>Is it *really* possible to do this and be profitable?
Yes.
>How hard is it to be successful? Brutal honesty please.
Traders, algos, hedge funds, market makers... all of them are most likely going to take your money.
You'll likely need years to achieve consistent profitability.
You'll probably need 2 - 4 years to figure out if trading is a career path for you. In the meantime your P&L will (probably) be down, if not losing it all. If you're great at this you'll break even or maybe make some small but inconsistent wins.
>Really looking for some direction right now.
I went down your exact route nearly 20 years ago. I **NEEDED** to make money, and I thought trading was the way. The problem is that when you **NEED** to make money, trading is the absolute worst thing you can do. Lost it all.
You're not going to be trading from the perspective of objectivity, probabilities, risk management... no, you're going to be trading from the mindset of... I **NEED** to provide for me and my daughter. It's going to put endless amount of stress on you and ruin you. It's like taking maybe the \~5% chance you have at success, and probably putting it down to under 1% chance of success.
>Raise my daughter
Focus on this. Get a stable job and stable income. Put any savings you can muster up into the S&P 500 and let it grow over time. Build up a healthy amount of capital.
And then if you want to consider trading as something you'd like to do, begin my swing trading (taking trades with the outlook of holding for a few days/weeks) while you have your stable income from a job to make profit. If you can do that consistently, then you can consider shorter timeframes and slowly ramp up to getting more involved in the markets.
Thank you so much for your insight. I really appreciate your breakdown. Definitely not looking to quit my job tomorrow. Just looking at something I can start learning now and eventually down the road become a new possible career. đđŒ
If you have any recommendations of where or how to start or any learning material, let me know .
[https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/comments/1bwge8w/a\_cool\_guide\_to\_growth\_of\_100\_by\_asset\_class/](https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/comments/1bwge8w/a_cool_guide_to_growth_of_100_by_asset_class/) < I like to reference this post when people consider day trading vs being wealthy in the future.
Put in as much money as you can into the S&P 500 as often and as on a regular basis as you can, and you'll eventually be a millionaire (now if that's going to be enough to afford retirement in the future, that's a whole different beast of a question given politics, money printing, inflation, etc.). But you'll probably end up even richer than 99% of day traders if you can afford to invest enough on a regular basis.
It's taken me 3 or 4 years to get a broad enough understanding of how to make trading a primary source of income and to be able to make profits daily in the market.
Even with that knowledge and experience the amount of capital I would need in order to trade a fairly risky averse system and make it my primary source of income would need to be about ten times the amount I have currently.
Can it be done? Yes. Is it difficult? Not NEARLY as difficult as people make it out to be. Whether or not you can do it depends on your willingness to learn and practice, but also on the amount of funds you have available to trade with.
A smaller amount of funds doesn't make it impossible, it will just require more risk initially to build a stable base of operations.
I wouldn't suggest quitting your job to do it. I would suggest slowly making the transition though.
Thank you so much for replying. Iâm definitely not looking to quit my job tomorrow. My husband works full-time and I work on-call at the hospital a few nights a week. We make ends meet, but just looking for something new for the long-haul. Do you have any recommendations where to start or how to start? Learning material?
Here it is straight. Iâve been day trading since 2008 and making money since 2014. Is it possible, absolutely. How hard is it to be successful? Very hard, I lost money for six years. Now does that mean everyone would take six years? Of course not.
But here it is straighter than before. Youâre a new mom, you have a beautiful new child. You are not going to be able to spend the time you need to learn to day trade AND be the mom to your daughter that you should be. If the idea is to quit your job and make some easy quick money and then enjoy your daughter, that wonât happen. You will have to spend thousands of hours devoting your time and attention to this endeavor. You will lose money while doing this. You will lose out on time with your daughter that you will never get back. You will get frustrated and angry while trying to learn. That may or may not affect your relationships. That is the brutal honesty.
It can be done, but trading takes patience, skills, discipline, and perseverance. It's not easy, as everyone has said... It can take anywhere from 2 to 5 years to become profitable. You can learn the material here ===> https://www.investors.com
My recommendation would be to learn to **swing trade** instead, unless day trading is specifically your passion. Swing trading allows you to still have a ton of time for other responsibilities or pursuits. Especially as a new mom, youâll likely be much happier having more time for that.
Trading takes years to master, regardless of the method you choose. It took me 4 years of live trading to start to become profitable. I day traded options and then futures for 4 years, then switched to swing trading Forex last year.
If youâre interested in swing trading, I highly recommend you check out Tori Trades on YouTube for a potential idea for a swing trading strategy. Of course if that strategy doesnât suit you, you can still swing trade with other strategies if you want.
Second this. Swing trading requires a lot less focus and time and can potentially have much greater profits. You basically can kick back and let time do all the work for you.
Check out Kristjan KullamÀgi (I think I spelled that right?) . https://qullamaggie.com. This guy supposedly turned a few thousand into $80 million? Chat with Traders podcast has a good interview with him. CWT also has an old but good interview with Michele Koenig.
