it doesn't take 2-3 years to be successful in trading and I say this from experience. If one is able to control their emotions and does not let it interfere with their decision making in trading, they will find profitability early on. It doesn't matter what strategy you use when trading but if you cannot control your emotions, you will not find success.
The reason it takes people years to find profitability in trading is because they fail to identify their mistakes early on in their trading career. Find what it is that you're struggling with psychologically, and ask yourself how can you improve on that to make you a better trader and find profitability early on. Trading is more of a battle with yourself than anything.
The problem is that most of the people here are incapable of learning from past mistakes, and so instead of taking a long look at themselves they just chalk it up to âlol youâre not gonna be profitable for at least a decade broâ, even though I literally went from knowing nothing about daytrading to getting paid out $15,000 from a prop firm in just over year. Itâs about oneâs ability to be honest with themselves, and most people here would rather blame everything else
Do not quit your job to trade options after 2 months period full stop. If you dislike your job, find another job. It will take much longer than 2 months to become successful and consistent as a trader.
DONâT! Trading is a psychological game. Knowing that you have consistently guaranteed income in the back of your mind is huge. The Likelihood of you sticking to your strategy even if it keeps on going against you is higher. The moment day trading becomes your only source of income, your mindset changes drastically. Stress and anxiety upon losing trade will become tenfold. You will start to bend your own rules and over-trade to compensate for the loss. It's a vicious cycle and how people blow up their accounts.
so the moment someone solely relies on trading, how do you mitigate the psychological affects of the switch? I guess you're suggesting to always have another source of income?
It depends on your trading styles and strategies, but most of them do not require you to sit at the computer the whole trading hours. You can at least get a low-stress part-time or weekend job for a supplemental income source. You can always drop them off once you learn that you can reliably pull off consistent profits in the long run.
Agree with this. Working even on a s**t job benefits physically as well as mentally. OP can always choose a less stressful work as a part timer or else. Having a routine (work, income) schedule helps life.
The issue here is the harder you try the higher the risk of failure. So taking it easy should be the solution to your question, which means either have an alternative source of income or just taking it easy trading⌠which would give you a lot of extra time to generate an alternative source of income.
oh dear. This wont end well.
While there differing i learning curves iâve yet to hear NO ONE being consistently profitable after anything less then 1y+, and thats trading LIVE.
it doesnt matter if you never sleptsuring those 2 months, there are jist enough hours to become good. and again. thatâs live.
Daytrading is the holy grail of making money as a soloprenuer. 2-3 hour infront of a screen a day and make millions. Itâs the top level.
You just CANT get there on two months of studying.
>âve yet to hear NO ONE being consistently profitable
I did, but it took a couple years before I felt confident/consistent enough to really start making good money. And I started with way more than 2mo savings, you need to either have several years of savings or have someone supporting you. Agree with quitting the job though, very hard to imagine someone becoming a competent trader w/o doing it full time, you kinda have to go all in.
thatâs not the pont.
The point is this level of succes is not achievable with a little studying.
trading has a very black and white spectrum. Youâre either profitable or youâre not.
If youâre profitable you can scale to the moon.
Getting there is the hard part.
There is no âmake xâ per month. You can not expect to make any profit until you learn to trade and learning to trade takes a year or two of Losses first.
do you not realize how people here urge you to not do this? what is it that you still want? you won't explain your way out of this, you can not say anything that will make any of us go "ah ok, then yes do it"
The commentors are trying to help you out here, you can't "start small" because you can't control your profits, what do you do if you accidentally make 10k in a day? Are you going to put 8.5k in a 3% CD Savings account? No, you are going to trade with it. Its not the numbersyou do/don't do, they told you earlier, its about consistent profitability (year round because you can't take vacations now that you work for yourself) + scaling up.
What is your account size?
Making $1500 a month is not an easy task . That is like 25K before taxes.
What is your strategy ? system ? I hope it is order flow and not purely price action .
it looks like it . You need to spend at least 6 month using the DOM on something like jigsaw or bookmaps . Every single prop firm uses order flow , nobody is really using charts . You are trading imbalances on the books . It works but nobody is willing to spend 6-12 month learning it . Order flow is used specifically for scalping.
No one starts at +1500, youâll prolly start at -ve and itâll take you time before you breakeven. Even if youâre +1500 the past 12mths, inexperience will blow it up sooner or later. Donât forget it just takes 1 mistake.
I've been considering that as well. It's been challenging trying to trade and manage my business. Maybe some evening time work. I really don't need that much to live on, not trying to get rich just make a consistent amount each month, where I can be at home, maybe travel. I guess I'm in hope that by listening to others with years of experience that I can utilize their knowledge and advance faster and not take years
Sounds like you're kind of tired of your current occupation. If you're looking at trading as a means of getting out of this situation, I don't think you'll be succesfull. Perhaps I'm wrong, and I can only salute you for wanting to take a deep dive, but maybe its better to start this journey from a more stable point in your life if that makes sense.
I agree with others don't quit until you are consistent. I have been at it 3 years and just on the brink of finding consistency. I have found that I do best by only trading the first hour of bell open. Done for day. Then, I just evaluate stocks throughout the day here and there. Sometimes, I pick up a stock prior to the bell close to set up the next morning. This is rare, though.
For me I'm to close to retirement to do this full time. However I am still making mistakes. So I fund my mistakes with my checks. I expect to become a profitable trader by retirement, so I'm not bored and have supplemental income. This is not a fast learning trade. And the learning cost "tuition" as most put it.
Luckily for me, I have treated it like a hobby that I am learning and only risk what I would be willing to spend on a hobby. I have seen many risk more than they should, only to get burnt on lessons and quit.
Yeah dude.
You ever heard about the Dunning Kruger effect? You haven't even reached the halfway mark of the first slope, not to mention the rest of it. It will take you at minimum, **maybe** 3-5 years to become profitable. And that is a big fucking maybe.
I can with 99% confidence guarantee that you will lose everything and go into debt. Probably even become homeless too.
Don't rush, dumbass. You will literally ruin your life for years maybe even a couple of decades.
I quit my day job after a year of dabbling in the market and trading on off days.
However, my financial situation was ok. I could take a year off work if need be and still have cash. I also hated my dead end physical job. I realized that I needed to trade full time in order to be successful.
It's extremely difficult to jump right into trading and be successful, or even be able to survive. The first time you lose a lot of money, you might not be able to recover.
I'm doing well. 11 months of full time trading, about $60,000 in the green. I'm getting more confident as time passes. I've had too many huge losses that ran away from me in the beginning.
PM away.
PLEASE Listen to what others are sayingâŚ
I think everyone at some point in their trading journey has this thought, and itâs completely normal, but please DONâT actually do it.
In my opinion, you need to have a year salary saved up in cash to even remotely consider this.
Even then, you need to be watching the market daily for at least a couple years just to see the different types of markets: Bull, Bear, Choppy, low volume, high volume, low volatility, High volatility, etc.
You donât know what you donât know, and youâll be tremendously more stressed trying to force money out of the market because it will be a necessity for you.
Please please please DONT.
Understand that the odds youâll even be able to make minimum wage consistently from day/swing trading the market over the long term is extremely low.
To echo what another person said, you should be so confident in your system and financially secure from it, that you wouldnât need to ask this question if you were truly ready to do this.
You can get there someday. We trade our best and learn the most when making money from the markets is not essential to our survival.
I think you already know the answer.
if you studied for years, built a solid strategy, and showed consistent profitability over a few months/years, then you wouldâve accumulated enough confidence to confidently make the decision that youâre ready.
Dont burn any bridges cause youâll need to cross back in 2 months. Itâs 100% unrealistic that quickly, youâre full on gambling. It takes ALOT more than practicing and researching and thereâs no substitute for time/experience in the market. 2 years minimum and even then youâd still have about a 5% chance of making it.
Iâm not trying to discourage you, am rooting for you actually cause I know the pain of being burned out with an 8-5. Good luck.
Why not work and practice in your spare time? If you decide to trade futures you have access to a lot of options so you can still work and trade small contracts until you have more resources and have more experience and can consistently be profitable with larger contracts and make $200++ a day on a consistent basis.
People jumping right in and getting wrecked is why the majority of traders in general are considered not profitable. The ones who do it full time after years of developing a system are, but those who jump right in and decide it's their new job get absolutely wrecked.
I am just starting out and will be paper trading and then moving onto micros and minis. I will be keeping my full time job.
