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4 months of trading on a simulator. Months 3 and 4 showed consistent profitability (80% green days). Starting with $1000. That is sufficient for my strategy (highly volatile, cheap low float stocks).

 
Thedaytrademan

4 months of trading on a simulator. Months 3 and 4 showed consistent profitability (80% green days). Starting with $1000. That is sufficient for my strategy (highly volatile, cheap low float stocks).

with a sample size that large, literally cannot go tits up

If the glove don't fit, you must acquit!
 

Ask you what exactly? Nothing you wrote is unique, helpful or can be taken remotely seriously saying that you've only trade simulation and quit your day job to start with $1,000 capital. You can't even trade small caps to make living, assuming you having no leverage because you're only trading cash market. Ok, let me ask you this... What's your edge? Saying you trade momentum on news break is not really an edge. I'm not asking you for the secret sauce but give me a small overview, so we can have an engaging conversation and talk "trading" stuff.

 

I do trade with leverage. The broker I use offer 4:1 which means I am able to buy a 1000 shares of stocks under $4. I don't understand this notion that being a profitable trader requires having some sort of secret sauce... My process involves picking the right stocks (low float, news etc), using technical analysis to analyze sentiment/identify potential entries, and using level 2 and tape to pinpoint breakout points since with a small account, I am trying to only trade breakouts for now. A lot of people think to have edge, you have to be doing something different to everybody else whereas momentum trading is actually the opposite, your jumping on the bandwagon with everyone else so really my edge comes mainly from being able to read level 2 and tape to pinpoint the highest probability entries/ breakout point. My daily goal is to scalp a small profit (10 cents per share per day). With 1000 shares (as per having $1000 with leverage) that's $100 a day. With $100 a day, the following month I can up my daily goal to $200 and scale each month eventually growing the account. This obviously requires having high accuracy. Fortunately, through practice, I have found reliable technical setups that combined with good level 2/tape reading skills, offer high win rates. 

With the right stock and technical skills (technical analsyis, tape reading etc) being able to consistently predict a $0.10 breakout is entirely possible. 

 
Most Helpful

Reading the level 2 in equities isn't really foretelling given how manipulative they are relative to derivatives. When I first got into trading, I worked for a sweat shop in Philadelphia, day trading equities. I began my career when facebook's IPO came out and man, it was rough. It was straight eat what you kill. Long story short, I got ran over. I got into trading before it became popular on social media and it became the new thing. This must have been back in 2012 and I recall meeting a former market maker at Scott Trade and he was hired to teach at some trading academy, that was charging ridiculous price. I didn't have the money at the time but two thing is emphasized to me that resonates me to this day. 

1) Stop trading equities and get into futures. It's less manipulative and you get leverage (which can be a double edge sword, if you don't know what you're doing.) I'll give you an example, when I was worked at the hedge fund trading natural gas, I clearly saw someone was spoofing. You know what I did? Called CME and showed proof. They don't mess with that shit. You think equities care about that? Lol. Another thing, I remember another trader besides me accidently fat figured a super illiquid product. It must have been like 100 ticks from the mid market price. Some random ass trader, I don't know why he was even looking this far into depth, saw it and took advantage of it. I think that one trade costed us like $30K in a second. We called CME and reversed it.

2) Trade needs to be systematic. Forget drawing trendlines, forget candlestick patterns, forget triangle formations. Forget all of that. When I say systematic, I'm not talking high frequency/mid frequency, quant trading or algo trading. I'm talking about having a systemic approach without your biased signal. The market doesn't care about what you drew on the charts. Have a definitive reason. When I worked at the hedge fund, I was not a portfolio manager, I was a market maker/prop trader. I didn't give a shit what the market was going to be trading a week from now. Unless I had some material risk on my book that wasn't full delta hedged and I some residual, ok, maybe. After work, you know what I had to do? Literally look at hundreds and hundreds of indicators, look at math, explain it and what it meant and backtesting a bunch of shit after creating the script plus running a market making business. The developers who worked in the back were doing their own thing and I only bothered them if I genuinely had a strategy for them to build something or they wanted me to run something or changing something related to our market making business and they wanted me to validated their codes. What I'm trying to say, as a trader, you have to be hungry and question everything. It's not, oh the indicator shows oversold or overbought. Like no, that's some retail mentality. Learn the math, ask why this does what it does and backtest it.

 

Sounds like you are screwed, or will be SOL soon. 

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 
Thedaytrademan

This is real life bro not tik tok

Which is what I would say exactly to you. GL bro, I hope you come out on top, but seems you don't have enough capital and your strategy is naive. 

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

Next Paul Tudor Jones incoming lol. What was your day job that quitting to momentum day trade small caps with $1k was a better option?

"If you don't have any enemies in life you have never stood up for anything" - Winston Churchill | "It's a testament to the sheer belligerence of the profession that people would rather argue about the 'risk-adjusted returns' of using inferior tooth cleaning methods." - kellycriterion
 

Haha. Actuarial. Obviously, trading with $1000 is a limitation but after spending some time on the simulator, i saw the huge potential that trading small caps has to offer and realized that I was probably better off committing to practicing trading full time so I can eventually develop the skill to be consistent. I always had the desire to work for myself, saw this as an opportunity, and made the leap to transition. The goal now is to slowly grow the account so I can take bigger size and make bigger profits. Won't be a billionaire doing this but I believe I will be making 6 figures in a year or two, and hopefully not too long after, low 7 figures. The market certainly provides the opportunity, question is whether I can develop the skills needed to capitalize off it and I do believe I will. 

