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How much should I be making on one contract per day?
After many years of trial and error, and mainly failure ....I feel like I am on the path to consistency...
My question is at what level do you consider yourself consistent/successful?
How much should I be averaging per day on one contract? Is $100-300 good enough?
During flat/low vol periods? Or during high volatility periods?
The following user says Thank You to emptymind for this post:
It sounds like you are on the right track. There is no hard line in the sand from a dollar amount per contract perspective, this is going to be relative to a few other things.
1. Your risk profile is one of the key pieces here. Someone could use a martingale betting system and only lose 1 day out of every 100, but the one day they lose, they lose their entire margin account. So you need to factor in your risk profile to determine the quality of your earnings, not just the dollar value at the end.
2. Your profit margin is another aspect of it. Some systems have a very tiny profit margin, and this may not even be sustainable in the long run, so anything close to a break even, may need more work.
3. The number of trades per day should be factored in as well. If you have a system that takes 2-3 trades per day and seems to be doing well, that's great, but this is likely not enough data to be statistically significant. In order to get to a true expectancy calculation that is accurate, you will need to have enough data. A system taking 20 trades per day over 1 year will have a much more accurate expectancy calculation vs a system that takes 2-3 trades over a few weeks. The first example system you will likely see very little deviation from historical performance and the second example system will likely be over or under by a magnitude of 100x because there is not enough data points to draw any conclusions.
Having said all this, if you have a system that can check all of these boxes, then you only need to make 10 -20 net profit per contract per day and you can scale contracts and have a very nice living off of trading. It won't take $200 - $300 per contract per day to get you there..... You can get there with far less, and make your income scaling your system to 5 - 10 contracts if you have very reliable returns.
Hope this gives you some perspective.
Best of luck!
Ian
In the analytical world there is no such thing as art, there is only the science you know and the science you don't know. Characterizing the science you don't know as "art" is a fools game.
The following 3 users say Thank You to iantg for this post:
If you mean "average profit per contract" then $300 is not realistic for active day traders. A better way is to think about it in ticks or points. For the ES, if you can make more then 1 tick after costs then that is better then less then 1 tick because it probably means your strategy/trading is more likely to do well in the live. But, as iantg alluded, the amount you risk per trade and number of trades is important.
But, if you are a very active trader, say 6 or more trades per day, then around $16.50 per contract (1 tick plus costs) would be a great target. If you are only taking a few trades per day then 1 point to 1.5 points average profit per contract would be a top end estimate for the ES. This would be $50-$75.
But, this doesn't tell the whole story because risk and winning percentage is important too. A lot of trading systems might have a higher profit per trade but take a lot more risk then a discretionary trader and/or have asymmetrical skewed risk-- which can work if done properly.
As such, this is all very hypothetical and generalized. Keep in mind too, that we're assuming under either highly realistic simulation with limit order realism on fills or live. If you are not operating in those conditions, you need much higher profits to have confidence. Also, in live your results can be worse and you can still be profitable.
Profit factor is important too. Profit factor is gross profit divide by gross loss. Normally, as you seek to increase profit factor your number of trades will go down and your net profit. If you take more trades, you might make more but the trades you take will be mediocre meaning there is a greater shortfall risk.
Basically, if you're making money in live then that's basically good.
But I'd consider the following
Stellar, Any stats in this range are great, if all stats are in this range then it is stellar.
Gross Profit factor: >= 2.0
Winning Percentage: >= 65%
Avg # Trades Per Day: >=4
Net Profit Per Trade/Contract: >= 1 tick ($12.50)
Additional: Symmetrical or nearly symmetrical, avg win > avg loss, largest winning day > largest losing day, avg win day > avg losing day,
Average, more realistic, still likely profitable but confidence is lower
Net Profit Factor: >=1.2
Winning Percentage: >=55%
Avg # Trades Per Day: >=4
Net Profit Per Trade/Contract: >= 1 tick ($12.50)
If any of the stats are in the following range, you might or might not be profitable. But any stats in this range are questionable. If your stats are in this range, it might indicate that you are struggling or might have problems.
Net Profit Factor: >=1 <1.2
Winning %: <=50
Net Profit Per Trade/Contract:< 1 tick
Risk: Skewed to risk more then reward