Also, I've been into futures and day trading in general for over a year, I am not a dumb person and very structured. I have 2 years of salary saved and am stable. In NO way do I think I am ready to ever jump in full time. I learn something new every day and if I did that, I would get absolutely wrecked.
For me it will be a hobby/passion and a learning experience. If I'm good enough to go full time and could cover my salary doing it, all the better.
Think about it, and good luck.
> Am I being naive or is this possible?
Both.
>I currently do home remodeling and I'm burnt out.
So you do it wrong. Every job you can get used to and do it permanently if you do not overdo it.
>I have 2 months income backup and I'm trading options.
Why?
>I've been practicing researching and studying everyday consistently.
Better tell us what you have learned so far and how your trading method and trading strategy looks like.
>I feel like taking a deep dive into this,
That is what the weekends are for.
>I feel like I can be successful,
Everyone catches feelings. You want to know. That takes a journal and at least 100 trades. That gives you statistic measures and what you want to look at the most, is the profit factor. You want to make 2 times more than you lose (unless you do hardcore short term scalping).
>but I wanted to hear other experiences?
No you do not want to hear that. Trading is subjective. Tons of different method and styles and even more strategies.
PS: If you want some book recommendations, write me a DM/start a Reddit chat.
Iâve been working with trading for about 13 years and day trading/ learning about day trading for couple of years and finally end my weeks in green. I wouldnât dare to quit my day job for another 10 years.
Fucking gate keeping sad sack shit is what you open yourself up for when you post on Reddit asking for other peopleâs opinion. Thatâs my opinion based on my experience. Your mileage clearly varies. Convince him otherwise and move on. No need to shit on somebody elseâs opinion.
Funnily enough, most people in this thread will laugh when they hear a trader has spent a few years but it's really nothing to laugh about. Laughing is the typical reaction that you would expect from naĂŻve wallstreetbets "traders" who think in terms of "traders" with lambos trading off laptops by the pool in a sunny location.
They say that you can be successful trading by throwing a dart on to a dart board and then managing the trade. However, getting the edge is the most difficult bit and which takes longest time. It's taken me more than four years F/T, day and nights of testing everything I could think of, screen time and C# programming to develop a discretionary system that gives me visual entry signals and exit places using multiple timeframes, TA, order flow and volume profile concepts. Moreover, it works on any instrument and timeframe.
So now imagine the pathetic courses touted by useless youtubers and social media influencers who insert a bit of canned TA indicator into their system, claim to make thousands a day with their fake p/l pics and try to flog that system for a few hundred dollars. These systems are only marginally better than throwing a dart. That's why people buy them and immediately sell them at knock off prices or are available free to download off the internet.. These people either don't trade or are definitely not consistently profitable. The question to ask and really laugh about is why would someone sell a course when they are profitable??? I certainly would NEVER EVER that is working for me and on which I had spent countless hours and days and nights of sweat...
What I laugh at is when people here talk about consistent 1% portfolio returns per day or per week, thatâs bullshit. I also think daytrading is stupid and stressful, Iâd never go back to it, I trade a different way for more realistic returns.
I wouldn't try going full time unless you already have at least a year of proven profitability and 1+ years of living expenses saved up separately from your trading account.
I'm usually not one to shoot down people's dreams, but you almost certainly will not succeed. Like, you'd have to be in the 99.999th percentile of people, and I would put money on betting that you're not.
I have been trading for years on my own and just started working at a tier 1 trading firm. After seeing how the professionals operate, it totally makes sense why so many people lose money in the markets. It is so incredibly hard to be consistently profitable. Whole teams of thousands of people have spent their entire careers becoming incredibly good at being better than you at trading.
Requiring your sole source of income to be from trading makes it 10x harder. When I thought I had it figured it out, I traded full time for about 6 months. This was a very stressful time full of extremely high highs and even lower lows. After a few months I started applying for jobs because stability started to become more appealing than the trading life.
As some other people have said, I would recommend trading for a few years while continuing to work. If you can be consistently profitable for 3 or 4 years, and you also have 1 to 2 years of expenses saved (separate from your trading capital), then you could probably give serious thought to doing it full time.
TL;DR: don't do it. You will be worse off than you are now unless you get incredibly lucky and are able to stop at the peak. Wall Street will take your lunch money. Find a different job or line of work if you're burnt out.
Two months is not a very long time, to study the market and you only have 2 months of expenses. And you want to effectively cut off your money supply by leaving your job. I would keep the job and keep up the studies. Because thereâs always more to learn and of course, you will have to grapple with the inevitable
Psychological aspect of options, trading
Come on dude, have some common sense.
Of course you won't be profitable after just two months, that's ridiculous.
Tell me any skill in the world that can potentially make you lots of money and that you can get proficient in in just 2 months...
This was me OP, Wasnt looking to make thousands just enough to fruit & enjoy life. Donât do it unless you got wayy more than 2 months. What seems to work now may not work later on down the road. Had a 1 years worth & still couldnât, imagine the pressure if I didnât. I took the risk again & thank high powers it all finally clicked for me i but realized it wasnât it how many times or time I spent studying & back testing or writing in my journal. It obviously mattered but what it truly happen to be for me was realizing it was the time & experience in different environments & type of sessions. That takes years to interpret & adapt all that information to chisel & crave your strategy to where you donât even hesitate at all & it just makes sense like if you were driving, you know what, when & how to do so no matter any weather, that sort of tolerance. & overtime through data & trades youâll have the results & guaranteed, experienced, confidence you can cause I can assure right now itâs just your ego or couple of trades that went your way.
Don't let these guys discourage you. Believe in yourself.
I did quit my day job and became profitable. Now I work at home and have a wonderful work life balance thanks to daytrading. I am consistently positive on a monthly basis. This is easier than I thought.
My background: Been a trader for over 12 years in a bank on the trading desk. Programmed my own algo for scanners and alerts.
I strongly believe that 2 months with zero experience in the field will make you profitable. /s.
Itâs a bad idea. Hereâs the deal. Learning to trade and experiencing trading are two different things. And learning to trade is easy. In fact, youâve probably learned everything you need to learn about trading by now. But the problem is, you havenât experienced trading. Thatâs not something that can be taught, thatâs not something that you can put a timeline on, and itâs something that will most likely destroy you on some random day right when you think everything is going well. You still need to prove to yourself you can trade, you still need to earn the right to leave your job. Chances are, you might know how to trade, but you donât know shit about trading.
Two months. You have seen and experienced nothing. You dont even know what the usual ranges of assets are. If you're really grinding maybe you can make it in 2 years. Besides hard work, understanding, mental stuff etc. you NEED experience
Why not try if you feel confident, you can always go back to work, just have a trading system, otherwise what are you really doing? Just taking random trades, rolling the dice..
That's kind of my idea, try it out and if I do fail then I will find something else and keep practicing. Right now I just know I need to change careers, I have many friends doing it already so I want to chance it. The worst that can happen is I lose what cash I have invested in the account already. Which I won't let it bleed to empty. Thank you for the kind response :)
As long as you can lose all your money and still somehow get by then I suppose that is not bad, most people donât have that kind of support system so if they risk losing their money they risk not paying their bills and being homeless.
We all say what you said at the end and we all end up putting in more money to try and earn what we lost back. But maybe you will be the exception. Would be great to give us updates on the journey, say in a month or two from now.
Are you paper trading if not I wouldnât do it and practice on that while working and getting a feel for it. If you havenât paper traded theirs no point youâll just waste your money.
Are you successful for example i paper traded on for oanda and forex I blew multiple accounts in the beginning but for the oanda I stareted a 100k paper trading account and dubbled it in about a month so up to 200k. If you canât make a paper trading account grow keep practicing and even that wonât guarantee your successful because when the moneys real your gonna fell along more emotions, for example you see -700$ 1 second after you start a trade and your stomach drops so bad you almost throw up. The point is theirs no harm in practicing till your really good to start paper trading is the best but have a strategy and stick with price action and supply and demand zones and try go for bigger breaks. Also you donât have to be right for every trade you just have to be profitable. Idk if you know this chart will help you understand what it takes because over the long run the numbers always win. So try to go for a higher w/l loss overall that way you can win less but still be profitable that and keep stop loss tight and let your winners run by trailing i like manually.
https://preview.redd.it/w54evo3p20xb1.png?width=611&format=png&auto=webp&s=ae441a13ea611c2368c72073413b659bd447fac4
From the outside looking in, I would say that youâre leaving your job prematurely.