 

Sure no probs. I will say this: Since I am still new, I won't be expecting impressive results or even consistent profitability for that matter anytime soon (i.e I will more thank likely make many mistakes e.g emotional trading, overtrading, not applying technical correctly etc) but I am committed to the proccess and like to think 6 - 12 months from now, I should develop my skills to consistency. ATM, bouncing between sim and real money. Ill give an update in 3 months but I'll reiterate, don't expect anything big, too premature. Remind me closer to the time in case I forget. Cheers for the moral support.

 
Thedaytrademan

Sure no probs. I will say this: Since I am still new, I won't be expecting impressive results or even consistent profitability for that matter anytime soon (i.e I will more thank likely make many mistakes e.g emotional trading, overtrading, not applying technical correctly etc) but I am committed to the proccess and like to think 6 - 12 months from now, I should develop my skills to consistency. ATM, bouncing between sim and real money. Ill give an update in 3 months but I'll reiterate, don't expect anything big, too premature. Remind me closer to the time in case I forget. Cheers for the moral support.

Dude how are you going to pay your rent?

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

Woah, never thought that far ahead, just posted this AMA on Monday cos market was closed and was bored. Maybe. I'll say, for now, I'll keep you posted with my P&L every three months. I'll show daily break downs. Like I said above, be patient with me. In my opinion, through self reflection, I think the next 3-6 months will be steep learning meaning lots of mistakes but I am hopeful after enough time, my results will improve to consistency. I am committed to do this no matter what!

 
Thedaytrademan

Woah, never thought that far ahead, just posted this AMA on Monday cos market was closed and was bored. Maybe. I'll say, for now, I'll keep you posted with my P&L every three months. I'll show daily break downs. Like I said above, be patient with me. In my opinion, through self reflection, I think the next 3-6 months will be steep learning meaning lots of mistakes but I am hopeful after enough time, my results will improve to consistency. I am committed to do this no matter what!

Bro let's have daily updates, just for sh*ts and giggles. I think it will be healthy for you. Explain trading rationale and disclose outcomes. 

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

The legit comment on trader questioning everything and doing math was interesting, but why do all tht for a zero sum game

trading makes 0 sense in todays world (unless commodities/futures sure). Equities is rtrded

 
Moneyman4lyfe

No one cares

The naivete is hilarious. That's gold, Jerry. Gold!!!!!

Thats Gold Jerry Gold GIFs - Find & Share on GIPHY

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 
Pizz

Do you have health insurance? If so what type and how much do you pay per month? 

I recently had to price out COBRA. (thank you gardening leave)  My good  high deductible health plan is about $900/mo.

The only difference between Asset Management and Investment Research is assets. I generally see somebody I know on TV on Bloomberg/CNBC etc. once or twice a week. This sounds cool, until I remind myself that I see somebody I know on ESPN five days a week.
 

You can’t say “Ask Me Anything,” and when I ask how your trading went yesterday you don’t respond…….. fake AMA

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 
Thedaytrademan

You can ask anything you like.... My discretion whether to answer.... In any case, I will answer your question in 3 months time I said. 

Dude what a lame AMA. The usual protocol for an AMA is ask ANYTHING and the person gives an answer to EVERYTHING. If they don't answer everything, just asking a million questions is pointless, fruitless.

Lame things so far in this thread:

- Your ability to do an AMA

- Your trading strategy

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

He's putting all his risk somewhere that's going to end up biting him.  If this was really risk-free money one of the HFT shops would have systematized it by now.

The only difference between Asset Management and Investment Research is assets. I generally see somebody I know on TV on Bloomberg/CNBC etc. once or twice a week. This sounds cool, until I remind myself that I see somebody I know on ESPN five days a week.
 

Who said it was risk free? HFT shops tend to focus more on large caps than small caps, precisely because small caps are TOO RISKY. I am willing to trade these as I have a strategy which provides edge with risk management in place. There are profitable retail traders out there you know? Meaning there are opportunities in the market for retail traders.

 
Thedaytrademan

Who said it was risk free? HFT shops tend to focus more on large caps than small caps, precisely because small caps are TOO RISKY. I am willing to trade these as I have a strategy which provides edge with risk management in place. There are profitable retail traders out there you know? Meaning there are opportunities in the market for retail traders.

Just because you're not seeing the risk doesn't make it risk-free.

The only difference between Asset Management and Investment Research is assets. I generally see somebody I know on TV on Bloomberg/CNBC etc. once or twice a week. This sounds cool, until I remind myself that I see somebody I know on ESPN five days a week.
 

Is this you?

-

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

How's it going so far?

What are you trading? i.e. large cap stocks, small cap stocks, options, crypto, ETFs, futures, all of the above, etc.

Which platform are you using?

 

Going well actually, slow and steady progress. It's early days for me so I am expecting to make mistakes and I have but also learning from them and generally starting to feel things are clicking now. Started on sim for 4 months, went to real money, then 2/3 months later back on sim, will likely continue on sim for the next 2 to 3 months so overall, I've been at it for about 8 months or so and as I said, things are starting to feel likely they're clicking.

I trade small caps with low floats (under 10mil float). I did also dabble with futures and options but in the end I settled with small caps.

I am using Sterling Pro as my platform. They offer hotkeys and direct access routing, both of which allow me to get in and out of positions quickly which is essential for scalping highly volatile low floats. 

 

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The only difference between Asset Management and Investment Research is assets. I generally see somebody I know on TV on Bloomberg/CNBC etc. once or twice a week. This sounds cool, until I remind myself that I see somebody I know on ESPN five days a week.
 

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The only difference between Asset Management and Investment Research is assets. I generally see somebody I know on TV on Bloomberg/CNBC etc. once or twice a week. This sounds cool, until I remind myself that I see somebody I know on ESPN five days a week.

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