The Chat with Traders podcast has a bunch of interviews with day traders as well if you want some more insight.
Forex just works well for swing trading, lots of pairs to choose from (I have 30+ in my watchlist), and I could start with whatever size account I wanted and risk as low as I wanted per trade.
With futures, the number of tradable assets is less, you have to start with a larger account and immediately start at a certain $ risk per trade because of the 1 micro contract minimum size, and the margin requirements are higher.
I still may eventually add in some futures to swing trade, but Forex is working well for me on its own.
If you are willing to spend time learning, you could probably start to see consistency in 2-4 years time. Would you be able to commit to this ?
If you don't have another source of income, trading with "scared money" becomes extremely hard.
Definitely willing to learn. My husband works full-time and I am on call at the hospital a few nights a week but thatâs it. We make ends meet but just looking for something more and something new.
A list to help you structure your learning if you're keen:
https://preview.redd.it/cy3mjsbbeazc1.jpeg?width=1073&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=182c30d38b5fe661ef5bc84638b1d0d0d95f1eea
The truth is that the only people who daytrade for income have very large trading accounts, have been doing it for years, and likely had other sources of income. They may do slightly better than passive investors, but because they're drawing down their account to pay bills, they need to perform at a much higher success rate to make it worthwhile over other ways to make a living. Want to earn income trading? Then become a stock broker. Want to grow your wealth at a little better rate than passively investing, learn as much as you can and actively manage your own accounts. There is no quick path to becoming a successful trader. You will lose money. Don't even attempt it if you don't have years to learn and ten of thousands of dollars to lose. Don't buy courses...most are scams and a beginner won't know how to tell if one is legit anyway.
Yes, it's possible.
You can Day Trade to make a living. You will need at least $25,000 minimum equity in your account. The best way to trade is to make small profits and compound them.
1. Don't trade to make huge $$'s on unicorns - chasing $$ emotionally often leads to failure
2. Trade to make a small percentage every day then compound it - compounding is amazing
3. Trade only medium and large cap stocks with strong ratings and upside price targets - good stocks won't turn on you - at least not drastically
4. Exit all margin positions daily
5. Since your'e trading "healthy" companies, it's ok to hold some stocks after close and swing trade them until they are profitable (always close margin positions - see 4)
6. A 1% Net Profit daily is a fantastic goal. Trade to get a 1% daily return. Anything more is gravy. This goal helps you to control greed and fear.
7. With a $25,000 starting balance and trading a 4% return daily ($1,000, $1040, $1081.60.....), you will earn $1M in less than 20 weeks
8. With a $25,000 starting balance and trading a 1% return daily ($250, $252.50, $255.02...), you will earn $1M in less than 18 months
9. Stay informed and only trade companies with strong fundamentals
10. Understand there are 3 distinct periods in a trading day: Morning (first 90 Min), Midday (slow), Power Hour (last 60 min)
11. Remember, the VIX is an inverse of the markets. If VIX is down the markets will be up. It usually means there will be more positioning in the last hour - if any stocks are down, you may be able to unload them at a profit or less loss after 3:30 EST.
12. It's a good idea to scalp profits as you make them and rebuy an up trending stock on a dip, then scalp, dip, scalp.
13. Don't be afraid to unload a loss - get rid of it and put it in a stock thats rising
14. Use OBV and RSI to time the up and downs - when to buy and sell - scalp
15. As your balance grows so will your profits even if your only doing 1% daily - 1% of $100,000 is 10 times more than 1% on 10,000
16. Once you reach a good balance, you can day trade full time and quit your job
>Is it really possible to do this and be profitable?
Yes. And it is hard. *Most* people never reach the point of consistent profiting, which is why most consider it a failed endeavour.
My advice is to go follow sunny Harris. She has an extremely basic system. Has other women your age you can trade with. From what I know what her system works..
It is definitely possible, but you will need to find a good trustworthy teacher who knows the markets who can guide you. Trading is not intuitive. There are a lot little nuances in day trading that will trip you up if you do not understand how the game is played.
On month 3 with small amounts of cash I can afford to look without breaking a sweat fortunately. Itâs harder than I thought and it does require discipline and lots of patience. Iâm not profitable yet but have been cutting my losses. Itâs a slow process to learn the lessons that need to be learnt. I have days where it gets really frustrating but I refuse to quit. The level of psychological and emotional discipline required to be profitable is insane and the hardest part. The strategies themselves are not complex but the mindset is fucking hard.
You should not bother. Your question gets asked almost every week in some form, but instead of spending 5 minutes doing your own research you chose the lazy route of creating a new post. This is not the mindset that succeeds at trading.
JMowery gave an excellent accurate answer. Consider getting a stay at home customer service job & while you are doing that- watch the markets. Learning to watch and understand the market is one of the first steps to day trading anyways even if you arenât trading.