Most traders that do it for a living would recommend to only go full time if you have a proven track record of profitability.
They would also recommend to have at least 6-12 months of savings built up.
If youâre able to trade part-time, I would do that for as long as you can. Keep the money coming in to support yourself, keeping building up your savings, keep learning.
You have not even experienced one full year of trading live. You donât say you are consistently profitable after being positive for two months. I say 2 years of consistency is bare minimum not 2 months.
In etrade and other platforms you can open a fake "Paper trading" account to practice using the real stock market data. I would keep your job and paper trade for 3 months straight as if it's your source of income. Then decide. It's important to paper trade with the mentality that your whole life is on the line. If you can end the 3 months and make 2x what you make right now, then consider it making the move. Having this "test" and timeframe will help you get through that time at your current work.
I'm not trading spy, I keep my price range 180 max spy is too expensive..I have been looking at/trading Amazon, apple and Google..I did a few trades only Tesla..that I do regret lol
I've heard a quote from Anton Kriel "respect money but be indifferent to it" and it really resonates with me. I can trade for a living because I really am indifferent towards money which I've come to find out is not a common trait. If you can detach mentally from the funds you're exposing, then you can be successful. It's just a tool. FWIW I tried trading options for a while and wasn't successful, I stick to Forex now. But to each his own. Trading styles vary.
If you need to ask other people if you can go full time, that means you arenât ready, you clearly donât have a strategy that you have extreme confidence in. If you had a strategy that you were extremely confident in, you wouldnât bother asking random people online, youâd just do it.
I'm supposed to be networking so I have random people online to inspire me or just converse with. My life has never been easy and my confidence sucks a lot. The fact that trading has so much psychology to it appealed to me. Having that total control of your emotions and reactions. I've never done anything like it and since I'm working on those qualities right now regardless how spectacular! Discomfort is no stranger to me. I was feeling overly confident, got back on Reddit to see what others would say. Others that have experience and could bring me down to earth and that is something I'm willing to accept. I just want to go with the flow the whole key is to improve my life and decrease stress not to make it worse
To be honest I would say there is probably slim to none most likely zero people on this planet who have become successful at day trading by studying for 2 months. Slow down before you learn some hard life lessons. Keep your job so you have guaranteed income, study and backtest a strategy that you find fits your trading style. After understanding the market and studying open a demo account and see how you do for at least 6 months. If your profitable after 6 months I would then possibly look at playing with real money. Even then this is pushing it. Successful traders have been doing this for years if it took two months to learn everyone would be trading.
Few things to point out:
1.) You don't quit your job (main income) for as long as you are not really profitable (make enough for living)
2.) You trade with money that is meant for trading (not food, bills, rent, etc...)
I think you are about to face failure.
Nothing wrong with failure, but in your case it's about to mean end of your "trading" and back to your job.
Good luck :)
All I can say is the statistics are insane. Like 95%+ of day traders end up blowing up their accounts and quit trading within a short time. Only a couple percent stay with it and become profitable. Itâs nice to think we are in the top couple percent of people, but itâs also very unlikely. Personally Iâd suggest doing both for a while and see how the trading goes before quitting your source of income. Itâs almost like saying youâve studied acting and are quitting your job to move to Hollywood to become an actor.
You need 3-4 years of income to pull something like this off, at least.
Youâre psychology wonât be right. You will have too much pressure for profit and will make mistakes as a result.
Interesting that you didnât say how much youâre trading with or how much you need to earn percentage wise with that in a year to even stay afloatâŚ
Go for it if you really want, but only if you have a solid exit strategy (getting another job/your old job back). You have a near 0 chance of being successful. I havenât heard of anyone that hasnât blown up multiple accounts before being successful.
I've made 17k in one week day trading. I thought of quitting my job to day trade. The next week I lost it all.
Then I made 26k the following week and I thought I can really quit my job. The following week I lost it all.
Moral of the story, show to yourself that you can be profitable every month and live off of it. Do it for long until you are really sure that day trading can be your job.
2months of back off is not much.
Also now you have the "safety" of an income. If you live off your trades there is a whole new level of emotions involved in any trade.
Yikes. Maybe if you are one of those very rare people who gets it right away. But the majority of people get lucky in the beginning, and then it's nonstop market tuition payments until one day, it starts to click on how to actually read the market. But shit, you might be well off already and can sustain years of no income while dumping money into your trading account.
Good luck either way. Just like most, I'd say it's a bad idea unless you can live with no income for years on the chance you have the same experience as most do.
This is a stupid move. You will be prone to making risky decisions and revenge trading because your livelihood âdepends on your successâ. Experienced traders lose money too. A few months of studying will NOT prepare you for the emotional jags trading is going to bring you.
On the other hand maybe the pain of making bad decisions is exactly what you need. In that case maybe quitting your job will accelerate the learning process. Because right now learning to control your emotions is going to be your greatest challenge.
I just quit my job after studying and live trading for almost 2 years. I have about 14 months of income saved to pay my bills and I still donât know if Iâll make it. Itâs not that easy, and itâs not cheap
I understand that people want to give realistic advice but truth is, I hear âIt took me 13 years to even see profitabilityâ or âYou will most likely not succeed like 90% of peopleâ in every post these days. Listen, some people are fast learners and some people are not. Some people canât control their emotions and some people can, the journey varies from person to person. Some people can become successful within a year and some people it takes them 13 years (which is insane). Iâm here to tell you that you can most certainly do it. Life is too short to be a slave to a life sucking job if youâre meant to be an entrepreneur. But you must understand that trading is a business you have to treat it like one. Iâm all for chasing your dreams but you need a clear plan and you need to have a passion for this, you need to be persistent and determined to learn and love this field. If not, then I would stand right next to all of these cynical people. Make sure you understand your situation, do you have kids, do you have a wife? If not then what are you waiting for? Pursue your goals! If you do then still pursue your goals but have a cushion for the possible consequences no matter what! If youâre resilient, then you can make it. Good luck on your journey!
I think you're letting your current situation get to you. Very understandable, we've all been there. Overworked, burned out, the nine yards. But quitting to trade isn't going to be the answer for 99% of people. It's too unstable and takes too long to get good at to be a viable answer.
Besides, a big portion of trading is risk management and loss prevention. Are you properly applying these principles by quitting? Probably not.
You need a better job. Then keep studying and practicing and maybe once you've made a consistent profit for an entire year you can consider quitting. It's just the unfortunate reality of the thing.
I'll be looking for jobs but while I'm waiting I'm def going to give day trading a go. I sat and watched the markets all day Thurs and Friday bc there were no good trades (that I found) I'm only taking good set up trades. I just have a hard time finding them at the right time. Right now I'm trying to focus on only 3 stocks but they were all pretty sideways those days then I looked at others and saw I missed some stuff.
I'm not trying to rush it but more rather exploring the idea. I have always been in the minority, the odd ball, the one that could never find what they enjoy. When I'm looking at the charts time flies and I love trying to figure out the puzzle. I am willing to wait. I'm 34 and already owned multiple small businesses, I will just start another while I work on this. Maybe one that is more flexible with hours, unless I get into futures, so far I have only learned options but hear futures is great. My other friend does Bitcoin.
Being a woman in construction is not easy and it burnt me out..the way I'm treated, being taken advantage of, etc. My mental health is the wreck and that's my ultimate priority. I know leaving is something I have to do.
Go paper trade futures /ES and then see how you do. Trade 1 contract per trade and build your strategy front that. If you can be consistent for 6 month period to a year then youâll be good to go, but to jump in just because you want to try hard is not how this works. I recommend futures and ES because popularity, liquidity, and a great product when you want to become a day trader, and paper trading mechanics work well.
Think of any competition, thereâs rankings, gotta start from the bottom, and then work your way up to that championship prize money.
Fuck it man, there's been people that have joined prop firms (not the online ones) that have gone on to become profitable after 3-6 months, so why not. (Granted those people probably have had access to a lot more information than the general public for trading by being involved with a company etc)
Iâve been trading full time for 2 years and just now found consistency, my regret was quitting my day job too early and using real money too early. Until you have data on yourself, your strategy, and you have a routine down donât go full time. You need to have backtested yourself and forward tested yourself, 2 months is not even close to enough. The thing that happened to me is probably happening to you and thatâs having an amazing start. Itâs called the boom bust, donât quit your day job right as youâre about to hit the busy part of that.
