noego

Jerry...I don't take offense. I will simply say this. I have been a professional trader for more than 15 years. I am not the best trader in the world nor do I claim to be anything but disciplined and profitable. I teach trading to 100's of people per year (and no I am not pimping my stuff-. I have a huge data set of proof from other traders as part of my training is evaluating their results. Most of the traders who try to scalp...(matching the number I posted about 3% or less being LONG TERM profitable scalping)...fail HUGE. I network in and through the broker world as part of my business and they all say the same thing....most traders put more money IN their accounts than they take out and the number that make a ton of round turns a day (scalpers) fail at a MUCH higher percentage than those who trade a few times a day. When they leave the broker for greener pastures it is usually with a very large draw down. Not me sayin'...Broker sayin'... The key in the FACT part is Long Term success. Every squirrel can find a nut or get on a hot streak in Vegas but at the end of the week, month, or year most scalpers cannot regularly pull a paycheck out of the market or their ass. Me Sayin' ....No Offense.

True scalping is something very few people (<3%) can successfully do long term. FACT. No offense...really, but what you are missing is the experience necessary to even frame the question. How would you possibly know when a "stock" is going to oscillate vs. trend out without really spending time learning the craft watching a live market. Also....as far as the $3k in an IB account, pattern day trading requires a minimum of $25k or you are limited to just a few round turns a week. "Guarantees" of ANYTHING in trading (profit per hour,day, week, month, year) are not only not possible but improbable. Traders who have earned their stripes simply take what the market gives based on their own reward/risk parameters/setups and nothing more or less. Again no offense to you or your question but your inexperience and current back testing method of finding a stock that "oscillates" a minimal amount are a recipe for disaster.

Very well said Vaughn.

And still very successful by most measurable means.

Dude...you are a trip. If you spent half as much time working on watching the market and learning as you do trying to run others down you might be able to answer the questions yourself. I don't know the room of which you speak but I hope he doesn't have the pleasure of having you in the room. As a moderator myself, I find the blame game by inexperienced/poorly disciplined traders to be disgusting at best. You are responsible for your trading decisions. No one can make you a great trader. Period. Grow a pair and do your own work and then produce your results for the world to see. It would carry more weight than the "I am a very successful trader" garbage.

Well said...I made an abbreviated attempt to say the same thing above. The questions alone are enough to expose the inexperience. Now for the amounts. Yes it can be done ($5-10k is a stretch) but 100-300k is not necessary for the average person. Some start with that when learning and quickly get to trade with much less ....If you don't need a huge amount of monthly income (Huge is a relative term of course) you can successfully trade the futures markets with much less than the 100-300k. But you must know who you are as a trader and have an edge of some kind and unflinching discipline. That and real time LIVE market experience (thousands of hours of "forward testing"....that is predicting price action before the bars are there rather than reading the chart from right to left after the fact). Absent of those critical pieces, it does not matter what you have in your account. It probably won't be enough. A room with a true mentor type moderator will help you shave some of the time....a "system" being sold by anyone will seldom bear fruit. As I said in a previous post...every trader is different with varying degrees of skill, resources, and discipline. Find a simple approach, learn and trade one market and you have a shot.

It's not as much about account size as it skill.....a good trader (very few of those) can make money with a small account as it has more to do with discipline and money management than a "system". You must wait for proper setups and learn to sit on your hands for hours at a time. The questions you are asking tell most of us (taking some liberty here) that it won't matter how many contracts you trade or how big your account is...scalping your account will likely cause you to lose more than you make as it is the case with most traders....advice is to stop looking for someone to make your living calling trades and find a little edge that works for you under most conditions and exploit it. Just my 2 pennies. Not trying to be abrasive but I don't see a real way to answer your question as no two traders are alike and most of them suck.

Agreed....this is not a discussion topic. A slam and promote. Dead Thread.

Correction.....trading is not simple. The waiting and discipline is what should be simple yet very few folks find that to be fun and exciting so that was the basis for my comment. Trading is work. No doubt about it. There is no need to make it harder by slamming the buy/sell button everytime a candle changes color. Sorry for not clarifying.

So True....My favorite line is "I get paid to wait"......if you can do that and only look for quality PLANNED plays and MANAGE your money you have a chance to keep some of your money. Fail to do that and your resume will need to be updated. Very simple but very few actually do it.

I like one but never more than 2 markets and I look at a few bigger time frames for reference and major patterns and pivots. I then use an entry chart with volume profile and delta study. If you can locate the critical areas you don't need much more than that nor do you need 12 monitors. I'm not sure how anyone can honestly say they can fully focus all day on that much information.

No offense to you and your struggles but in the big scheme of things time-wise you are still in grade school as a trader. I am a trading educator (I do not solicit or take business from this or any other site so I am not tooting my horn---just giving an opinion from a vantage point that others may have missed). For most of us this is a lifetime labor of love. As with most difficult things becoming a professional can take +- 10,000 hours to gain true skill and competence. I am not saying you are or are not going to make this work. Most do not have the discipline to go along with the technical skills they gain so for some it doesnt matter if its 10,000, 20,000 or 50,000 hours of study. I truly wish you well in your trading and your study. I caution you not to focus on "system" over solid market technical skills across multiple time frames using volume and price action as your keys. This is where the time comes in...watching live markets for many hours days weeks months and years is the greatest lesson of all....charts are easy to read when they are not moving (right to left reads vs. left to right). Again good luck and good trading to you.

Now that is funny. I don't care who you are. Signed, Larry the Cable Guy

Well said Loustrar1...Those are great points. Those of us who have made it aren't heard by those who want the quick fix....I teach and coach trading and have to say that I lose a lot of clients when I tell them it will take time and effort and there is NOT a quick fix. The truth is not what most want to hear. Sadly. I have much better success with those that have not already be programmed by the courses that tout "work from home in your underwear for 30 minutes a day and live the life of your dreams"...

Simple answers. Not everyone is cut out for it but everyone who trades think they are. Not everyone is willing to put the time in to learn and watch in a LIVE market (they spend their time back testing and looking at charts from right to left instead of from left to right). Not everyone is willing to admit that it is their lack of discipline to wait for proper setups that causes their huge draw downs. The 10% who make it have paid the price in time (10,000 hours or more) and money....They have EARNED it.