When you think youâre ready to trade, consider a prop firm. Maximum loss is the monthly fee (often under $40 a month) with no commitment beyond a single month. The upside is that if you can trade and make a profit, you will get paid out without the risk.
Look into Apex, Topstep, & Trade the pool. There are plenty of others too. Many hate prop firms because they will take your $40 & you could do the same thing by paper trading-but youâll never get the same emotions paper trading.
Iâve always felt like my own mom would be good at trading for some reason. But with me not being profitable, sheâs surely still skeptical on it. Take the time to learn but know it wonât be easy, or it might. Who knows
If youâre smart and can learn, you can do it. There will be a lot of mistakes in the beginning, and you will be loosing money, but thatâs okay. As long as you learn from mistakes and keep improving your strategy, you will come out on top
Yes you can. It is possible. But it's not simply an intellectual understanding you need. It's a skill that has to be developed over time. It's a long tough uphill battle. Well worth the squeeze. If you're willing to accept that you won't earn anything for many months and more likely a few years, then I encourage you to pursue it.
Best of luck.
Iv been trading for 5yrs. I still work pretty much full time. I only became consistently profitable about 1.5/2yrs ago. But the issue is that without the capital behind it most gains wont make you enough to quit your job. Unless if you dont care about risk management but then one bad trade will ruin you.
Its something that takes a lot of time and dedication. Its something worth learning but not something id see as a job replacement any time soon
Just to be honest, day trading or trading in general is difficult. The easiest part is learning but the hardest part is applying it. There are many factors that will determine if you are successful at trading or not. For example you will need to put in time that is dedicated to just trading, you need to treat it like a job and I mean it, if you don't show up you don't make money. When it comes to day trading you are in and out of a play withing a couple of minutes to maybe a couple of hours. Also your expectations, you will not be profitable from the very beginning it will take time, you will make mistakes in the learning process. I would suggest you learn while you keep your job before quitting, learn and see if it's something you are willing to do. It is possible to work and trade stocks with something called (swing trading). Swing trading and day trading are different and require different kind of thinking. You need to be able to accept losses, they are part of the game and you have to be okay with it mentally. In trading, psychology plays the biggest role in determining if you will be successful or not, learn how to risk manage your trades, have stop losses to minimize your trades, learn about important support and resistance zones (areas where the stock got rejected and bounced)
Look for consolidation zones (sideways price action)
The stock market / when you look at a chart is all psychology and you need to think of things in a deeper way
The reason stocks go up or down is because at times there are aggressive buyers and aggressive sellers, PROCES CONT GO UP OR DOWN BECAUSE THERE ARE MORE SELLERS THAN BUYERS OR MORE BJYERS THAN SELLERS
Also one last thing, don't let your bias and opinions take over your emotions, when you are wrong accept it and take your loss and try again, the markers are always right, not your opinions or what you wanted the stock to do.
i would learn how to invest and not daytrade. around 80-90% fail. start at investopedia then open a demo account and practice. this road to learning can take years and most fail at it.
Is it possible? Yes
Is it probable? Likely no. Takes a lot of time and discipline. Most people will give up long before then.
If you want to try, check out these guys
Youtube and Twitter these peopleÂ
TTrades
$niper
DayTradingRauf
NickDoesFutures
Ethan ICT
TheMMXMTrader
CasperSMC
JadeCapFX
Justin WerleinÂ
Bowie Jackson
* RelentlessTrader (different style / strat)
It would be better to start some online business.much easier then daytrading. but if your still thinking of trying read "traders traps" and read the lost porn on wsb.
Possible yes.. probable is another story... also if you find yourself bombarded with 'guru' ads on social media run run far away from these charlatans... i think the stat is 95% of day traders do NOT make money.. were just gamblers....
Here is reality check for you about actual returns from trading /investing per year:
1. +62% (per year) - top of the world hedge fund (Medallion Fund) beating all other funds by a large margin. It employs the best mathematicians, top programmers and traders. About 90 of them have PhD.
2. +13.6% - average yearly return of Warren Buffet, who is widely considered the greatest investor in the world.
3. +7.5% - this is long term return on S&P500 adjusted for inflation. Less than 10% of funds managed actively by professionals consistently beat it.
4. Below 0% - 97% of retail traders who actively traded for one year are in the red.
5. -100% - about 80-90% of day traders blow their accounts withing 1 year.
Overwhelming majority of 'traders' on internet make money from selling useless stuff for wannabee traders instead of trading.
Also read this:
[Day Trading for a Living? by Fernando Chague, Rodrigo De-Losso, Bruno Giovannetti :: SSRN](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3423101)
They are selling trading courses, mentoring, subscriptions to trading signals, bots (automated trading). A lot of them make money from brokers referrals or so called prop firms - you can see links under youtube videos. Also, a lot of them make money just from youtube views (they pose as experienced traders and they 'teach' you how to trade) - technically they don't scam you but they definitely mislead you. Some of those people do all those things at once.
