career switch to trading?

[shadowninja]

It's called a job.

Seriously, though, from a purely theoretical viewpoint, imagine your system was 90% successful and returned £1 for every £2 risked. How much of your account (in percentage) would you risk per trade? 2%?

 

[SanMiguel]

It's called a job.

Seriously, though, from a purely theoretical viewpoint, imagine your system was 90% successful and returned £1 for every £2 risked. How much of your account (in percentage) would you risk per trade? 2%?

Yeah, actually without the money upfront a job would be as much of a con as a prop shop
You'd win £9 for every £2 lost. But that's on average...you wouldn't risk 50% of your account on this because all you need is 2 trades in a row lost and that's it.
I personally have always been comfortable with a max of 5% risk but this would mean I could have 6 losing trades before 30% of my account is gone. 6 losing trades is not unheard of even for profitable traders so 2-3% seems about right and just consistently ramp up the account to trade on compound interest.

100 pips a week is very achievable with consistency and not blowing it away by upping your risk at any stage.

 

[shadowninja]

6 losing trades... sure but from what probability are we talking about? For my specific example, you'd be... unlucky... to get 6 losing trades in a row. Get a D10 die and see if you get 6 1s in a row.

 

[SanMiguel]

6 losing trades... sure but from what probability are we talking about? For my specific example, you'd be... unlucky... to get 6 losing trades in a row. Get a D10 die and see if you get 6 1s in a row.

In the short term, yes. However, as with everything with probability it's entirely possible.
I don't know many 90% systems...despite what people claim. I guess 80% is within reach.
80 trades out of 100. Not sure what the exact probability is but entirely possible to get something like 2 losses, 1win, 2losses, etc. etc.

Anyway, I am comfortable with 5% for my current account size but it doesn;t mean I should trade 5%. As your account grows, most would naturally reduce risk a little.

However, maybe I should shove everything into gold given the big retrace recently

 

[shadowninja]

Yeah, but if we're talking about 80%, then risking 30% per trade (or whatever it was) is clearly more risky so we'd head down towards the 5% level maybe.

 

[danga]

If it doesn't work out, so be it - just tell the truth when you look for a job. You travelled, then ran a full time trading business for a while. Employers aren't going to look at you in horror because you spent 18m doing these things. You had 10 years solid prior to that. People take sabbaticals.

It's a waste of time, life and money to go and do something only for the sake of filling a gap on the CV. Besides, either it does or it doesn't work out for you in trading. If it doesn't and you have some finance qualification - what are you going to use it for? To get back into an IT role (where your experience is) or do you plan to move from IT into finance?

I'm sure you weren't considering it, but don't lie on your CV - I don't need to explain why. As advice, that beggars belief.

I agree with Dommo, tell them the truth.

Money spent on courses only just to fill in a gap could be money spent on topping up the account.

JMO

Dan.

 

[meanreversion]

There are plenty of people out there on sabbaticals right now. It's no disgrace, it's the economy.

 

[Pipmaster11]

Show me a system that will make money 100% of the time

San Miguel -

I was in your shoes. I worked at a Business/IT consulting firm for nearly three years and decided to move to Chicago to pursue a career in trading. I recently left my 9-5 IT consulting job to join a prop firm here in Chicago. After 4 months I am starting to turn the corner, albeit very slowly. If you are interested, the guy I trade for offers a Virtual Trade Room for a small monthly fee, and I think the firm is still accepting applicants for the prop group. Regardless, if you are interested in learning more about the VTR send me a private message and i'll forward your information to the group to get you a free one day trial.

Best,
PipMaster11