grubs50 said:
*sigh*yes, that is another reason i used the 'fake' zow screen name....I wouldn't be able to contribute to these other threads without the 'prejudice' that 'zow' carries even though I think I do have relevant, possibly helpful, advice for Dwaddell.
I'll put it here anyway......
When trading you want to be as free of all burdens (mental and physical) as possible. HAVING to make money to support a wife/kids is a MAJOR mental burden. And I don't mean you should dump the wife & kids!
Just need at least to be aware of it and make extra allowances.Here's a controversial bit: personally I do not think £50k is enough to start trading full time to support a family.....(let the flood gates open.....)
ZOW
Yeah, I read that on one of your other posts re: the £150K re-mortgage.
That, for me anyway, is currently way out of my comfort (and financial) league.
You mentioned in another post that you started with £30K and lost it before going back in. What did you trade with your £30K, how much per point?
I would have thought (perhaps naiveley) that trading £10 a point and taking 20-50 points a few times a week from the DOW for instance would result in a reasonable income (600-1500) a week...?
I could support my family on that...its more than my current salary!
Yeah, I read that on one of your other posts re: the £150K re-mortgage.
That, for me anyway, is currently way out of my comfort (and financial) league.
You mentioned in another post that you started with £30K and lost it before going back in. What did you trade with your £30K, how much per point?
I would have thought (perhaps naiveley) that trading £10 a point and taking 20-50 points a few times a week from the DOW for instance would result in a reasonable income (600-1500) a week...?
I could support my family on that...its more than my current salary!
50K is way way more than enough if you are already able to trade, but if its your learning to trade money and also to support a family - just aint gonna happen simply because you are going to be thinking about the money and you wont be able to ever get to trade properly with that pressure
i guess someone living on their own and is prepared to live real frugally could make it with that
i guess someone living on their own and is prepared to live real frugally could make it with that
50k?, if dat is d case then there is no hope for small time private traders then, i've always believed that anything is possible and i'm sure that there would be one or two people who started small i.e £1000- £10000 and have multiplied the money by being disciplined and principled traders
Looks like Stevet and me (and I?) are in agreement....
i did lose a good chunk of that first £30k but more importantly i realised that
a) i was not going to make any real headway, real money with this amount of capital,
b) my running costs were too relatively high (no broadband internet data feeds then)
c) trading from home is VERY different from trading from a bank
d) i still had to more to learn
i was trading 1 or 2 ftse/bund/gilt.
Now as to your 'trading £10 a point and taking 20-50 points a few times a week from the DOW for instance would result in a reasonable income (600-1500) a week'.
It is a calculation we are all tempted to do in our heads (i find myself doing it sometimes). We might even put it on paper, on a spread sheet and it looks SO good, SO simple. But NO, It is extremely dangerous to think like this. It makes no account of losing days/weeks and the psychological as well as financial hits you will take. You cannot think of the money when you trade which is what you will be doing if you have this calculation in the back of your head (or even worse, on a piece of paper in front of you)
AS a little tester you could try this: Have that calculation in mind, trade £1 a point (or less if possible) to take 20-50 points a few times a week from the dow to make 60-150 a week. (Same ratios as your example) If you can do that for say 3 weeks I'd be impressed.
i did lose a good chunk of that first £30k but more importantly i realised that
a) i was not going to make any real headway, real money with this amount of capital,
b) my running costs were too relatively high (no broadband internet data feeds then)
c) trading from home is VERY different from trading from a bank
d) i still had to more to learn
i was trading 1 or 2 ftse/bund/gilt.
Now as to your 'trading £10 a point and taking 20-50 points a few times a week from the DOW for instance would result in a reasonable income (600-1500) a week'.
It is a calculation we are all tempted to do in our heads (i find myself doing it sometimes). We might even put it on paper, on a spread sheet and it looks SO good, SO simple. But NO, It is extremely dangerous to think like this. It makes no account of losing days/weeks and the psychological as well as financial hits you will take. You cannot think of the money when you trade which is what you will be doing if you have this calculation in the back of your head (or even worse, on a piece of paper in front of you)
AS a little tester you could try this: Have that calculation in mind, trade £1 a point (or less if possible) to take 20-50 points a few times a week from the dow to make 60-150 a week. (Same ratios as your example) If you can do that for say 3 weeks I'd be impressed.
Zow , i think because of your banking background u have always been used to trading in big figures and it carried on when u started trading independently 2. It helps to have a big amount as starting capital but i think one can make it from relatively small capital 2.
ZOW
OK, I was overzealous with my numbers. On a good month just now, trading £1 - £2 a point I get about £250 profit, most months less than that....but still, if I could acheive the same rate at a £10 per point then I'd return about £2K per month.
Yes, easier said and written than done...I appreciate that, but when you are trading small, you automatically scale it up in your mind (I do anyway) because that's where you want to be and you consider it acheivable, whether it is or isnt in practice...perhaps greed, again, wanting too much too quickly....