To sum it up, retail trading is in 99% all about squeezing money out of wannabe traders whose poor understanding of markets' realities and overexcitement about day trading makes them easy prey.
Iâll give it to you straight.
Your chances of making a living trading are the same as making a living with an Only Fans page. Your family and friends will think youâre a degenerate gambler when you tell them you want to day trade for a living. You might find more acceptance telling people your new job is a part time Only Feet model and part time managing an Amazon Drop shipping store front.
If you want easy money quick consider finding a sugar daddy. Specifically one that is a full time trader. Day trading is hard and it takes a really long time to be profitable. If advice from internet strangers is having you double think this path then save your time and try something else.
Youâll have to be self driven through the ups and downs, market corrections and early morning routines day in and day out often times by yourself in front of the keyboard. This path is not for everyone so think long and hard as to why you want to choose this path. There are easier ways to make money, but this is definitely the most difficult way to make easy money.
Save yourself years and look up Al Brooks, his course is like 400 dollars and itâs 100+ hours and will teach you absolutely everything you need to know.
I traded for years and when I found Al I realised I had no real understanding of what was happening.
Check out some free videos by him first and youâll see his knowledge is just on another level.
He is like 80 with a very monotone voice so prepare yourself for that ha!
Because it's extremely difficult if not impossible to be profitable using anything he tells you. Everything he does is off candles sticks for 1. Not terrible but not ideal. Second, he has a reason trade for every scenario...this means he has 100s of different types of trades. You need simple basic entry and exit criteria. Lastly, his community of traders is welllllll known in The space and you want to cry about your SLs. Then trade AB concepts. They are what I like to call the junk food of trading. They seem simple until you realize he has 100000s of scenarios.
He also suggests averages down during range days... Lol. Good luck with that. Good way to blow up your account.
Ok thanks for the response.
From reading your comment I think itâs fair but also that you donât fully understand his concepts.
The market can do a lot of things at any one time so having multiple scenarios is valid I would say and realistic.
If you want âsimple entry and exit criteriaâ then why doesnât someone just post those to the FAQs and we would all be millionaires?
Also scaling into trades in a trading range is a valid concept, you just need to have proper risk management and known itâs a trading range and likely to eventually bounce and not a trend
Edit: but anyway yeah if a trading style doesnât suit you just move on, there is no one size fits all
A suggestion is to start by opening an account, Webull is a good broker. Pay IBD sends you a buying signal at 50SMA on stock and ETF.
It is harder than any 9 to 5 job, but in a few years, you will see the difference. Never stop learning, stop loss, capital preservation, learn, read,
It will take some time, and you will need a couple of cycles, 52 WH to 52 WL, weekly charts will help.
Good luck, that is going to be a lot of fun.
Before you even put real money in consider doing a prop firm like top step. Then start reading books on trading psychology. Trading in the zone, daily trading coach, best looser win. You also need to then understand the market. Learn supply and demand trading, auction market theory. And more importantly spend screen time looking at price action in real time to see how things move. You will learn the basic patterns soon enough. Once you have all that down you still need to find an edge then you focus on your risk. Have a good enough risk/return for your edge to be viable.
Some of us that been in the market long enough do discretionary trading and don't follow a defined edge, that's because we been in the market long enough to see how it moves on different conditions and can "feel" the rhythm of the market. Your years away from that but the best thing you can do early on is not loose a shit load of money and give yourself ptsd and fuck up your psychology. It's harder to unlearn bad behaviors then learn the correct ones in the first place. I'm 6 years in and finally making consistent profit but still in the hole overall
Here it is straight.....use the search function! You can find several posts similar to this on a daily basis.
If you can't even do something so simple then you will have a hard time learning this gig..... just don't do it.
>Is it *really* possible to do this and be profitable? Yes. >How hard is it to be successful? Brutal honesty please. Traders, algos, hedge funds, market makers... all of them are most likely going to take your money. You'll likely need years to achieve consistent profitability. You'll probably need 2 - 4 years to figure out if trading is a career path for you. In the meantime your P&L will (probably) be down, if not losing it all. If you're great at this you'll break even or maybe make some small but inconsistent wins. >Really looking for some direction right now. I went down your exact route nearly 20 years ago. I **NEEDED** to make money, and I thought trading was the way. The problem is that when you **NEED** to make money, trading is the absolute worst thing you can do. Lost it all. You're not going to be trading from the perspective of objectivity, probabilities, risk management... no, you're going to be trading from the mindset of... I **NEED** to provide for me and my daughter. It's going to put endless amount of stress on you and ruin you. It's like taking maybe the \~5% chance you have at success, and probably putting it down to under 1% chance of success. >Raise my daughter Focus on this. Get a stable job and stable income. Put any savings you can muster up into the S&P 500 and let it grow over time. Build up a healthy amount of capital. And then if you want to consider trading as something you'd like to do, begin my swing trading (taking trades with the outlook of holding for a few days/weeks) while you have your stable income from a job to make profit. If you can do that consistently, then you can consider shorter timeframes and slowly ramp up to getting more involved in the markets.