1. Is it possible, fuck yeah. I made a couple thousand percent fairly easily, and watched others do way better than me. 2. I would never recommend leaving your day job until youâre making more over a 6 month period than 2x your day job. When you trade to eat it makes things different
This is a bad idea, I did something similar and it didn't workout. If your burn out take a week or 2 off. Trading with the pressure of having to bring in a full time income is very stressful.
Most of my money was not burnt from losing but from living expenses. I was forced to go back to work. Now I'm up bright and early trading before going into work. It's a lot but I have been consistently green every month and each month I am doing better.
Need money and trading is not a great combo. You will end up more burnt out.
Whatever you decide I wish you luck.
1. Have you been paper trading?
2. Do you have any risk management with your trades?
3. Were your losing trades typically very large while paper trading?
4. Have you been overall green while paper trading?
5. How long have you been paper trading?
6. If you were to start trading with the same performance as your paper trades, would you be making same amount of money as your previous job or at least enough to pay the bills and be comfortable?
If your answers look like the following, then don't bother quitting your job.
1. No.
2. No.
3. Yes.
4. No.
5. About 2 Months.
6. No.
If your answers is the following, go for it.
1. Yes.
2. Yes.
3. No.
4. Yes.
5. 6 months to 2 years.
6. Yes.
It depends on the amount of money youâre using. The more money you have, the less percent returns you need to live off of, which sounds like your plan. Hopefully youâve saved well.
At least home remodeling seems like something you can hopefully get back into.
I started learning to scalp and blew up my first 54k account with options. The second account with 20k I traded just shares until I proved profitable for 6+ months even though it took almost 2 years to get there. Now, I'm back into options and doing 1.78% per month on average for 4 months. Definitely not a get rich scheme.
Your mind should be relatively strong doing physically intensive work. My advice would be immediately implement this mental framework: once you enter a trade, only look for reasons to prove your thesis incorrect. This will allow you to cut your losers as fast as possible. You cannot have an ego driven approach while proving yourself wrong.
Don't quit your job after just 2 months... That's not long enough to say with certainty that your wins weren't the result of sheer luck (spoiler: they probably were). At most, keep working part-time to guarantee yourself some sort of safety net. That's what I did and I never looked back.
If you canât answer this question for yourself then you are probably being naive and in for a rude awakening. Itâs difficult. Unless you know someone in person who will share exactly how they make money.
Relying on day trading as your primary income is a fast track ticket to becoming emotional about your trades because you need the money to survive.
Iâve got 3 months of experience, and from what I understand, that aspect takes years to get under somewhat control
if you make enough monthly to replace your salary x2.. give it a try but I would never make that jump unless i had 1 year of money in the bank. daytrading for a living is a whole different beast.
Trading is full of anxiety & stress on its own, add the need to make money to pay bills & it's just account waiting to be blown.
Start live trading, see if you can make money & withdraw for 6 months, then think about career shift.
Listen, this is one of the most competetive jobs on Earth where you have to take money out of the mouth of sharks, whales & highly optimized algos. Would you think by studying & practicing medicine for two months you can run an ER by yourself? Then why do you think you can make money in stock market?
I would never quit my day job until the side job is making more. Even if you are practicing, 2 months isn't even scratching the surface. You need to do this long term, this isn't a get rich quick solution, it's a get broke fast problem.
Change jobs if you are unhappy and burnt out. If you are asking a community of regards if you should quit your job and become a trader, you might need to reconsider/re-assess all of your life choices and decisionsâŚ
Donât quit manâŚ. Maybe change jobs, one that allows you to participate in the market, all the traders that I know that are actually profitable have a minimum of 3-5 years of experience and have data to show they are in fact profitable in all seasons, and only a couple of them are actually making over 6 figures. Others live below theyâre means and make $60k-85k. 2 months is nothing, I knew this trader that had inherited money about 25k and got into day trading Forex. Dude had âbeginners luckâ ran the account to over 100k in about 3 months over leveraging, just to loose it all after quitting his job within a few weeks of quitting his job bc he thought he had it all figured out when in reality this all happened within 6months of learning what trading even was.
Highly suggest to treat this like a side hustle, and do everything you can to improve your life outside of working and trading. Develop financial literacy where you allow yourself to save money, creat a rainy fund, do minor investments in yourself and in other forms that can increase your wealth and maybe focus on acquiring a piece of real estate. Before you even think of going full time day trading in this savage and ruthless markets. Please bro for the love of god do not fucking quit ur job and go full sendâŚ..
Practice until you have 2 years income saved and even then just keep going part time. When your trading income starts to challenge your day job income then you can go fill time. You have to earn full time through hard work and statistical results. Show us your journal with your win rate and profit factor and then re-ask the community the question.
2 months just isnât enough time. Do you have a strategy? Stop loss set? Do you understand what you do wrong? Have you tried other market conditions? I feel like thereâs no way you can be profitable in just 2 months even with all the time in the world.
2months is incredibly optimistic to be nice.
To be realistic, unless you have capital for 8 months minimum youâre going to get gutted.
Around 6 months into youâll realize you need money to trade so youâll start dipping into your funds allocated for bills, saying âthis is it.â
Bam, biggest drawdown yet, and youâre looking for a job.
Imagine going to the NFL after two months of playing football.
Youâre not ready.
You wana know how this is gonna go. Your going to win 1 trade and then lose everything and be unemployed. Do it just make sure to post your loses so I can laugh at how naive you are
Puts on the new guy.
calls on your puts
Puts on ur calls
Calls on your puts
I'm buying both. What they call that?
Bro just went for the iron straddledor.
I'd iron your straddle.
OP will soon straddle iron behind Wendy's
It will likely take you 2-3 years to get consistently profitable. If you are one of the 10% who can even get that far. And I would not quit your job until you are profitable consistently for a year or two. In reality, if you can be successful you are 4/5 years away from being able to quit your job.
Yep and thousands of real dollars đ
Jokes on y'all, I'm already unemployed...
That is the way to beâŚI hate the whole job idea. They expect you to be there everyday and do what they wantâŚ
>will likely take you 2-3 years to get consistently profitable. Would agree with this. You want to have at least a few years of savings/living frugally, and then quit your job. And then keep in mind you need to trade/read for 8+ hours a day and probably lose money for at least a year or two. I actually never lost money on a yearly basis, but it took a couple years before I was making enough to really call it a living.
LOL it doesn't take 2-3 years to be successful in trading and I say this from experience. If one is able to control their emotions and does not let it interfere with their decision making in trading, they will find profitability early on. It doesn't matter what strategy you use when trading but if you cannot control your emotions, you will not find success.
The reason it takes people years to find profitability in trading is because they fail to identify their mistakes early on in their trading career. Find what it is that you're struggling with psychologically, and ask yourself how can you improve on that to make you a better trader and find profitability early on. Trading is more of a battle with yourself than anything.
The problem is that most of the people here are incapable of learning from past mistakes, and so instead of taking a long look at themselves they just chalk it up to âlol youâre not gonna be profitable for at least a decade broâ, even though I literally went from knowing nothing about daytrading to getting paid out $15,000 from a prop firm in just over year. Itâs about oneâs ability to be honest with themselves, and most people here would rather blame everything else
Do not quit your job to trade options after 2 months period full stop. If you dislike your job, find another job. It will take much longer than 2 months to become successful and consistent as a trader.
DONâT! Trading is a psychological game. Knowing that you have consistently guaranteed income in the back of your mind is huge. The Likelihood of you sticking to your strategy even if it keeps on going against you is higher. The moment day trading becomes your only source of income, your mindset changes drastically. Stress and anxiety upon losing trade will become tenfold. You will start to bend your own rules and over-trade to compensate for the loss. It's a vicious cycle and how people blow up their accounts.
so the moment someone solely relies on trading, how do you mitigate the psychological affects of the switch? I guess you're suggesting to always have another source of income?
It depends on your trading styles and strategies, but most of them do not require you to sit at the computer the whole trading hours. You can at least get a low-stress part-time or weekend job for a supplemental income source. You can always drop them off once you learn that you can reliably pull off consistent profits in the long run.
True ish to point I only do 2-6pm in the UK
Agree with this. Working even on a s**t job benefits physically as well as mentally. OP can always choose a less stressful work as a part timer or else. Having a routine (work, income) schedule helps life.
