the most important question in this forum

We all do this for one reason – to make a profit.

 

Can anybody truly say that month after month they are making a profit?

I have day traded uk stocks for years and found it to be extremely difficult.  I have used ProReal and also written my own code in c++ and still it seems impossible (maybe I should swing trade and do fx or indices)

I genuinely believe less than 1 in 1000 people consistently make a profit day trading stocks.

Not asking for your strategy or code but just an honest answer – have you been consistently profitable short term trading over the past year? (wish I could set a poll up on this forum) and if so what are you trading?

 

 

 

This is a link to a recent topic where you can find other useful links and discussions.

https://www.prorealcode.com/topic/stupid-maybe-but-real/

Roberto

I go through phases where I am profitable day by day, but then I have a really good day and I (stupidly) up my lotsize (justified by the good profit that day!) and then I am caught out by a mad price movement which I then have to sit out until I am back to entry price / break even.

Above scenario happened yesterday (the good day) until the single big 4H candle doing near enough a full 61.8 Fib retrace today (the bad day!).

Called a 2618 … a double top followed by a 61,8 retrace!

https://www.tradingview.com/chart/EURUSD/tvRSWCJq-EURUSD-4hr-Potential-2618-Opportunity/

GraHal

 

Thanks guys.

If I met somebody in the street and they told me they wanted to day trade I would honestly tell them to never try.  I think a drug habit is less damaging.

You are very likely to lose £lots and waste years of time which could have been used to set up a much better profitable business.  In my opinion the time wasted is the biggest cost.

However I do accept that holding shares for months / years i.e. investing can be a good thing. Professional traders don’t day trade – they hold positions for weeks/months.

 

So if you do consistently profitably day trade month after month year after year please step forward and post on here  else lets campaign to have day trading made illegal.  It is just betting for the middle classes.

 

As with everything in life you get out what you put in.

If someone expects to just buy a working system off of someone who tells them it is great and will make them a fortune and then find that they actually lose money then their return is exactly the mirror of their effort. Whereas if someone dedicates years of there life to studying the markets, learning to write their own strategies and years understanding how to test those strategies then they are likely to get far more out in the way of profits. It takes a lot of patience (and maybe a big losing streak) to learn to sit on the side lines and study your subject. In this modern world with everyone’s need for instant gratification that is not a trait many people have.

Oh and professional traders do day trade – ever heard of high frequency trading?

 

If it was easy everyone would do it

To answer your question i think it is very few that actually make some steady profit trading

but we all do it for fun? its better than gambling

 

I think there is 3 groups

1. a very few, maybe 5-10% that makes money over time
2.  then you have some that sometimes is in profit but ends up giving it back to the market again and again
3. the majority that are losers (using small accounts with high leverage)

this is from a forum, you may have seen it already

“lets look at accounts for the first 9 months of 2016 that came directly to us and funded with $1,000 to $4,999 in their account. we saw that the leverage they used was typically 11:1 and they won 54.98% of their trades. Unfortunately only 12.27% went on to be profitable during the life of the account.

this shows that retail traders are good, no one denies that, were it not for the spread a lot of spreadbet firms would really struggle to survive, but it also tells us that our clients losing trades lose more than their winning trades win even though they may win more often than they lose.

don’t move stops.”

http://www.trade2win.com/boards/spread-betting-cfds/220766-interview-highbury-fx-2.html

 

Thanks for the posts guys.  I am not referring to people who dream and expect to make quick money but those with high IQs who put in years of hard work and still end up nowhere.

High frequency trading is just jumping the queue on prices (cheating based on speed some might say) which is not what I was referring to either……I am on about professional traders who trade at normal frequency based on trying to predict a price based on a strategy – they don’t day trade – for starters they often cannot accumulate enough volume in a single day as they are trading £large.

I genuinely believe virtually nobody on this forum who is attempting algorithmic trading is actually a profitable day trader.

The so called profitable day traders cannot wait to quit day trading and “teach” others as they know what an unpleasant way to try and make a living it is – adhoc spurious income with no feeling of security vs easy money from naive newbies.

I really hope I am wrong and look forward to somebody posting on here saying “I have been consistently profitable over the past year or two day trading”………so far nobody has… which reinforces my view

 

 

 

 

I’ve been day trading for 23 months now. Not full time but I look at charts every day.  The first half of that time was just manual trading and then the second half just automatic trading. I dedicate most of my time to writing automatic strategies and indicators for my own use now. I am 109% up on my starting balance.

