Australian (ASX) Stock Market Forum

My trading - how I trade for a living


Well in spite of the doubtful heading...

Most people post on someone's else's thread to take the **** rather than anything vaguely constructive. As you know few people put up 10 - 20 continuous trades for any scrutiny. Let alone something that you can gauge properly like 100 or more in an organised thread. The way it mostly goes is random calls through various threads. Pretty hard to get any idea from that as to skill/system. So anyone who does do it and puts up with the pot shots deserves some sort of kudos.

Posters that put up 100 or more trades in a thread on these boards probably number 5 or 6..
 
I'd like to see more of it and I'm sure I'm not alone.

But when you get
" I've been trading for a living for 10 yrs and this is how I trade"

I'd expect the sort of info I've asked for to be off the top of a traders head.
I'd expect they'd be updating this weekly or at least monthly.

What a wealth of info this could be to other traders
(1) to compare their results
(2) to in some cases see where they can improve their results.

They ( the numbers ) give rise to all sorts of pertinent questions
In fact I'll go as far as saying they are the only real questions relevant!

Entry/ Exit / Stops / Trailing stops ---- et al

Tell us nothing----but 99% of those presenting ideas and certainly the vast majority of silent readers think
This information is the holy grail-----{' this guys been trading for a living for 10 yrs WOW and he's going to show me how'}

Peter has already raised some interesting discussion with very limited numbers he has extracted.
 
@tech/a

First of all I think I made pretty clear that I do not have the holy grail and that you can see that loosing is a big part of trading. Second all the numbers you asked will not show if I can trade because you can make them up. In the moment you can see my trading live I cannot fake anything and if you ask me that is the most honest way.

If I would ask you to give me money to manage it I would totally understand that you want to know as much as possible but I do not ask for money to manage. There is no risk involved here for you.

I like Peters questions and I will try to do more and more to explain my trading but I need some time. I have other thing to do as well, but I try my best that many people can learn something here.

The only problem with the calculations Peter did is that the number of trades are not enough to say anything. Lets see in 3 Month, like always good things take time.

Update later today before market opening. On the weekend I will try to explain my basic tatctics
 
Ok
I'll accept you don't have any numbers for your trading method.

Carry on.
 
I also, think you should report the results of your trades. I suggest reporting them as % / account. You are recording your initial trade risk so we see how much you are risking each trade. Reporting your results will help others see how you are going and it will keep you more accountable.

Using the O2 (OJ?) trade as an example. Your buy price was 135.00 (SL 120.00) and you risked 0.25%. This trade was closed at 138.20 with a profit of 3.20. However this result was 3.20/15.00 * 0.25 = 0.05%. This is a very small win and only slightly better than break-even.

You should risk more each trade if your initial SL is a disaster exit and you are trailing your exit stop closely after entry. This is a good reason for keeping detailed records. You would be able to look back at your past results and know the size of your average loss (AL) in relation to the size of your initial SL (Van Tharp's R multiple). If the AL is less than half your initial risk then you should use more risk. I would suggest a minimum 0.5% if your account size is big enough so that you can earn and withdraw your living expenses.

You can see in this snapshot of my xls. My AL = 0.4% with an average trade risk of 0.6%. This shows that I can keep my losses low and I should risk a little more, especially when the index (XAO) is up.

rmt2.png
 
Hi Peter,

I will add a tab with a model Portfolio in my excel file. In real I trade a 1.5 Million USD Portfolio therefore even small gains are quiet big. I wouldnt reccommend to trade for a living under 1 Mio USD. I think the good thing about me trading is the fact that you can do it as part time trading as well because you do not have to watch the market all the time
 
Hi Peter,

I will add a tab with a model Portfolio in my excel file. In real I trade a 1.5 Million USD Portfolio therefore even small gains are quiet big. I wouldnt reccommend to trade for a living under 1 Mio USD. I think the good thing about me trading is the fact that you can do it as part time trading as well because you do not have to watch the market all the time

Whoa....:eek:
 
Hi Peter,

I will add a tab with a model Portfolio in my excel file. In real I trade a 1.5 Million USD Portfolio therefore even small gains are quiet big. I wouldnt reccommend to trade for a living under 1 Mio USD. I think the good thing about me trading is the fact that you can do it as part time trading as well because you do not have to watch the market all the time

Sorry not making sence.
In your first posts you mention that you like to exit when a trade
Moves against you.Fine and your trading so far has shown that you haven't traded to
A single target in a trade yet.

Yet you say above you don't have to watch the market all the time.
...
 
@tech/a

First of all my target andd my initial stop are always my best and worst case scenario. You are an expierenced trader so you know that some trades ,not many, will immediately go for you and go straight to your target. These are the trades which you need to catch. When the trade goes for me than I normaly try to move the stop very fast so that I can get out at least with a little profit. I think you know the concept of MAE and in my trading ( i know you know that I dont have any statistics about my trading) i expierenced that my target trades have almost no MAE. Therefore I move the stop quick.

I do my scans in the morning and after that I put in all the limits stops etc into my software. My software manages everything, I do not have to sit in front of the screen and watch every single minute. After the Close I will have a look and change stops etc. I do not trade intraday. I do not move stops intraday etc.