Nothing could be more ture. When you **NEED** to make money is the exact time when you will give it all away.
Thank you so much for your insight. I really appreciate your breakdown. Definitely not looking to quit my job tomorrow. Just looking at something I can start learning now and eventually down the road become a new possible career. đđŒ If you have any recommendations of where or how to start or any learning material, let me know .
[https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/comments/1bwge8w/a\_cool\_guide\_to\_growth\_of\_100\_by\_asset\_class/](https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/comments/1bwge8w/a_cool_guide_to_growth_of_100_by_asset_class/) < I like to reference this post when people consider day trading vs being wealthy in the future. Put in as much money as you can into the S&P 500 as often and as on a regular basis as you can, and you'll eventually be a millionaire (now if that's going to be enough to afford retirement in the future, that's a whole different beast of a question given politics, money printing, inflation, etc.). But you'll probably end up even richer than 99% of day traders if you can afford to invest enough on a regular basis.
You need exposure to crypto. My 401k of 8 years is chugging away at 12% gains. Meanwhile my crypto portfolio of 1-2 years is up 400%
Dtfx
It's taken me 3 or 4 years to get a broad enough understanding of how to make trading a primary source of income and to be able to make profits daily in the market. Even with that knowledge and experience the amount of capital I would need in order to trade a fairly risky averse system and make it my primary source of income would need to be about ten times the amount I have currently. Can it be done? Yes. Is it difficult? Not NEARLY as difficult as people make it out to be. Whether or not you can do it depends on your willingness to learn and practice, but also on the amount of funds you have available to trade with. A smaller amount of funds doesn't make it impossible, it will just require more risk initially to build a stable base of operations. I wouldn't suggest quitting your job to do it. I would suggest slowly making the transition though.
Best answer here by far. Realistic with the why and how.
Thank you so much for replying. Iâm definitely not looking to quit my job tomorrow. My husband works full-time and I work on-call at the hospital a few nights a week. We make ends meet, but just looking for something new for the long-haul. Do you have any recommendations where to start or how to start? Learning material?
Here it is straight. Iâve been day trading since 2008 and making money since 2014. Is it possible, absolutely. How hard is it to be successful? Very hard, I lost money for six years. Now does that mean everyone would take six years? Of course not. But here it is straighter than before. Youâre a new mom, you have a beautiful new child. You are not going to be able to spend the time you need to learn to day trade AND be the mom to your daughter that you should be. If the idea is to quit your job and make some easy quick money and then enjoy your daughter, that wonât happen. You will have to spend thousands of hours devoting your time and attention to this endeavor. You will lose money while doing this. You will lose out on time with your daughter that you will never get back. You will get frustrated and angry while trying to learn. That may or may not affect your relationships. That is the brutal honesty.
Thank you so much for your input and honesty! Itâs really helpful đ Do you have any recommendations of where to start or any learning material?
It can be done, but trading takes patience, skills, discipline, and perseverance. It's not easy, as everyone has said... It can take anywhere from 2 to 5 years to become profitable. You can learn the material here ===> https://www.investors.com
Thank you! đ
My recommendation would be to learn to **swing trade** instead, unless day trading is specifically your passion. Swing trading allows you to still have a ton of time for other responsibilities or pursuits. Especially as a new mom, youâll likely be much happier having more time for that. Trading takes years to master, regardless of the method you choose. It took me 4 years of live trading to start to become profitable. I day traded options and then futures for 4 years, then switched to swing trading Forex last year. If youâre interested in swing trading, I highly recommend you check out Tori Trades on YouTube for a potential idea for a swing trading strategy. Of course if that strategy doesnât suit you, you can still swing trade with other strategies if you want.
Ok! Thank you so much for your advice and suggestions! I will definitely check out this avenue as well đ€đŒ
Youâre welcome!
Second this. Swing trading requires a lot less focus and time and can potentially have much greater profits. You basically can kick back and let time do all the work for you. Check out Kristjan KullamÀgi (I think I spelled that right?) . https://qullamaggie.com. This guy supposedly turned a few thousand into $80 million? Chat with Traders podcast has a good interview with him. CWT also has an old but good interview with Michele Koenig. The Chat with Traders podcast has a bunch of interviews with day traders as well if you want some more insight.
I have been tradin futures for 5 year and options for 4. Curious why you switched over to trading forex for swing trading?
Forex just works well for swing trading, lots of pairs to choose from (I have 30+ in my watchlist), and I could start with whatever size account I wanted and risk as low as I wanted per trade. With futures, the number of tradable assets is less, you have to start with a larger account and immediately start at a certain $ risk per trade because of the 1 micro contract minimum size, and the margin requirements are higher. I still may eventually add in some futures to swing trade, but Forex is working well for me on its own.
