says who?

first of all, $300K in the bank and $3K on the account is not under cap... heck, personally I split my accounts across FCM's and I dont keep all my capital on those accounts... if you look at one account, you might think I am under cap, but the reality is that I am not. The whole point of being properly capitalized is that you wont be out of the game with a streak of bad losses, even if you have to transfer more capital to the trading account, the trader with $300K on the bank is not undercap..

so not following your logic... and more importantly, if the trader is ok with the risk, then what is it to you?

you make some good statements, but you are still not getting the point... as TMFT stated, and I have stated before, you are attempting to impose your opinion that could be right or wrong...

I have a few friends that run hedge funds, and plenty of them that trade for hedgefunds and those that run technologies for hedge funds and the reality is that they would certainly laugh at 10%per day because though they take risk, they have investors to account to and wont risk more than what they should... besides HF deal with way different strategies from those in this forum...so let's not necessarily compare the wanna be trader (ourselves) and the true professional trader that is Series 3 & 7 and has been properly trained and funded to trade with firm capital...

still, in the end that it cant be done is your opinion ... and you seem to hide behind the "it is proven because of risk, your account would be blown" ... which is not crazy, but again, your opinion and nothing more... just like the myth of 99% of traders fail... when in reality it is 99% of undecapitalized, unpreppared, uneducated wanna be traders that fail... but every one out there without the brassballs will say that everyone fails because they failed...

what you seem to miss as well is that one can actually trade all day across multiple markets, focusing on one at a time, and actually average that 10% per day .. when starting with a small $3K account (and to me small is $50K fYI)... there are so many ways to skin the cat if as stated as well one exercises proper money/trade management, that it can lead to averaging 10%... over the very short term.. over the long term, that is another thing... but as I stated before... not impossible..

it is easy to get on a soapbox and claim facts without true scientific measure, and it seems to me that you are more interest on arguing your point than debating your point... so this thread is now getting unproductive...

By the way - I hope all participants are enjoying this as much as me....

There are people out there that think they will make a living off a $5k stake. They are undercapitalized. This is the reason they look for ridiculous returns and blow their accounts doing so. This is the reason that the internet is full of 10% per day nonsense. It is the undercapitalization that causes people to seek this stuff and repeat it.

Now - you say there is no scientific method in my posts. On the other hand, I don't see any counter arguments using the same scientific measure you seem to hold so highly. You make not a single point in favour of 10% per day being possible, yet you say it is possible.

It's all nice "having a dream" but you need to trade reality. Trading isn't a mathematical endeavour or a science. It is an art/sport. Making a profit isn't a science. This is why engineers fail at trading. They try to resolve it with math/science.

Now - as for this point:

"what you seem to miss as well is that one can actually trade all day across multiple markets, focusing on one at a time, and actually average that 10% per day .. when starting with a small $3K account"

This is not true - nobody does it. You cant' do it, I can't do it and neither can anyone on this forum. It SOUNDS possible but it isn't. You'd have hundreds of thousands of dollars in less than 2 months and you would not have hit any scalability issues at that level.

Let's take the $3k. There are 2 ways to return 10% per day.

1 - lots of small trades. If you do this with $3k, the commissions/spreads would represent a very large portion of your profits, which in turn would push up your required win rate to lofty levels.
2 - one or two big trades. Commissions/spreads would be less of an issue but your issue would be the amount of profit needed from each trade. It would force you to put on a large proportion of your stake for each trade.

Both options end with the same result on a $3k account - a balance of zero.Now, of course, if 50,000 people tried it - one would succeed through sheer chance. This is survivorship bias at play.

If you think 10% from a $3k account is 'easy' - then why not show us - just 5 days would be enough.

By the way - I hope all participants are enjoying this as much as me....

Day trading IS a sport. It is much closer to a sport than to an engineering discipline. Like a sport, you improve with practice. Like a sport luck plays a very small part in your ongoing success. Like a sport, if you try something different every day you get nowhere. Engineers approach trading as a problem with a mathematical solution. Hence the prevelance of people trying hopelessly to put together automated systems. They do this because the thought of uncertainty kills the engineering mind.

Of all the profitable day traders I know - not a single one has a mechanical/mathematical system. They are profitable as a result of hard work, study, and experience. It is that experience that makes someone with 10+ years trade a system effortlessly when you can give that system to a novice and he'll fail - even though it's the same system. This is the nature of day trading - a lot of it is in the gut. A bit like a sport

Quants mostly work on risk analysis. A common misconception is that quants dream up mechanical systems all day. This is not the case. Most mechanical systems are not in any way related to the type of directional positions that retail traders trade. Arbitrage and predatory algos with all of the infrastrucure required to get in first would not be around if it were possible to just dream up directional systems based on TA - which is what your average programmer cum trader tries to do (and fails).

As for fees. Let's say you have a system that wins 60% of the time. You place 30 trades for 100 shares each and you average $10 per trade. You will have made $300 before fees. There is the 10%. Now - if you consider the fees of around $60, you will see that you now need to make $12 per trade - an additional 20% per trade. This is where fees kill you on the multiple small trade approach.

If you are saying that someone with a $3000 account (your example, not mine) can make 10% a day trading multiple markets and that fees are NOT an issue, then please show how. It is the nature of the small account that they attract higher commissions than someone with a large account.

The fact is - this is just one of many things standing in the way of the dream. Like I say - as soon as you look at the realities of trading a $3k account with a goal of 10% per day, you can see why it's doomed to failure.

Why is it better to trade with a 100k account than with a 50k account ?

I have the tendency to think that your losing days are bigger with your 100k account, because your account 'can stand it'

if you trade 10 lots a time, why would a 100k account be better than a 50k account ?

When you trade size, like 20 or 50 cars a time or more, most brokers need you to keep a $1000 margin.

Why is it better to trade with a 100k account than with a 50k account ?

I have yet to meet a single trader that is making a profit from automation. Automation is not really a cure for psychological issues, it is mostly a dead end. In my experience people attempt automation as a substitute for learning how to trade, not to gain consistency.

over the long term, retail traders auto systems will fail...most are overoptimized.. so we are in agreement that it is hopeless for retail to autotrade trying to gain an edge on things they dont understand. You are confusing two things though... trading and day trading.. please know they are to different things.. how about this... try day trading 500 contracts on Futures without a clear mathematical edge and only on your gut and see what happens.

It seems everyone has different belief about this. My believe is the exact opposite. I believe not all auto-trade-system are over optimized. If you are talking about things like FAPTurbo, or Megadroid or other similar software then yes. But the experienced trader can trade auto-trade-system too which they can ensure it's not over-optimized.