Making a Living Trading Futures

[eschirle 10]

Is there anyone out there that makes a living from trading futures? Personally I've had a hard time transitioning from a part time profitable trader to a full time profitable trader. There is something about the way relying on it to feed your family changes things. If there are any profitable traders out there that are willing to share what you do I'm sure many others and myself included would appreciate it.

[wrbtrader 10]

Is there anyone out there that makes a living from trading futures? Personally I've had a hard time transitioning from a part time profitable trader to a full time profitable trader. There is something about the way relying on it to feed your family changes things. If there are any profitable traders out there that are willing to share what you do I'm sure many others and myself included would appreciate it.

 

What do you think you're doing wrong that has a big impact on your trading results and your ability to support your family that has nothing to trade method. ?

 

For example, did you save up a year or two worth of of income from your other job prior to trying to do trading full time to help remove a lot of the financial pressure to support your family when you tried to become a full time trader. Another example, you trading at home or in an environment that supports your trading instead of sabotaging your trading.

 

Explain how you tried to transition from part-time to full-time. Did you take a leave of absence from your other job, did you trade full time on your vacation or days off from your job to determine if you're suitable for trading while still employed at your other job.

 

My point with the above questions, there's more to profitable trading than a trade method and arguably those other things are more important than a trade method after taking a closer look of the individual situations of most traders.

 

Yeah, traders that are single have different problems than traders that have a family. I've been doing the family thing as a fulltime trader for about 10 years now. It ain't easy and the odds are high that if you're doing poorly...it's not trade method related although you may only be willing to tackle your problems through your trade method.

[steveh2009 10]

You have chosen a very hard road to take. Unless your part-time trading produced enough savings to support your family lifestyle and fund your accounts for sufficient drawdown periods for at least 1.5 years before you had to give up, I can't relate to you putting their welfare above your immediate desires for trading success.

 

Get a real job (again) and keep the hobby trading money for vacations and long-term wealth building.

 

You are dangerous...and they have completely no idea why.

[steve46 12]

Wow, so the guy puts his family at risk, without having a viable system in place to trade the markets.....At first glance thats what it looks like (to me)

 

I think the guy's choices are limited;

 

He can get up off his ass and find a system that he can execute profitably....it takes a bit of research....some testing and sufficient capital to trade and withstand the drawdowns

 

or

 

He can find someone to teach him how to do it...and HOPE that A.) he finds the right person, and B.) he can learn a system that he can execute in a disciplined way...(and of course he has the same issues to overcome as above)

 

or

 

He can go back to working at a regular day job

 

I think he ought to start by getting a new job and then (when he has time at night) try to do the research to find a systematic approach that works.

 

Depending on his funds, he will have to make a decision one way or the other in the near future.

 

Finally I wonder if a guy who displays this kind of judgement is going to have the capacity to make good trading decisions....?

Edited November 19, 2011 by steve46

[eschirle 10]

Thanks for the reply wrbtrader. You brought up some good points and I agree completely.

 

I have been trading for many years and as you can imagine I have made every stupid mistake possible. Some of the biggest were using indicators, the search of the holy grail, and not fully realizing the impact of the physcological aspect of trading . I was lucky enough to have a small company and home office that allows me to take part of my day and set it aside for trading. The business is in a dying industry so I have been trying to increase trading profits to supplement my income and gradually replace it.

 

Personally I feel that to be successful in trading there are many things that need to be mastered. If you have an issue with any one of them it can create problems in the other areas. For instance you have a method that is working just fine. You tested it in sim for months and things are working great. You start trading it live and everything is going well. All of a sudden things change and it doesn't work as well as it used to. You stay disciplined and stick to your setup and next thing you know you have sizable losses. What happened? The market changed and what was once working no longer does. You go back to the drawing boards and start over. You test, trade sim and find another edge for a trade and the process repeats. Now even though you thought that you had the mental aspect under control it rears its ugly head.

[steve46 12]

On a more serious vein if the gentleman wants help...there are a number of threads on this site that provide help and direction to struggling traders....some of those threads even have the words "struggling traders" in the title.....

 

If as the gentleman suggests, this isn't an "emergency" he should be able to take a few months to read the threads and study the resources that are already in place here on the site...

[eqsys 10]

It is extremely difficult to make money trading. About 30 years ago I decided that I wanted to become a full time trader and quit my "day job". Turns out, it's much, much more difficult to achieve that goal than I originally imagined.

 

The problem with trading is that a trader goes through stretches when their methods or systems fail - it's called drawdown. If one is relying on the trading to pay the bills, this is very, very stressful.

 

Most traders can't take the pressure, and stop trading at this point. They paper trade, or just take a vacation from the markets, until, at some later point, they believe they can make money again, then they may start up trading again, usually on a smaller scale. This is a rational thing to do.

 

I have a couple of friends who spent a lot of money last year taking courses on how to trade, and they were off and running to get rich. Yipeeeee!! It didn't work. Back to the drawing boards.

 

My best advice to you - don't quit your day job.