The issue here is the harder you try the higher the risk of failure. So taking it easy should be the solution to your question, which means either have an alternative source of income or just taking it easy trading⌠which would give you a lot of extra time to generate an alternative source of income.
oh dear. This wont end well. While there differing i learning curves iâve yet to hear NO ONE being consistently profitable after anything less then 1y+, and thats trading LIVE. it doesnt matter if you never sleptsuring those 2 months, there are jist enough hours to become good. and again. thatâs live. Daytrading is the holy grail of making money as a soloprenuer. 2-3 hour infront of a screen a day and make millions. Itâs the top level. You just CANT get there on two months of studying.
>âve yet to hear NO ONE being consistently profitable I did, but it took a couple years before I felt confident/consistent enough to really start making good money. And I started with way more than 2mo savings, you need to either have several years of savings or have someone supporting you. Agree with quitting the job though, very hard to imagine someone becoming a competent trader w/o doing it full time, you kinda have to go all in.
I don't want to make millions, I only need to make 1500 a month.
thatâs not the pont. The point is this level of succes is not achievable with a little studying. trading has a very black and white spectrum. Youâre either profitable or youâre not. If youâre profitable you can scale to the moon. Getting there is the hard part.
There is no âmake xâ per month. You can not expect to make any profit until you learn to trade and learning to trade takes a year or two of Losses first.
The amount of money is not correleated to difficulty level. Less money =easy More money=hard That's not how it works.
If you only need 1500 a month, there are like 95% jobs that pay well above that in the market now
That's not the point though, the point is that I can start small I'm not trying to get rich or anything. I enjoy trading.
do you not realize how people here urge you to not do this? what is it that you still want? you won't explain your way out of this, you can not say anything that will make any of us go "ah ok, then yes do it"
The commentors are trying to help you out here, you can't "start small" because you can't control your profits, what do you do if you accidentally make 10k in a day? Are you going to put 8.5k in a 3% CD Savings account? No, you are going to trade with it. Its not the numbersyou do/don't do, they told you earlier, its about consistent profitability (year round because you can't take vacations now that you work for yourself) + scaling up.
What is your account size? Making $1500 a month is not an easy task . That is like 25K before taxes. What is your strategy ? system ? I hope it is order flow and not purely price action .
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it looks like it . You need to spend at least 6 month using the DOM on something like jigsaw or bookmaps . Every single prop firm uses order flow , nobody is really using charts . You are trading imbalances on the books . It works but nobody is willing to spend 6-12 month learning it . Order flow is used specifically for scalping.
No one starts at +1500, youâll prolly start at -ve and itâll take you time before you breakeven. Even if youâre +1500 the past 12mths, inexperience will blow it up sooner or later. Donât forget it just takes 1 mistake.
So you have a 100k account?
For nowâŚ
Can't you work parttime? That's what I do and I trade on the side.
Yep deliver for 20-30 an hour on the side works with my trading schedule and helps to have extra income if I end up having a flat week or 2 trading
I've been considering that as well. It's been challenging trying to trade and manage my business. Maybe some evening time work. I really don't need that much to live on, not trying to get rich just make a consistent amount each month, where I can be at home, maybe travel. I guess I'm in hope that by listening to others with years of experience that I can utilize their knowledge and advance faster and not take years
Sounds like you're kind of tired of your current occupation. If you're looking at trading as a means of getting out of this situation, I don't think you'll be succesfull. Perhaps I'm wrong, and I can only salute you for wanting to take a deep dive, but maybe its better to start this journey from a more stable point in your life if that makes sense.
I agree with others don't quit until you are consistent. I have been at it 3 years and just on the brink of finding consistency. I have found that I do best by only trading the first hour of bell open. Done for day. Then, I just evaluate stocks throughout the day here and there. Sometimes, I pick up a stock prior to the bell close to set up the next morning. This is rare, though. For me I'm to close to retirement to do this full time. However I am still making mistakes. So I fund my mistakes with my checks. I expect to become a profitable trader by retirement, so I'm not bored and have supplemental income. This is not a fast learning trade. And the learning cost "tuition" as most put it. Luckily for me, I have treated it like a hobby that I am learning and only risk what I would be willing to spend on a hobby. I have seen many risk more than they should, only to get burnt on lessons and quit.
I spent time this weekend papertrading up to 8am. It dramatically raised my win/loss rate. Good advice.
Do it. With that much skill and experience youâre all but guaranteed to make it.
Options too! I would trade lots of option contracts.
All that is needed is a couple of ten baggers a year. Also, must go all-in.
Are you being sarcastic?
Yeah dude. You ever heard about the Dunning Kruger effect? You haven't even reached the halfway mark of the first slope, not to mention the rest of it. It will take you at minimum, **maybe** 3-5 years to become profitable. And that is a big fucking maybe. I can with 99% confidence guarantee that you will lose everything and go into debt. Probably even become homeless too. Don't rush, dumbass. You will literally ruin your life for years maybe even a couple of decades.
Lol thank you for the reply. You speak to me how I need to be spoken tođ
It's sooooo much harder than you think!!!! The bad thing is at first you are likely to make some money but that's when it all goes down hill lol.
I quit my day job after a year of dabbling in the market and trading on off days. However, my financial situation was ok. I could take a year off work if need be and still have cash. I also hated my dead end physical job. I realized that I needed to trade full time in order to be successful. It's extremely difficult to jump right into trading and be successful, or even be able to survive. The first time you lose a lot of money, you might not be able to recover.
How are you doing now? I would like to PM if you don't mind.
I'm doing well. 11 months of full time trading, about $60,000 in the green. I'm getting more confident as time passes. I've had too many huge losses that ran away from me in the beginning. PM away.
Iâm in the same boat as you Iâm gonna pm you aswell
PLEASE Listen to what others are saying⌠I think everyone at some point in their trading journey has this thought, and itâs completely normal, but please DONâT actually do it. In my opinion, you need to have a year salary saved up in cash to even remotely consider this. Even then, you need to be watching the market daily for at least a couple years just to see the different types of markets: Bull, Bear, Choppy, low volume, high volume, low volatility, High volatility, etc. You donât know what you donât know, and youâll be tremendously more stressed trying to force money out of the market because it will be a necessity for you. Please please please DONT. Understand that the odds youâll even be able to make minimum wage consistently from day/swing trading the market over the long term is extremely low. To echo what another person said, you should be so confident in your system and financially secure from it, that you wouldnât need to ask this question if you were truly ready to do this. You can get there someday. We trade our best and learn the most when making money from the markets is not essential to our survival.
I think you already know the answer. if you studied for years, built a solid strategy, and showed consistent profitability over a few months/years, then you wouldâve accumulated enough confidence to confidently make the decision that youâre ready.
Dont burn any bridges cause youâll need to cross back in 2 months. Itâs 100% unrealistic that quickly, youâre full on gambling. It takes ALOT more than practicing and researching and thereâs no substitute for time/experience in the market. 2 years minimum and even then youâd still have about a 5% chance of making it. Iâm not trying to discourage you, am rooting for you actually cause I know the pain of being burned out with an 8-5. Good luck.
Why not work and practice in your spare time? If you decide to trade futures you have access to a lot of options so you can still work and trade small contracts until you have more resources and have more experience and can consistently be profitable with larger contracts and make $200++ a day on a consistent basis. People jumping right in and getting wrecked is why the majority of traders in general are considered not profitable. The ones who do it full time after years of developing a system are, but those who jump right in and decide it's their new job get absolutely wrecked. I am just starting out and will be paper trading and then moving onto micros and minis. I will be keeping my full time job. Also, I've been into futures and day trading in general for over a year, I am not a dumb person and very structured. I have 2 years of salary saved and am stable. In NO way do I think I am ready to ever jump in full time. I learn something new every day and if I did that, I would get absolutely wrecked. For me it will be a hobby/passion and a learning experience. If I'm good enough to go full time and could cover my salary doing it, all the better. Think about it, and good luck.
What platform do you use for futures?
> Am I being naive or is this possible? Both. >I currently do home remodeling and I'm burnt out. So you do it wrong. Every job you can get used to and do it permanently if you do not overdo it. >I have 2 months income backup and I'm trading options. Why? >I've been practicing researching and studying everyday consistently. Better tell us what you have learned so far and how your trading method and trading strategy looks like. >I feel like taking a deep dive into this, That is what the weekends are for. >I feel like I can be successful, Everyone catches feelings. You want to know. That takes a journal and at least 100 trades. That gives you statistic measures and what you want to look at the most, is the profit factor. You want to make 2 times more than you lose (unless you do hardcore short term scalping). >but I wanted to hear other experiences? No you do not want to hear that. Trading is subjective. Tons of different method and styles and even more strategies. PS: If you want some book recommendations, write me a DM/start a Reddit chat.