That is the reason I do not have to watch the markets all the time. Furthermore I dont understand how you can judge my trading after this short amount of time? Peter is asking good questions and in a much nicer way, at least I find his style of writing nicer. Maybe I am wrong but do you have a problem with me?
 
Today I want to shares some thoughts with you about trading. First of all I do not know the holy grail of trading and I do not know the way how to get rich quick. If you want information like that my thread is not right for. All I am writing and showing is just my opinion and it doesn’t have to be right.
TRADING FOR A LIVING
Trading for a living is not suitable for everyone. First of all you need quiet some money to do it. I think you should have at least 1000000 USD to do it. I am trading with 1500000 USD and I have no problem to earn my money with that. This amount secures that I do not have to rush into trades or have to be worried about how to afford my rent for the next month. Of course it always depends if you want to live in a flat where you have to pay 50000 USD rent a month you need more money to trade. Furthermore being a full time trade is like being self employed. No one will tell you what to do and you’re the only one who is responsible. If you do a bad job the market will show you that you are doing a bad job. You have to wake up in the morning on your own and you have to do your homework. If you don’t like to be in charge for everything than trading for a living is not for you.
GETTING RICH IN THE MARKETS
If you ask me it is a fairytale that you can get rich trading the markets with only little capital. Of course there are some people who done it but some people always win the lottery. Like I said if you do not have enough capital the odds to succeed as a full time trader are very little. In this case you should see trading as a second stream of income. If you have 50000 USD and you can get a return of 10% that is some nice money (extra income). It still is worthwhile to trade but you shouldn’t trade for a living.
Another really important key point is your style of trading. If you cannot trade full time daytrading is not a choice for you. You have to find your style of trading. Of course there are very very good daytraders out there and you can make a lot of money with daytrading but it does not work for me and I like swing trading. That is the reason why I trade how I trade I feel comfy with it and it works for me. That does not mean that it will work for you
WHY DO I POST HERE
I want to share my trading and maybe some people can find something useful in may trading so that they can improve their skills. Like I said I cannot offer you the Holy Grail but maybe my thoughts will help you a little bit.

Furthermore if there are any ideas for improvement please do not hesitate to tell me. I was thinking if it would make more sense to email you the trade overview every day. Would that be helpful for you?
I know there is always room for improvement.

Hope that helps

Merry Christmas to all

RMT


P.S. I am pretty sure someone will ask why I told my account size. It is not for showing off I just wanted to make clear that I think you need quiet some capital to trade for a living
 
Dont know that you need over $1 million to
trade for a living. I trade with less than that and could survive on
on the return. It really is a matter of what you can
generate in profit /year.

23% is a fair guide. But there are some
who can return a consistently higher
figure---
Bull markets see many traders returning well above 23%

But yes I agree the more you can have as starting
capital the easier it is.

Oh and Id be surprised that anyone with over $1 million to trade with
rents.

Thanks for your reply.
Have a great Christmas.
 
Oh and Id be surprised that anyone with over $1 million to trade with
rents.

I am not sure if I get this senctence right because I am not native. Do you mean you are wondering why renting a flat or house when having over 1 Million USD? For me that is an easy answer. Here in the UAE we do not have real property laws. It could be possible that the government decides to take your property away and you cannot do anything. Therefore it is quiet risky in my opinion owning propoerty here. That is the reason I am just renting and if anything happens here I book a flight to another country and I am away.

I forgot to write that you have to think about taxes as well. I do not have to pay taxes here but if you have to pay taxes its getting harder.
 
... I am not sure if I get this sentence right because I am not native. ...

I perceive you are having difficulty with our response to your arrival.
You are a very rare species in our reality.

You trade for a living, in itself rare!
You trade US equities. (Each to his own.)

You are half a world away.

You use "math" a figure of speech rare outside the US.
Yet you are a "not american" and now a "not native" either?

Make no mistake, you are very welcome here!
There is no need to demystify you presence here.
Nor do you need to explain your motivation, unless you want.

... if anything happens here I book a flight to another country and I am away. ...

I cannot imagine a disaster which would cause me to leave Adelaide.
To me it is the greatest place on the planet.
 
Oh and Id be surprised that anyone with over $1 million to trade with
rents.

I am not sure if I get this senctence right because I am not native. Do you mean you are wondering why renting a flat or house when having over 1 Million USD? For me that is an easy answer. Here in the UAE we do not have real property laws. It could be possible that the government decides to take your property away and you cannot do anything. Therefore it is quiet risky in my opinion owning propoerty here. That is the reason I am just renting and if anything happens here I book a flight to another country and I am away.

I forgot to write that you have to think about taxes as well. I do not have to pay taxes here but if you have to pay taxes its getting harder.


Ok thanks for the explanation.
 
I scrape out a paltry living with my tiny account, I don't think I will ever see the big numbers that some other people have, then again I do not really have the desire for the big numbers.
My trades are liquidated when I finish each day so it does not require a lot of capital for overnight.
 
With not native I mean not a native speaker of English. That is the reason why it could happen that I do understand something wrong or that i do not get it.

DaveM that is totally ok. Like I said there will be a point when it makes sense just trading your money because it is more porfitabel than go to work. Furthermore my trading is not very stressfull compared to working.
 
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