OK, I was overzealous with my numbers. On a good month just now, trading £1 - £2 a point I get about £250 profit, most months less than that....but still, if I could acheive the same rate at a £10 per point then I'd return about £2K per month.
Yes, easier said and written than done...I appreciate that, but when you are trading small, you automatically scale it up in your mind (I do anyway) because that's where you want to be and you consider it acheivable, whether it is or isnt in practice...perhaps greed, again, wanting too much too quickly....
grubs50 said:
When I first tried with £30k I had to trade small (1, 2 lots max). As I wrote above trading from home is VERY different from trading for a bank - one of those differences was indeed the size but possibly not in the way you might think.
I'd be up/down say 50 ticks on my one lot and think 'That's £500 profit/loss there - that is diddly-squat - I used to make/lose 10 times that much in seconds at the bank'. But of course this was 'my money' and not the banks. Still it was a very difficult habit to shake off.
"i think one can make it from relatively small capital"
Yes you are right but it depends alot on what 'making it' means for you personally. I didn't think I, personally, could 'make it' with £30k. If 'making it' had meant £300 profit / month then no problem, I could have made it. But unfortunately it wasn't.
grubs50 said:
As far as I know no-one on this site has claimed such a feat.
I'd be more than impressed and happy if they did.
I still believe, unfortunately, that you need a solid 'base' amount to really be able to make a go of this business - a 'critical mass' if you like. I personally think that that critical mass amount is £100k-odd. But if you say £25k, £50k that's fair enough. But £100? forget it...
Trading is easy..turning a consistent profit isn't. Just like any other profession it takes time to become proficient. There are a lot of people who think that they just need to read a book, go on a course and that's it a life of financial freedom awaits them. I used to. 3 years and at least £150k in lost earnings later I'm starting to become consistently profitable.
It's a business like any other business and it requires time to establish properly. The people who say that they only have time to trade in the evenings are fooling themselves. Trading is the easy part, preparation is where the hard work and time is spent.
A lot of people want to be their own boss and want to start a business. So they say 'I'll start in the evenings and weekends then when it's successful enough I'll quit the day job.' Those people are still dreaming and still doing the day job.
If you want to trade successfully or realistically start any business it has to have your full attention and then means working at it full time. Richard Branson didn't start Virgin whilst working full time in a completely unrelated job, neither did Stelios Haji-Ioannou set up Easyjet whilst working as an IT manager during the day.
If you want to trade futures you are going up against some of the quickest and brightest minds on the planet, trading for the biggest banks using state of the art equipment and living and breathing the markets 24hrs a day. Do you really think that you can beat them having just done an 8 hour shift or in between sales meetings in the office. Remember, it's a zero sum game.
It's a business like any other business and it requires time to establish properly. The people who say that they only have time to trade in the evenings are fooling themselves. Trading is the easy part, preparation is where the hard work and time is spent.
A lot of people want to be their own boss and want to start a business. So they say 'I'll start in the evenings and weekends then when it's successful enough I'll quit the day job.' Those people are still dreaming and still doing the day job.
If you want to trade successfully or realistically start any business it has to have your full attention and then means working at it full time. Richard Branson didn't start Virgin whilst working full time in a completely unrelated job, neither did Stelios Haji-Ioannou set up Easyjet whilst working as an IT manager during the day.
If you want to trade futures you are going up against some of the quickest and brightest minds on the planet, trading for the biggest banks using state of the art equipment and living and breathing the markets 24hrs a day. Do you really think that you can beat them having just done an 8 hour shift or in between sales meetings in the office. Remember, it's a zero sum game.
Zow , i meant 'make it' in the real sense of d word, not peanuts........your mentality and way of trading might require a big start up capital (maybe 4 psychological or any other reason) but that won't apply to everybody..........we r all different.
Go and read the Market Wizard series and u would soon realise that not everybody started big. I am 100% sure that there would be a few members of this BB who have grown their capital from small beginnings through trading.
Go and read the Market Wizard series and u would soon realise that not everybody started big. I am 100% sure that there would be a few members of this BB who have grown their capital from small beginnings through trading.
grubs50 said:
Like I said I would be MORE than impressed if someone did make it how you describe, but no one here has claimed to have done it or to know someone who has (or even a friend of a friend etc).
I bought the first 'Market Wizards' in early 1990 - special American import several years before they printed/published it here. It's a great book but NONE of the people claim to have made it with $1000 from their own pocket. At some point they all had to beg/borrow/go into some sort of partnership to get a DECENT trading stake.
For all newbies(including me) starting with a small capital. Its just a question of time and patience, any other route could be disasteous.
If you want to get rich quick and you are a newbie then forget it.. If you are already a consistent and successful trader then borrow some money and hope.!!
Cheers Snip
If you want to get rich quick and you are a newbie then forget it.. If you are already a consistent and successful trader then borrow some money and hope.!!
Cheers Snip