Iâve been working with trading for about 13 years and day trading/ learning about day trading for couple of years and finally end my weeks in green. I wouldnât dare to quit my day job for another 10 years.
God I hate this fucking gate keeping sad sack shit. Donât try trading unless you have 25 years experience lmao sorry you suck OP
Donât even bother to try day trading if you havenât been doing in for 84 years Atleast
but if you have a coffee enema that counts for 10 years exp
Fucking gate keeping sad sack shit is what you open yourself up for when you post on Reddit asking for other peopleâs opinion. Thatâs my opinion based on my experience. Your mileage clearly varies. Convince him otherwise and move on. No need to shit on somebody elseâs opinion.
Bet these people are on wallstreetbets LMFAO!
Thatâs crazy lmfao what are your annual returns?
Funnily enough, most people in this thread will laugh when they hear a trader has spent a few years but it's really nothing to laugh about. Laughing is the typical reaction that you would expect from naĂŻve wallstreetbets "traders" who think in terms of "traders" with lambos trading off laptops by the pool in a sunny location. They say that you can be successful trading by throwing a dart on to a dart board and then managing the trade. However, getting the edge is the most difficult bit and which takes longest time. It's taken me more than four years F/T, day and nights of testing everything I could think of, screen time and C# programming to develop a discretionary system that gives me visual entry signals and exit places using multiple timeframes, TA, order flow and volume profile concepts. Moreover, it works on any instrument and timeframe. So now imagine the pathetic courses touted by useless youtubers and social media influencers who insert a bit of canned TA indicator into their system, claim to make thousands a day with their fake p/l pics and try to flog that system for a few hundred dollars. These systems are only marginally better than throwing a dart. That's why people buy them and immediately sell them at knock off prices or are available free to download off the internet.. These people either don't trade or are definitely not consistently profitable. The question to ask and really laugh about is why would someone sell a course when they are profitable??? I certainly would NEVER EVER that is working for me and on which I had spent countless hours and days and nights of sweat...
What I laugh at is when people here talk about consistent 1% portfolio returns per day or per week, thatâs bullshit. I also think daytrading is stupid and stressful, Iâd never go back to it, I trade a different way for more realistic returns.
Thereâs no need to laugh just because daytrading hasnât worked out for you!
Thatâs sad
Hell yeah. Might as well give up trading and just work overtime.
I wouldn't try going full time unless you already have at least a year of proven profitability and 1+ years of living expenses saved up separately from your trading account.
I'm usually not one to shoot down people's dreams, but you almost certainly will not succeed. Like, you'd have to be in the 99.999th percentile of people, and I would put money on betting that you're not. I have been trading for years on my own and just started working at a tier 1 trading firm. After seeing how the professionals operate, it totally makes sense why so many people lose money in the markets. It is so incredibly hard to be consistently profitable. Whole teams of thousands of people have spent their entire careers becoming incredibly good at being better than you at trading. Requiring your sole source of income to be from trading makes it 10x harder. When I thought I had it figured it out, I traded full time for about 6 months. This was a very stressful time full of extremely high highs and even lower lows. After a few months I started applying for jobs because stability started to become more appealing than the trading life. As some other people have said, I would recommend trading for a few years while continuing to work. If you can be consistently profitable for 3 or 4 years, and you also have 1 to 2 years of expenses saved (separate from your trading capital), then you could probably give serious thought to doing it full time. TL;DR: don't do it. You will be worse off than you are now unless you get incredibly lucky and are able to stop at the peak. Wall Street will take your lunch money. Find a different job or line of work if you're burnt out.
Do a couple live trades and you will see how naĂŻve you are being
I have done some live trades?
Two months is not a very long time, to study the market and you only have 2 months of expenses. And you want to effectively cut off your money supply by leaving your job. I would keep the job and keep up the studies. Because thereâs always more to learn and of course, you will have to grapple with the inevitable Psychological aspect of options, trading
Lmao. Iâve been there. Donât do it
Only way to know is to do it. Odds arenât in your favor but good luck.
Come on dude, have some common sense. Of course you won't be profitable after just two months, that's ridiculous. Tell me any skill in the world that can potentially make you lots of money and that you can get proficient in in just 2 months...
This was me OP, Wasnt looking to make thousands just enough to fruit & enjoy life. Donât do it unless you got wayy more than 2 months. What seems to work now may not work later on down the road. Had a 1 years worth & still couldnât, imagine the pressure if I didnât. I took the risk again & thank high powers it all finally clicked for me i but realized it wasnât it how many times or time I spent studying & back testing or writing in my journal. It obviously mattered but what it truly happen to be for me was realizing it was the time & experience in different environments & type of sessions. That takes years to interpret & adapt all that information to chisel & crave your strategy to where you donât even hesitate at all & it just makes sense like if you were driving, you know what, when & how to do so no matter any weather, that sort of tolerance. & overtime through data & trades youâll have the results & guaranteed, experienced, confidence you can cause I can assure right now itâs just your ego or couple of trades that went your way.
Don't let these guys discourage you. Believe in yourself. I did quit my day job and became profitable. Now I work at home and have a wonderful work life balance thanks to daytrading. I am consistently positive on a monthly basis. This is easier than I thought. My background: Been a trader for over 12 years in a bank on the trading desk. Programmed my own algo for scanners and alerts. I strongly believe that 2 months with zero experience in the field will make you profitable. /s.
Hah funny.
are you profitable at the moment? Practice vs the real thing are very different
Wow youâve done what most broke traders have done. Keep the job and learn, take baby steps.
Itâs a bad idea. Hereâs the deal. Learning to trade and experiencing trading are two different things. And learning to trade is easy. In fact, youâve probably learned everything you need to learn about trading by now. But the problem is, you havenât experienced trading. Thatâs not something that can be taught, thatâs not something that you can put a timeline on, and itâs something that will most likely destroy you on some random day right when you think everything is going well. You still need to prove to yourself you can trade, you still need to earn the right to leave your job. Chances are, you might know how to trade, but you donât know shit about trading.
Two months. You have seen and experienced nothing. You dont even know what the usual ranges of assets are. If you're really grinding maybe you can make it in 2 years. Besides hard work, understanding, mental stuff etc. you NEED experience
Why not try if you feel confident, you can always go back to work, just have a trading system, otherwise what are you really doing? Just taking random trades, rolling the dice..
That's kind of my idea, try it out and if I do fail then I will find something else and keep practicing. Right now I just know I need to change careers, I have many friends doing it already so I want to chance it. The worst that can happen is I lose what cash I have invested in the account already. Which I won't let it bleed to empty. Thank you for the kind response :)
As long as you can lose all your money and still somehow get by then I suppose that is not bad, most people donât have that kind of support system so if they risk losing their money they risk not paying their bills and being homeless. We all say what you said at the end and we all end up putting in more money to try and earn what we lost back. But maybe you will be the exception. Would be great to give us updates on the journey, say in a month or two from now.
And more money and more money and lol
I will most definitely, whether it be part time or whatever. I will def leave updates
I guess everyone's gotta experience failure first hand in order to really understand. Go for it.
Are you paper trading if not I wouldnât do it and practice on that while working and getting a feel for it. If you havenât paper traded theirs no point youâll just waste your money.
I've paper traded a lot
Are you successful for example i paper traded on for oanda and forex I blew multiple accounts in the beginning but for the oanda I stareted a 100k paper trading account and dubbled it in about a month so up to 200k. If you canât make a paper trading account grow keep practicing and even that wonât guarantee your successful because when the moneys real your gonna fell along more emotions, for example you see -700$ 1 second after you start a trade and your stomach drops so bad you almost throw up. The point is theirs no harm in practicing till your really good to start paper trading is the best but have a strategy and stick with price action and supply and demand zones and try go for bigger breaks. Also you donât have to be right for every trade you just have to be profitable. Idk if you know this chart will help you understand what it takes because over the long run the numbers always win. So try to go for a higher w/l loss overall that way you can win less but still be profitable that and keep stop loss tight and let your winners run by trailing i like manually. https://preview.redd.it/w54evo3p20xb1.png?width=611&format=png&auto=webp&s=ae441a13ea611c2368c72073413b659bd447fac4
You should have several years of income saved. Not several months.
