Advice needed: New Trader

[Epps]

Hi all,

I’ve just recently started trading about a month or so ago. Naturally I’m a little apprehensive regarding my ability to make sufficient money and a living from trading full time and just require a bit of advice and reassurance.

I am currently trading for a trading firm that specializes in trading Euribor, Eurodollar and Short Sterling markets. The agreement with the company is that I am entitled to profit share of 25%, which will be revised upwards once I have reached a certain amount in my trading account. I am trading with the company’s money; none of it is my own. On top of this take into account desk fees of about ₤700 per month and round trip costs of ₤1.16 (with monthly rebates depending on the amount of round trips I do in a month). Over the past month I have had mostly profit-making days trading Euribor but have found that a lot of the profits I make get negated by round trip costs. Also, bear in mind that I have an Honours degree in actuarial science, but am not a qualified actuary. So I always have that to my name if trading does not work out the way I would want it to.

I love what I’m doing but do have a few doubts. What I’m looking for is a bit of advice from someone a bit more experienced than myself (which should be pretty much all of you!). What are my future prospects if I continue trading? Is there a career to be made from trading? What kind of money should I expect to be making per month? Will I be able to make a comfortable living and provide for children, buying a house, etc?

Any help, advice or opinions you could offer me is much appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[TraderPattern]

Give yourself around 2 years to become consistently profitable, and that is by no means guaranteed.

So, have around 2 years of living costs stashed away, and have an exit plan (another career) if you can't break into the minority of successful traders after around 2 years.

Too many newbies think trading is easy street. It is anything but easy street, but the few successful traders amongst us show that it can be done.

If you need any advice to help you on the path to success, pm me.

 

[Directional]

what size clips are they letting you trade? presumably you're trading the calendars?

if you're profitable trading spreads with small size within a month then I'd say thats a pretty good start - if you can show you can do that consistently for a few months then all you gotta do is do the same thing but trade much bigger size.

Your commissions seem a tad high, but if they come down with volume then you just need to focus on proving your consistency and then working bigger clips. With more volume those small profits will be bigger through the extra contracts, and the lower comm will make your profitability better.

 

[Directional]

too right! I'd missed the 25% bit - unless you're getting a decent basic or some serious other benefits, thats the worst profit share i've heard of for a grad scheme

 

[Epps]

Thanks for all the input. Am on clip sizes of 30 lots at the moment...small because I've only just started. Have had training from an experienced trader at the company who is still giving the grads his input to help us along while trading. Won't be getting paid a basic, receiving a draw at the moment & have a few smaller additional benefits. Must admit that I'ma little skeptical about the whole thing as I'm still new to this trading thing