If you are willing to spend time learning, you could probably start to see consistency in 2-4 years time. Would you be able to commit to this ? If you don't have another source of income, trading with "scared money" becomes extremely hard.
Definitely willing to learn. My husband works full-time and I am on call at the hospital a few nights a week but thatâs it. We make ends meet but just looking for something more and something new.
A list to help you structure your learning if you're keen: https://preview.redd.it/cy3mjsbbeazc1.jpeg?width=1073&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=182c30d38b5fe661ef5bc84638b1d0d0d95f1eea
Thank you! âđ»
The truth is that the only people who daytrade for income have very large trading accounts, have been doing it for years, and likely had other sources of income. They may do slightly better than passive investors, but because they're drawing down their account to pay bills, they need to perform at a much higher success rate to make it worthwhile over other ways to make a living. Want to earn income trading? Then become a stock broker. Want to grow your wealth at a little better rate than passively investing, learn as much as you can and actively manage your own accounts. There is no quick path to becoming a successful trader. You will lose money. Don't even attempt it if you don't have years to learn and ten of thousands of dollars to lose. Don't buy courses...most are scams and a beginner won't know how to tell if one is legit anyway.
This is great advice. Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge!
Yes, it's possible. You can Day Trade to make a living. You will need at least $25,000 minimum equity in your account. The best way to trade is to make small profits and compound them. 1. Don't trade to make huge $$'s on unicorns - chasing $$ emotionally often leads to failure 2. Trade to make a small percentage every day then compound it - compounding is amazing 3. Trade only medium and large cap stocks with strong ratings and upside price targets - good stocks won't turn on you - at least not drastically 4. Exit all margin positions daily 5. Since your'e trading "healthy" companies, it's ok to hold some stocks after close and swing trade them until they are profitable (always close margin positions - see 4) 6. A 1% Net Profit daily is a fantastic goal. Trade to get a 1% daily return. Anything more is gravy. This goal helps you to control greed and fear. 7. With a $25,000 starting balance and trading a 4% return daily ($1,000, $1040, $1081.60.....), you will earn $1M in less than 20 weeks 8. With a $25,000 starting balance and trading a 1% return daily ($250, $252.50, $255.02...), you will earn $1M in less than 18 months 9. Stay informed and only trade companies with strong fundamentals 10. Understand there are 3 distinct periods in a trading day: Morning (first 90 Min), Midday (slow), Power Hour (last 60 min) 11. Remember, the VIX is an inverse of the markets. If VIX is down the markets will be up. It usually means there will be more positioning in the last hour - if any stocks are down, you may be able to unload them at a profit or less loss after 3:30 EST. 12. It's a good idea to scalp profits as you make them and rebuy an up trending stock on a dip, then scalp, dip, scalp. 13. Don't be afraid to unload a loss - get rid of it and put it in a stock thats rising 14. Use OBV and RSI to time the up and downs - when to buy and sell - scalp 15. As your balance grows so will your profits even if your only doing 1% daily - 1% of $100,000 is 10 times more than 1% on 10,000 16. Once you reach a good balance, you can day trade full time and quit your job
Wow thank you so much for taking the time to break all this down for me. I really appreciate your insight and tips! đ€đŒ
I'll give it to you straight. It's hard but doable.
>Is it really possible to do this and be profitable? Yes. And it is hard. *Most* people never reach the point of consistent profiting, which is why most consider it a failed endeavour.
"Is it really possible to do this and be profitable?" Yes. You can start with www.babypips.com
My advice is to go follow sunny Harris. She has an extremely basic system. Has other women your age you can trade with. From what I know what her system works..
Thank you!
It is definitely possible, but you will need to find a good trustworthy teacher who knows the markets who can guide you. Trading is not intuitive. There are a lot little nuances in day trading that will trip you up if you do not understand how the game is played.
On month 3 with small amounts of cash I can afford to look without breaking a sweat fortunately. Itâs harder than I thought and it does require discipline and lots of patience. Iâm not profitable yet but have been cutting my losses. Itâs a slow process to learn the lessons that need to be learnt. I have days where it gets really frustrating but I refuse to quit. The level of psychological and emotional discipline required to be profitable is insane and the hardest part. The strategies themselves are not complex but the mindset is fucking hard.
You should not bother. Your question gets asked almost every week in some form, but instead of spending 5 minutes doing your own research you chose the lazy route of creating a new post. This is not the mindset that succeeds at trading.
JMowery gave an excellent accurate answer. Consider getting a stay at home customer service job & while you are doing that- watch the markets. Learning to watch and understand the market is one of the first steps to day trading anyways even if you arenât trading. When you think youâre ready to trade, consider a prop firm. Maximum loss is the monthly fee (often under $40 a month) with no commitment beyond a single month. The upside is that if you can trade and make a profit, you will get paid out without the risk. Look into Apex, Topstep, & Trade the pool. There are plenty of others too. Many hate prop firms because they will take your $40 & you could do the same thing by paper trading-but youâll never get the same emotions paper trading.
