Time to independence?

Independence Day

Hi everyone,

I was wondering how long, for those fortunate enough, it has taken you since you started trading until you were able to quit your job and trade for a living? Also, what was your initial account investment size? I wouldn't want to pry so if you don't want to say how much, or just want to say less than 1000 or less than 5000 etc that would be great.

The reason I ask is because as a newbie trader, which admittedly I VERY MUCH am, it would be interesting to hear(read) real accounts of trading independence rather than all the BS get rich quick stories the forex world seems to be littered of.

Cheers,
Greg

P.S. Any tips on how to follow in your footsteps would be much appreciated too!

You make the assumption that everyone who trades wants to quit their job and trade for a living. The folks who trade for a living are a minority. It takes a substantial trading stake (I'd argue six figures) to sustain yourself and both the willingness to tie your fate to the markets and a system that can produce consistent performance. Those conditions aren't easy to come by.

As for how long it takes to reach consistant performance, no one can tell you. For some it takes years. For other it takes months. Amount of time dedicated to the markets is a factor because experience is hugely important.

Rhody Trader said:

You make the assumption that everyone who trades wants to quit their job and trade for a living. The folks who trade for a living are a minority. It takes a substantial trading stake (I'd argue six figures) to sustain yourself and both the willingness to tie your fate to the markets and a system that can produce consistent performance. Those conditions aren't easy to come by.

As for how long it takes to reach consistant performance, no one can tell you. For some it takes years. For other it takes months. Amount of time dedicated to the markets is a factor because experience is hugely important.

Click to expand...

I can understand why from my post you think that I make that assumption - point taken. My intention was to question the folks who do trade for a living, and I would consider them fortunate, how long it's taken them to do so and what they had to sacrifice in order to get to their goals.

I wasn't asking to find out what the 'holy grail' of time or effort was, nor did I want to take any answers and convert it to an average of some sorts. I believe that individual success is unique to everyone, but there are similarities along the way - this is how by nature we are able to learn from each other. But I would be very interested to read any accounts of how and how long anyone took to get there to qualitatively learn from individual experiences.

I hope I've managed to express myself more clearly this time. Thanks for picking me up on that John.

Greg

I gave up my job when I couldn't keep focused. When i reached the point of pay more time and attention to the markets than to my job. I began to feel bad, i felt like if i were wasting time working instead of learning and getting experience in markets.

Am I crazy? Was it an error to quit from work before of achieving a good level in trading?

Who knows. Time will say.

ps. sometimes i miss my safe monthly salary :whistling

fxgreg said:

Hi everyone,

I was wondering how long, for those fortunate enough, it has taken you since you started trading until you were able to quit your job and trade for a living? Also, what was your initial account investment size? I wouldn't want to pry so if you don't want to say how much, or just want to say less than 1000 or less than 5000 etc that would be great.

The reason I ask is because as a newbie trader, which admittedly I VERY MUCH am, it would be interesting to hear(read) real accounts of trading independence rather than all the BS get rich quick stories the forex world seems to be littered of.

Cheers,
Greg

P.S. Any tips on how to follow in your footsteps would be much appreciated too!

Click to expand...

If you can get someone to back you then you go can go full time immediately.

I never went down that route, i did it the hard way:

On your own it will probably take several years before you are ready.
You can try going full time sooner but chances are you will fail a few times and have to go back to your day job. The learning curve is several years.

But if your living expenses are very low and you have a very big stake relative to this you could go full time while you learn. But you run the risk of blowing it all..

So I wouldn’t recommend going full time until you have profitable part-time track record. And i think you need to have at least three times your annual living expenses saved up, having 5 or 10 times is even better. At some point you will need to take money out of your account to pay taxes and living costs, so your yearly profit target needs to be several multiples of your expected living costs. Otherwise you will be spinning your wheels, you account will never grow.

As a full time trader you should be aiming for 100%+ returns on your risk capital.

No point going full time if you are only aiming for 20 or 50% returns, unless your capital base is massive. You can probably make that type of return as a part time trader.

So roughly when starting out:

If you need 10K to live on, you should start off with 30K minimum. Set aside 10K for living expenses and aim to make at least 100% on the other 20K you have in your trading account. That is still going to be very tight and doesnt sound like a big reward for all the effort you are putting in, so having 50K to start off with instead is going to be better.

Now if you have real life (family, house, cars, holidays etc) then your living expenses are likely to be in the 25K to 75K per year range. So we are talking 100K to 250K in starting equity to even think about going full time.