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I am a fulltime trader for over 15+ years the last 10 have been really risk trading for various Canadian bank/prop shop and most recent at a offshore based Family Office. In case I forgot to mention it hasn't been smooth but up until the last 8 years. But that's when I really started to hone my skills. I trade via Interactive Brokers ( my volume over 3M shares/monthly and I feel I pay too much. Regardless, i am consistently profitable.
If anyone cares I can share my experience in a progressive way if you care to listen.
Trading: Primarily Energy but also a little Equities, Fixed Income, Metals and Crypto.
Frequency: Many times daily
Duration: Never
Posts: 5,048 since Dec 2013
Thanks Given: 4,384
Thanks Received: 10,206
I think that's an interesting point @AllSeeker. Being a 'Full Time Trader' and being a 'Full Time Trader AND being finically dependent upon it' are very different things. I find a lot of 'Full Time Traders' often have other significant income streams. and hence are not dependent upon their trading income.
The responses to this thread have been pretty interesting, also very sobering, but enlightening. I appreciate all of the honest replies from those that trade full time.
I have suspected it is mandatory that an independent trader is adequately capitalized (whatever that is?) in order to make a living. The responses to this thread seem to support that. I also suspect that most people that start trading feel it is possible to grow a relatively small account into something large enough to have a career change. I know I did...and do...well that's the dream anyway.
A few other things I have learned that I suspect are true would be:
* I think there are a very, very small amount of traders that are able to grow an account into a career change. The odds seemed to be stacked against this route.
* I suspect there are many advantages to being adequately capitalized, prime among those advantages are...psychological. Those that have adequate resources, or other more passive streams of income are more likely to weather the challenges the markets present.
* Over the course of the career of an independent trader there will be a time, or times, when a trader will be massively challenged. These 'challenges' include either a massive draw down, extended periods of break even trading, or an all out blow-up. I have read too many stories, some from legendary traders, of these things happening. It comes down to the resources the independent trader has access to that allows them to survive this. Some have leaned on their personal resources, others on alternate income, others on outside funding. But it seems that disasters are likely to happen, and whatever contingencies a trader has access to will determine their survival.
I'm not saying that it isn't possible to make a significant amount of money over the course of a lifetime as an independent trader that is trading on the side, either part time or full time. But I do have questions whether it is feasible for most independent traders with a small initial account to grow that account into a career change.
I am definitely interested in reading others perspective on these points, and I am definitely interested in valid arguments that project a rosier outlook for the 'little guy'. .
I'd like to just briefly add one important distinction regarding the title of this thread. The term "full-time trader" to most industry professionals refers to an individual employed by a financial institution to execute transactions on behalf of his employer and/or their clients, and who receives a salary to perform this function. Typically, such a trader is funded by other people's money, and will continue to receive his base salary even if his P&L goes negative. An independent trader, meanwhile - that is, one who trades his own capital - should not be referred to as "full time" because his income is not directly tied to the amount of time he puts in.
Yes, this is semantics, but given the importance of expectations in this endeavor I feel that it's well worth mentioning.
I think that this is a good distinction, and if the OP, @SBtrader82, would like the thread title changed it can be done.
But honestly, I think that no matter what is the practice for industry professionals, most or all members of the forum understood "full time" to mean "I've got no job but trading," with "trading" meaning "my trading," not "the boss's trading." Sometimes, of course, it may mean "I've got no other job except a few little side jobs that help with the bills." But it's still about "my trading."
Very few people are here just so they can get better at their work job, even if they are employed as traders at work.
Bob.
When one door closes, another opens.
-- Cervantes, Don Quixote
You're absolutely correct, although at least one participant (@cvargas) seems not to have made the distinction. But mostly I just wanted to emphasize the point that time is rarely the primary distinguishing factor in the feasibilty or sustainability of one's independent trading endeavors
Edit: I tried a couple of times to illustrate why your attempt to tag cvargas in your post didn't succeed (the name is not underlined bold), but every time I typed in an example, the system perversely didn't cooperate and went ahead and did the tag anyway.
So I'll just say it this way: often (except apparently when I'm trying to demonstrate it), if you put an initial parenthesis right before the "@" sign, without a space, the tag won't work. If you leave a space after the opening paren, it does.
However there is also apparently a rule that it won't work when it's me doing it for demonstration purposes. But it you always write it as "( @Schnook)" it will be OK.
When one door closes, another opens.
-- Cervantes, Don Quixote
Yes, I agree with Bob, the idea behind the title was to catch the attention of FIO members that are independent fulltime traders. My original idea was to have them post something to clearly state that they are trading fulltime and that their mainly source of income (or accumulated wealth) is trading. So, please pardon me the title that is probably not formally correct.
The purpose of this thread is twofolds:
1) to create a "list" of who does this full time. This will be a source of inspiration for other FIO members: they will check this thread and they will see a list of somebody who can state clearly "I made it, I can support myself and my family through trading". Many many times I have read people saying "there is nobody actually living of their trading", so this thread can help us to stay motivated and to not care about naysayers.
2) it will be the right place to ask some questions to these fulltime-independent-traders.... if your best friend was an independent trade what would you ask him?
For instance I would like to know what the routine of a full time trader looks like, do you guys spend most of your time in front of the screen or do you do mostly other stuff?
Do you take many trades per day or only a few? If you take only few trades how do you cope with your passion for the markets, in case you are passionate about markets.... or how do you keep yourself busy when you are not trading?
Hi @Salao,
I think that capitalization nowadays is not the real issue anymore, let me explain why: years ago everybody was mentioning the fact that traders blow up because they are undercapitalized. In the webinar "An Afternoon with BigMike", @BigMike he mentioned that as well and he suggested that a good account to start with would be 50K.
If you look at his statements from 2015 (posted in the forum somewhere) in February 2015 he started with 32K and ended the month with 90K. But things have changed, now you can do exactly the same with micros, so you can turn 3K to 9K in one month if you know how to trade.
Micros are 2x to 3x more liquid than minis now so in theory this is definitely doable.
In the same way that a good trader can trade on a shoestring, most traders will blowup a 50K account in matters of days or minutes given the amount of leverage that brokers offer.
I think that nowadays there are 100s of opportunities to grow a small account into a fortune, I cannot do it yet, but I am working on it.
Right now I know that capital is not the problem, the problem lies somewhere else deep inside me.
Hey @SBtrader82! Thank you for creating this thread! Who couldn't use a little inspiration? I agree that the micros create an opportunity for the little guy. And I hope that one day this thread will have a few posts about a traders that took a micro account to a career change. It would definitely be nice to see the blueprint for that. I know a few traders that I'd say there is a decent chance that they'll be those future posters!
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