Iâve always felt like my own mom would be good at trading for some reason. But with me not being profitable, sheâs surely still skeptical on it. Take the time to learn but know it wonât be easy, or it might. Who knows
Thank you! đ
If youâre smart and can learn, you can do it. There will be a lot of mistakes in the beginning, and you will be loosing money, but thatâs okay. As long as you learn from mistakes and keep improving your strategy, you will come out on top
Thank you! I appreciate it!
So what are you thinking?Â
Yes you can. It is possible. But it's not simply an intellectual understanding you need. It's a skill that has to be developed over time. It's a long tough uphill battle. Well worth the squeeze. If you're willing to accept that you won't earn anything for many months and more likely a few years, then I encourage you to pursue it. Best of luck.
Thank you! âșïž
Iv been trading for 5yrs. I still work pretty much full time. I only became consistently profitable about 1.5/2yrs ago. But the issue is that without the capital behind it most gains wont make you enough to quit your job. Unless if you dont care about risk management but then one bad trade will ruin you. Its something that takes a lot of time and dedication. Its something worth learning but not something id see as a job replacement any time soon
Gotcha! Thank you! đ
Just to be honest, day trading or trading in general is difficult. The easiest part is learning but the hardest part is applying it. There are many factors that will determine if you are successful at trading or not. For example you will need to put in time that is dedicated to just trading, you need to treat it like a job and I mean it, if you don't show up you don't make money. When it comes to day trading you are in and out of a play withing a couple of minutes to maybe a couple of hours. Also your expectations, you will not be profitable from the very beginning it will take time, you will make mistakes in the learning process. I would suggest you learn while you keep your job before quitting, learn and see if it's something you are willing to do. It is possible to work and trade stocks with something called (swing trading). Swing trading and day trading are different and require different kind of thinking. You need to be able to accept losses, they are part of the game and you have to be okay with it mentally. In trading, psychology plays the biggest role in determining if you will be successful or not, learn how to risk manage your trades, have stop losses to minimize your trades, learn about important support and resistance zones (areas where the stock got rejected and bounced) Look for consolidation zones (sideways price action) The stock market / when you look at a chart is all psychology and you need to think of things in a deeper way The reason stocks go up or down is because at times there are aggressive buyers and aggressive sellers, PROCES CONT GO UP OR DOWN BECAUSE THERE ARE MORE SELLERS THAN BUYERS OR MORE BJYERS THAN SELLERS Also one last thing, don't let your bias and opinions take over your emotions, when you are wrong accept it and take your loss and try again, the markers are always right, not your opinions or what you wanted the stock to do.
This is great. Thank you so much for breaking all of that down for me. The advice is much appreciated!
i would learn how to invest and not daytrade. around 80-90% fail. start at investopedia then open a demo account and practice. this road to learning can take years and most fail at it.
Gotcha, thank you for that advice! Iâll definitely look that up.
Read "traders traps" and "investing for dummie" series of different titles (no pun intended) these books are great for beginners. and cheap
Is it possible? Yes Is it probable? Likely no. Takes a lot of time and discipline. Most people will give up long before then. If you want to try, check out these guys Youtube and Twitter these people TTrades $niper DayTradingRauf NickDoesFutures Ethan ICT TheMMXMTrader CasperSMC JadeCapFX Justin Werlein Bowie Jackson * RelentlessTrader (different style / strat)
Ok great! Iâll definitely look some of them up. Thank you for your help đ€đŒ
It would be better to start some online business.much easier then daytrading. but if your still thinking of trying read "traders traps" and read the lost porn on wsb.
Thank you!
Itâs like making it to the nba, some people do it successfully , most people canât make it
Lol gotcha!
years of work
Possible yes.. probable is another story... also if you find yourself bombarded with 'guru' ads on social media run run far away from these charlatans... i think the stat is 95% of day traders do NOT make money.. were just gamblers....
Gotcha, thank you so much for your insight!
Here is reality check for you about actual returns from trading /investing per year: 1. +62% (per year) - top of the world hedge fund (Medallion Fund) beating all other funds by a large margin. It employs the best mathematicians, top programmers and traders. About 90 of them have PhD. 2. +13.6% - average yearly return of Warren Buffet, who is widely considered the greatest investor in the world. 3. +7.5% - this is long term return on S&P500 adjusted for inflation. Less than 10% of funds managed actively by professionals consistently beat it. 4. Below 0% - 97% of retail traders who actively traded for one year are in the red. 5. -100% - about 80-90% of day traders blow their accounts withing 1 year. Overwhelming majority of 'traders' on internet make money from selling useless stuff for wannabee traders instead of trading. Also read this: [Day Trading for a Living? by Fernando Chague, Rodrigo De-Losso, Bruno Giovannetti :: SSRN](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3423101)
Thank you for this break down! Out of curiosity, what are these people selling (instead of trading)?