I don’t consider myself to be a full time trader and I am sure I could have made more had I dedicated more time to it but I am satisfied so far. I’ve had bad times such as being on the wrong side of Brexit and the Trump election but they were just minor black swan glitches along the road.

So in answer to your question yes people have been consistently profitable over the past year or two day trading.

Vonasi,

congratulations I take my hat off to you – respect!  This is great news. I do not wish to know your strategy/code as I respect and understand your privacy.

Are you

• day trading ?
• trading just stocks – if so UK or US ?
• were your profits evenly spread each month/quarter

How many trades approximately have you made in the past two years and why do you not trade full time?

I am grateful for your response.

Day trading and medium term. Not normally holding for more than two weeks. Sometimes closing within a few hours normally within two days.

Never individual stocks. mainly the big popular indices, some commodities and some of the forex majors. The indices are the most successful and the forex the least for me anyway. These days I tend to concentrate on one or two markets only. Know your enemy and know him well!

Of course my profits were not evenly spread each month. Events such as Brexit and Trump will always ensure that that is impossible plus the odd strategy that did not work as expected can throw a spanner in the works. If you want regular income get a day job at McDonalds.

When I started I liked to have at least one trade a day if not more but at the moment I place only about six live bets a month. That is through choice – I prefer quality over quantity. I have some ‘quantity’ strategies on backtest that may go live soon though.

I don’t trade full time because there is more to life than sitting at a computer staring at lines going up and down and believe it or not there is more to life than money. I have many good friends who are now six feet under far too early in there lives that have taught me this. Plus if I traded full time my girlfriend would put me six feet under! I live an unusual lifestyle that affords me plenty of spare time so when I say not full time I mean that I do not dedicate all of my ample spare time to trading.

I don’t consider myself to be a good trader nor expert on the subject but I think I understand the basics of what is needed to be profitable. I have a mind that loves finding solutions to problems and enjoys maths and statistical analysis which I think helps. If you like art then you may not have the right sort of mind to be a good trader!

Hope this helps.

Vonasi great reply thank you.

My own personal opinion is that it is easier to trade something like the FTSE 100 index over a few days – the price is just a lot easier to predict even just manually trading.  That is why I am thinking of moving away from day trading stocks.

I believe that to algorithmically day trade stocks is just too high risk as to make consistent profits requires movements of >2% in a day on a share with a sensible risk /reward ratio because the broker fees are just too high.

FX is meant to have greater volatility but I have never ventured in to FX.

 

Thanks again for a great reply – anybody else on here have any profitable consistent profits success stories?

mancunian wrote:

Vonasi great reply thank you. My own personal opinion is that it is easier to trade something like the FTSE 100 index over a few days – the price is just a lot easier to predict even just manually trading. That is why I am thinking of moving away from day trading stocks. I believe that to algorithmically day trade stocks is just too high risk as to make consistent profits requires movements of >2% in a day on a share with a sensible risk /reward ratio because the broker fees are just too high. FX is meant to have greater volatility but I have never ventured in to FX. Thanks again for a great reply – anybody else on here have any profitable consistent profits success stories?

Some of your thinking is already putting you on the right path to success.

Volatility is a double edged sword. Things go up as quickly as they go down!

Start small and build your confidence. Do not be in a rush. Every loss is a lesson to be absorbed.

Hi, I am not yet int the list of constantly winner. Although there is a thought that motivates me: sometimes I feel like the “opposite indicator”…. something like : “hey Mancunian! Tell me when you trade then I will entry the market in opposite direction” then I will be profitable!

That though motivates me to continue. Someone has made profits that day.

I like forex is very cheap to trade.

Leo lol I have made some amazing profits but consistency is the problem for me.

 

Anybody else consistently making profits over the past year or more on here?

mancunian wrote:

I have made some amazing profits but consistency is the problem for me. Anybody else consistently making profits over the past year or more on here?

‘Consistently‘ is difficult in trading. If you have enough money then consistently losing small amounts for five months in a row is absolutely fine as long as in month six you hit a big win that surpasses the total of the small losses. Have lots of diversified strategies running all doing the same and you might be a bit more consistent and luck into a big win every month – or you might get all the big wins in month six. Trading is not a regular pay check at the end of the month. Markets do not know that you need to feed the kids this month!

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