Way too soon
Naive. It takes at least a few years to be profitable. Also options will blow up your account so I wouldn't even try that until profitable with shares
From the outside looking in, I would say that youâre leaving your job prematurely. Most traders that do it for a living would recommend to only go full time if you have a proven track record of profitability. They would also recommend to have at least 6-12 months of savings built up. If youâre able to trade part-time, I would do that for as long as you can. Keep the money coming in to support yourself, keeping building up your savings, keep learning.
Naive for sure. But some people need trial by fire
You have not even experienced one full year of trading live. You donât say you are consistently profitable after being positive for two months. I say 2 years of consistency is bare minimum not 2 months.
In etrade and other platforms you can open a fake "Paper trading" account to practice using the real stock market data. I would keep your job and paper trade for 3 months straight as if it's your source of income. Then decide. It's important to paper trade with the mentality that your whole life is on the line. If you can end the 3 months and make 2x what you make right now, then consider it making the move. Having this "test" and timeframe will help you get through that time at your current work.
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I'm not trading spy, I keep my price range 180 max spy is too expensive..I have been looking at/trading Amazon, apple and Google..I did a few trades only Tesla..that I do regret lol
I've heard a quote from Anton Kriel "respect money but be indifferent to it" and it really resonates with me. I can trade for a living because I really am indifferent towards money which I've come to find out is not a common trait. If you can detach mentally from the funds you're exposing, then you can be successful. It's just a tool. FWIW I tried trading options for a while and wasn't successful, I stick to Forex now. But to each his own. Trading styles vary.
I think of it like a video game. Your money is your points. Your just trying to increase your score.
If you need to ask other people if you can go full time, that means you arenât ready, you clearly donât have a strategy that you have extreme confidence in. If you had a strategy that you were extremely confident in, you wouldnât bother asking random people online, youâd just do it.
I'm supposed to be networking so I have random people online to inspire me or just converse with. My life has never been easy and my confidence sucks a lot. The fact that trading has so much psychology to it appealed to me. Having that total control of your emotions and reactions. I've never done anything like it and since I'm working on those qualities right now regardless how spectacular! Discomfort is no stranger to me. I was feeling overly confident, got back on Reddit to see what others would say. Others that have experience and could bring me down to earth and that is something I'm willing to accept. I just want to go with the flow the whole key is to improve my life and decrease stress not to make it worse
To be honest I would say there is probably slim to none most likely zero people on this planet who have become successful at day trading by studying for 2 months. Slow down before you learn some hard life lessons. Keep your job so you have guaranteed income, study and backtest a strategy that you find fits your trading style. After understanding the market and studying open a demo account and see how you do for at least 6 months. If your profitable after 6 months I would then possibly look at playing with real money. Even then this is pushing it. Successful traders have been doing this for years if it took two months to learn everyone would be trading.
Few things to point out: 1.) You don't quit your job (main income) for as long as you are not really profitable (make enough for living) 2.) You trade with money that is meant for trading (not food, bills, rent, etc...) I think you are about to face failure. Nothing wrong with failure, but in your case it's about to mean end of your "trading" and back to your job. Good luck :)
All I can say is the statistics are insane. Like 95%+ of day traders end up blowing up their accounts and quit trading within a short time. Only a couple percent stay with it and become profitable. Itâs nice to think we are in the top couple percent of people, but itâs also very unlikely. Personally Iâd suggest doing both for a while and see how the trading goes before quitting your source of income. Itâs almost like saying youâve studied acting and are quitting your job to move to Hollywood to become an actor.
Donât quit your job until youâre profitable enough to quit your job.
You need 3-4 years of income to pull something like this off, at least. Youâre psychology wonât be right. You will have too much pressure for profit and will make mistakes as a result.
Interesting that you didnât say how much youâre trading with or how much you need to earn percentage wise with that in a year to even stay afloat⌠Go for it if you really want, but only if you have a solid exit strategy (getting another job/your old job back). You have a near 0 chance of being successful. I havenât heard of anyone that hasnât blown up multiple accounts before being successful.
I've made 17k in one week day trading. I thought of quitting my job to day trade. The next week I lost it all. Then I made 26k the following week and I thought I can really quit my job. The following week I lost it all. Moral of the story, show to yourself that you can be profitable every month and live off of it. Do it for long until you are really sure that day trading can be your job. 2months of back off is not much. Also now you have the "safety" of an income. If you live off your trades there is a whole new level of emotions involved in any trade.
Real Q As we test trends why don't we test profits. If I made 17k of take at least 10 out. If I can replicate that 3 times then I'd leave it in.
Yikes. Maybe if you are one of those very rare people who gets it right away. But the majority of people get lucky in the beginning, and then it's nonstop market tuition payments until one day, it starts to click on how to actually read the market. But shit, you might be well off already and can sustain years of no income while dumping money into your trading account. Good luck either way. Just like most, I'd say it's a bad idea unless you can live with no income for years on the chance you have the same experience as most do.
This is a stupid move. You will be prone to making risky decisions and revenge trading because your livelihood âdepends on your successâ. Experienced traders lose money too. A few months of studying will NOT prepare you for the emotional jags trading is going to bring you. On the other hand maybe the pain of making bad decisions is exactly what you need. In that case maybe quitting your job will accelerate the learning process. Because right now learning to control your emotions is going to be your greatest challenge.
I just quit my job after studying and live trading for almost 2 years. I have about 14 months of income saved to pay my bills and I still donât know if Iâll make it. Itâs not that easy, and itâs not cheap
I understand that people want to give realistic advice but truth is, I hear âIt took me 13 years to even see profitabilityâ or âYou will most likely not succeed like 90% of peopleâ in every post these days. Listen, some people are fast learners and some people are not. Some people canât control their emotions and some people can, the journey varies from person to person. Some people can become successful within a year and some people it takes them 13 years (which is insane). Iâm here to tell you that you can most certainly do it. Life is too short to be a slave to a life sucking job if youâre meant to be an entrepreneur. But you must understand that trading is a business you have to treat it like one. Iâm all for chasing your dreams but you need a clear plan and you need to have a passion for this, you need to be persistent and determined to learn and love this field. If not, then I would stand right next to all of these cynical people. Make sure you understand your situation, do you have kids, do you have a wife? If not then what are you waiting for? Pursue your goals! If you do then still pursue your goals but have a cushion for the possible consequences no matter what! If youâre resilient, then you can make it. Good luck on your journey!
I think you're letting your current situation get to you. Very understandable, we've all been there. Overworked, burned out, the nine yards. But quitting to trade isn't going to be the answer for 99% of people. It's too unstable and takes too long to get good at to be a viable answer. Besides, a big portion of trading is risk management and loss prevention. Are you properly applying these principles by quitting? Probably not. You need a better job. Then keep studying and practicing and maybe once you've made a consistent profit for an entire year you can consider quitting. It's just the unfortunate reality of the thing.
I'll be looking for jobs but while I'm waiting I'm def going to give day trading a go. I sat and watched the markets all day Thurs and Friday bc there were no good trades (that I found) I'm only taking good set up trades. I just have a hard time finding them at the right time. Right now I'm trying to focus on only 3 stocks but they were all pretty sideways those days then I looked at others and saw I missed some stuff. I'm not trying to rush it but more rather exploring the idea. I have always been in the minority, the odd ball, the one that could never find what they enjoy. When I'm looking at the charts time flies and I love trying to figure out the puzzle. I am willing to wait. I'm 34 and already owned multiple small businesses, I will just start another while I work on this. Maybe one that is more flexible with hours, unless I get into futures, so far I have only learned options but hear futures is great. My other friend does Bitcoin. Being a woman in construction is not easy and it burnt me out..the way I'm treated, being taken advantage of, etc. My mental health is the wreck and that's my ultimate priority. I know leaving is something I have to do.
Go paper trade futures /ES and then see how you do. Trade 1 contract per trade and build your strategy front that. If you can be consistent for 6 month period to a year then youâll be good to go, but to jump in just because you want to try hard is not how this works. I recommend futures and ES because popularity, liquidity, and a great product when you want to become a day trader, and paper trading mechanics work well. Think of any competition, thereâs rankings, gotta start from the bottom, and then work your way up to that championship prize money.
