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London
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NT
Trading: EUR?USD
Posts: 3 since Apr 2011
Thanks Given: 1
Thanks Received: 1
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The post should read ' How to make money when you have none'.
Its a major problem for most aspiring traders. You start with the fuzzy knowledge that you can make your fortune by figuring out the market. You are going to catch all the big moves with your trade room guru, secret proprietary method or just plain gambling addiction.
A couple years down the road, you can still see the potential in the market and all those near misses and early exits are the obvious reasons, so you will persevere. Still the results are middling and no way you can live off what peanuts you make.
Its then you start to look at the boring side of trading.
How much money do you have?
How much can you risk?
How much do you need to make per annum after costs.
What are your emergency responses to nasty surprises? Internet connection, platform issues and order entry errors and on and on
Does your lifestyle allow for the time your trading method demands.
Lets answer a few of the above.
I want to make $200k a year.
Ok then, what percentage of your available funds does that represent.
5%, 10% 50% or more.
Then you realise if you make say a whopping 50% then you need $400k to start with and you would already be in the super trader category with that return.
What percentage of my equity can I risk with each trade
I have an 80% successful method - skys the limit buddy.
But you need to ask what drawdown you can afford on your account before you would stop trading
After that how much you need to make on each trade to cover that drawdown.
Ask yourself THE WORST CASE SCENARIO of how many losses does probability say I can have with an 80% success rate at various profit targets.
Does your method allow you to get those profits with 80% success.
So you do all the calculations and the depressing answer is yes my method does work but probability states the worst case scenario exceeds my trading capital.
or yes I can cover the drawdown.
So you are now looking at the market as a professional risk manager and gone is the gungho gun slinger with the massive ego.
If you are liquid poor but sensible you need to look for other options than trading your own money.
Ideas?
My trading method is brilliant so I will start a trade room and subsidise my own trading with that
Do a combine with the well known prop firm featured heavily on this site.
Save up and practice on sim until you meet the liquidity minimum.
A word about the prop firm. Its a great idea and I do recommend it. However you need to be really good to hit their targets.
A 30k account with a profit target of $1500 in 10 days = 130% per annum
A 50k account with profit target of $3500 in 10 days = 182% per annum
A 100k account with profit target of $8500 in 10 days = 210% per annum.
All of those targets are at the extreme edge of the performance distribution of traders so they are setting the bar very high . Obviously the easiest combine is the 30k account if you want the best chance.
If you have anything to add on this topic of transitioning to a professional trader I would love to hear it.
Good luck with you journey.
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