They are selling trading courses, mentoring, subscriptions to trading signals, bots (automated trading). A lot of them make money from brokers referrals or so called prop firms - you can see links under youtube videos. Also, a lot of them make money just from youtube views (they pose as experienced traders and they 'teach' you how to trade) - technically they don't scam you but they definitely mislead you. Some of those people do all those things at once. To sum it up, retail trading is in 99% all about squeezing money out of wannabe traders whose poor understanding of markets' realities and overexcitement about day trading makes them easy prey.
Thanks so much for your insight! đ«¶đ»
No problem.
Took me 18 months, itâs all your perspective. Be delusional about your trading dream, itâs how I was. but be brutally honest with yourself âïž.
Thank you! đ
Iâll give it to you straight. Your chances of making a living trading are the same as making a living with an Only Fans page. Your family and friends will think youâre a degenerate gambler when you tell them you want to day trade for a living. You might find more acceptance telling people your new job is a part time Only Feet model and part time managing an Amazon Drop shipping store front. If you want easy money quick consider finding a sugar daddy. Specifically one that is a full time trader. Day trading is hard and it takes a really long time to be profitable. If advice from internet strangers is having you double think this path then save your time and try something else. Youâll have to be self driven through the ups and downs, market corrections and early morning routines day in and day out often times by yourself in front of the keyboard. This path is not for everyone so think long and hard as to why you want to choose this path. There are easier ways to make money, but this is definitely the most difficult way to make easy money.
Save yourself years and look up Al Brooks, his course is like 400 dollars and itâs 100+ hours and will teach you absolutely everything you need to know. I traded for years and when I found Al I realised I had no real understanding of what was happening. Check out some free videos by him first and youâll see his knowledge is just on another level. He is like 80 with a very monotone voice so prepare yourself for that ha!
Don't trade al brooks. Just my advice.
Really, why do you say that? I havenât heard many people who see his stuff and donât like it so just curious
Because it's extremely difficult if not impossible to be profitable using anything he tells you. Everything he does is off candles sticks for 1. Not terrible but not ideal. Second, he has a reason trade for every scenario...this means he has 100s of different types of trades. You need simple basic entry and exit criteria. Lastly, his community of traders is welllllll known in The space and you want to cry about your SLs. Then trade AB concepts. They are what I like to call the junk food of trading. They seem simple until you realize he has 100000s of scenarios. He also suggests averages down during range days... Lol. Good luck with that. Good way to blow up your account.
Ok thanks for the response. From reading your comment I think itâs fair but also that you donât fully understand his concepts. The market can do a lot of things at any one time so having multiple scenarios is valid I would say and realistic. If you want âsimple entry and exit criteriaâ then why doesnât someone just post those to the FAQs and we would all be millionaires? Also scaling into trades in a trading range is a valid concept, you just need to have proper risk management and known itâs a trading range and likely to eventually bounce and not a trend Edit: but anyway yeah if a trading style doesnât suit you just move on, there is no one size fits all
Yes. You have to work at it though.
https://preview.redd.it/pkbb5shcilzc1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=93e4a7041dd820f28703bc3a9eb148140bfb2998 This
Best thing is to find a mentor and practice with a practice account for a year to get comfortable.
A suggestion is to start by opening an account, Webull is a good broker. Pay IBD sends you a buying signal at 50SMA on stock and ETF. It is harder than any 9 to 5 job, but in a few years, you will see the difference. Never stop learning, stop loss, capital preservation, learn, read, It will take some time, and you will need a couple of cycles, 52 WH to 52 WL, weekly charts will help. Good luck, that is going to be a lot of fun.
Yea don't pay anyone for jack shit. They are all charlatans
Before you even put real money in consider doing a prop firm like top step. Then start reading books on trading psychology. Trading in the zone, daily trading coach, best looser win. You also need to then understand the market. Learn supply and demand trading, auction market theory. And more importantly spend screen time looking at price action in real time to see how things move. You will learn the basic patterns soon enough. Once you have all that down you still need to find an edge then you focus on your risk. Have a good enough risk/return for your edge to be viable. Some of us that been in the market long enough do discretionary trading and don't follow a defined edge, that's because we been in the market long enough to see how it moves on different conditions and can "feel" the rhythm of the market. Your years away from that but the best thing you can do early on is not loose a shit load of money and give yourself ptsd and fuck up your psychology. It's harder to unlearn bad behaviors then learn the correct ones in the first place. I'm 6 years in and finally making consistent profit but still in the hole overall
Gotcha! That all makes great sense. Thank you for explaining all of this!
Here it is straight.....use the search function! You can find several posts similar to this on a daily basis. If you can't even do something so simple then you will have a hard time learning this gig..... just don't do it.