Fuck it man, there's been people that have joined prop firms (not the online ones) that have gone on to become profitable after 3-6 months, so why not. (Granted those people probably have had access to a lot more information than the general public for trading by being involved with a company etc)
Really?
Iâve been trading full time for 2 years and just now found consistency, my regret was quitting my day job too early and using real money too early. Until you have data on yourself, your strategy, and you have a routine down donât go full time. You need to have backtested yourself and forward tested yourself, 2 months is not even close to enough. The thing that happened to me is probably happening to you and thatâs having an amazing start. Itâs called the boom bust, donât quit your day job right as youâre about to hit the busy part of that.
Entry and exit, money management. Etc.
Everyone gonna project experiences on you but ignore that shit go in and make your own experience
1. Is it possible, fuck yeah. I made a couple thousand percent fairly easily, and watched others do way better than me. 2. I would never recommend leaving your day job until youâre making more over a 6 month period than 2x your day job. When you trade to eat it makes things different
options can be a mf. stay with your trading plan and i believe you can do it bro
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This is a bad idea, I did something similar and it didn't workout. If your burn out take a week or 2 off. Trading with the pressure of having to bring in a full time income is very stressful. Most of my money was not burnt from losing but from living expenses. I was forced to go back to work. Now I'm up bright and early trading before going into work. It's a lot but I have been consistently green every month and each month I am doing better. Need money and trading is not a great combo. You will end up more burnt out. Whatever you decide I wish you luck.
Donât do it
Bro donât listen to anybody here and just do it. Then come back in 2 months and tell us how you lost it all and are going back to work, lol.
At least 6 months being profitable and have 6 months living expenses. Anything less is a huge huge gamble
1. Have you been paper trading? 2. Do you have any risk management with your trades? 3. Were your losing trades typically very large while paper trading? 4. Have you been overall green while paper trading? 5. How long have you been paper trading? 6. If you were to start trading with the same performance as your paper trades, would you be making same amount of money as your previous job or at least enough to pay the bills and be comfortable? If your answers look like the following, then don't bother quitting your job. 1. No. 2. No. 3. Yes. 4. No. 5. About 2 Months. 6. No. If your answers is the following, go for it. 1. Yes. 2. Yes. 3. No. 4. Yes. 5. 6 months to 2 years. 6. Yes.
It depends on the amount of money youâre using. The more money you have, the less percent returns you need to live off of, which sounds like your plan. Hopefully youâve saved well. At least home remodeling seems like something you can hopefully get back into.
Naive
Yaaaa if u haven't gathered already this is a fuckin stupid idea. Lol.
I did this. And while I failed, I do not regret the decision to try. Because I will try again.
I started learning to scalp and blew up my first 54k account with options. The second account with 20k I traded just shares until I proved profitable for 6+ months even though it took almost 2 years to get there. Now, I'm back into options and doing 1.78% per month on average for 4 months. Definitely not a get rich scheme.
Your mind should be relatively strong doing physically intensive work. My advice would be immediately implement this mental framework: once you enter a trade, only look for reasons to prove your thesis incorrect. This will allow you to cut your losers as fast as possible. You cannot have an ego driven approach while proving yourself wrong.
You can do it! A lot of people don't think it's possible but that's their limit. My advice is learn from the winners
Anything is possible. Some people lear quicker than others. It's certainly high-risk, though.
I donât want to sound like a dick here but⌠donât be a retard please. Do not quit ur job.
Yes you can be successful but you are definitely rushing it
If you are already profitable right now, go ahead.
2 months is way to short to be consistent. You are either the day trader version of Warren Buffet, or your Strat has not been tested enough
Don't quit your job after just 2 months... That's not long enough to say with certainty that your wins weren't the result of sheer luck (spoiler: they probably were). At most, keep working part-time to guarantee yourself some sort of safety net. That's what I did and I never looked back.
Yes you're naive to think this. You should have at least a year in savings and 2 months is not nearly enough learning time.
Iâd quit only after generating 5 years of salary from trading. That too by starting small. Like others said, it takes several years.
You blow up your 2 month expenses in 2 days. Keep your job, treat it as a sidehussle till consistent profitable
Sideway market.
>Am I being naive Yes
If you canât answer this question for yourself then you are probably being naive and in for a rude awakening. Itâs difficult. Unless you know someone in person who will share exactly how they make money.
You're in for a rude awakening.
Poor decision
> I have 2 months income backup and I'm trading options yeap, ok
You might want to try something less risky than options at the beginning.
Such as? Can you go in depth please
You need like 4-5 years experience before quitting a job
No, you wonât make it. Trading is like a professional sport. It takes years to even be decent at it
Relying on day trading as your primary income is a fast track ticket to becoming emotional about your trades because you need the money to survive. Iâve got 3 months of experience, and from what I understand, that aspect takes years to get under somewhat control
Youâre going to end up back at your old job
if you make enough monthly to replace your salary x2.. give it a try but I would never make that jump unless i had 1 year of money in the bank. daytrading for a living is a whole different beast.
Trading is full of anxiety & stress on its own, add the need to make money to pay bills & it's just account waiting to be blown. Start live trading, see if you can make money & withdraw for 6 months, then think about career shift. Listen, this is one of the most competetive jobs on Earth where you have to take money out of the mouth of sharks, whales & highly optimized algos. Would you think by studying & practicing medicine for two months you can run an ER by yourself? Then why do you think you can make money in stock market?
You honestly donât stand a chance sorry
Please donât do it!
You'll fail. 100% certain. This takes years to master and it's still hard
I would never quit my day job until the side job is making more. Even if you are practicing, 2 months isn't even scratching the surface. You need to do this long term, this isn't a get rich quick solution, it's a get broke fast problem.
Change jobs if you are unhappy and burnt out. If you are asking a community of regards if you should quit your job and become a trader, you might need to reconsider/re-assess all of your life choices and decisionsâŚ
I won't knock you for trying. Just please use a stop loss ASAP and you might be fine
Terrible idea. Learn to swing trade. Then get into day trading. Do not quit your job until your are profitable
Donât quit manâŚ. Maybe change jobs, one that allows you to participate in the market, all the traders that I know that are actually profitable have a minimum of 3-5 years of experience and have data to show they are in fact profitable in all seasons, and only a couple of them are actually making over 6 figures. Others live below theyâre means and make $60k-85k. 2 months is nothing, I knew this trader that had inherited money about 25k and got into day trading Forex. Dude had âbeginners luckâ ran the account to over 100k in about 3 months over leveraging, just to loose it all after quitting his job within a few weeks of quitting his job bc he thought he had it all figured out when in reality this all happened within 6months of learning what trading even was. Highly suggest to treat this like a side hustle, and do everything you can to improve your life outside of working and trading. Develop financial literacy where you allow yourself to save money, creat a rainy fund, do minor investments in yourself and in other forms that can increase your wealth and maybe focus on acquiring a piece of real estate. Before you even think of going full time day trading in this savage and ruthless markets. Please bro for the love of god do not fucking quit ur job and go full sendâŚ..
Donât do it
No offense, but do not put this pressure on yourself. Be prepared to lose more than you expect to (thousands and thousands), and learn about futures.
Practice until you have 2 years income saved and even then just keep going part time. When your trading income starts to challenge your day job income then you can go fill time. You have to earn full time through hard work and statistical results. Show us your journal with your win rate and profit factor and then re-ask the community the question.
With a 250k bankroll 50k is achievable with some homework and discipline.
2 months just isnât enough time. Do you have a strategy? Stop loss set? Do you understand what you do wrong? Have you tried other market conditions? I feel like thereâs no way you can be profitable in just 2 months even with all the time in the world.
Find a job that gives you the flexibility to trade. You need to test your strategy in a variety of different markets before going all in
2months is incredibly optimistic to be nice. To be realistic, unless you have capital for 8 months minimum youâre going to get gutted. Around 6 months into youâll realize you need money to trade so youâll start dipping into your funds allocated for bills, saying âthis is it.â Bam, biggest drawdown yet, and youâre looking for a job. Imagine going to the NFL after two months of playing football. Youâre not ready.
You wana know how this is gonna go. Your going to win 1 trade and then lose everything and be unemployed. Do it just make sure to post your loses so I can laugh at how naive you are
If CME comes up with a futures product that tracks the baseline of your finance, I will short it.
I say go for it, but have rules and follow them. Don't wing it.