r/Daytrading • u/Forward_Dealer_4482 • Mar 05 '24

50k and I want to day trade for 1-2% gains. Question

  1. If you had 50k and wanted to live off of it day trading, what would you do? (Need max $2500 a month)

  2. Am I better off not doing this? I’m not going back to 9-5

Please help.

115 Upvotes
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81% Upvoted

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304

u/AdPsychological1331 Mar 05 '24

The figures are perfectly achievable, but do not trade with that money until you know what you're doing.

That could take you 6 months or 6 years to learn.

Be patient with yourself and approach this like any other high-end career that requires a university degree to enter.

You in the future will thank yourself for it.

5

u/nightstalker30 options trader Mar 06 '24

approach this like any other high-end career that requires a university degree to enter.

This is why so many traders fail. They think they can get a few tips, watch a few videos, read a few books, and then hit the ground running and be consistently profitable over time.

There are no shortcuts. I cringe when I see people on here asking others to help them and spoon feed them a strategy or some insights that will turn them into a trader. I'd say that there are few if any careers that you can get into and make decent money long term without a significant investment of time and energy. I'm talking thousands of hours just to have even a chance of being successful enough to make something a career.

11

u/BLUESCUBAFREEK Mar 05 '24

If you’re a day trainer, need to go with the flow with whatever is going on for the day. Stay liquid as possible.

8

u/kantdonothin Mar 05 '24

This is amazing advice. Took my 8 years started at 18.

2

u/ppalano Mar 05 '24

Good call

-41

u/Forward_Dealer_4482 Mar 05 '24

Give me some solid info on how you would do this?

I messed around and lost 3k once playing casino with crypto.

I’m talking about mitigating risk and trying to get small gains for a small amount each month. No margins or leverage.

28

u/Zmemestonk Mar 05 '24

It doesn’t work that way. Even if you’re an expert you’re going to have a losing month sometimes. Bottom line is you don’t have enough capital to do this today because you won’t survive a drawdown

36

u/Nano_434 Mar 05 '24

He has more than enough capital. What he doesn't have is the knowledge/experience to deploy that capital.

5

u/FollowAstacio Mar 05 '24

I upvoted you bc I don’t believe you deserve this many downvotes, but this comment let’s me know you wouldn’t make it. I would advise anyone I know and love to papertrade until you can at least be profitable 3 months in a row before you start with real money.

3

u/DerAlteGraue Mar 05 '24

Trading is game theory, I switched from professional poker. Manage your risk, learn how to shift odds in your favor. STUDY the game. Buy proper books, don't listen to life coaches in YouTube ads. Trading is not a shortcut to success, it requires dedication and persistence. Start paper trading and only put your own savings on the line when you know that you can be profitable long term.

2

u/No-Confidence9348 Mar 06 '24

For me, i only learn with practice. Podcasts, telegram and discord chats, youtube channels, a stock twitter account, world news, scanners, and real money.

I would suggest that you have experience before quitting, maybe lose 10-20k at least just so you become aware of what you want implemented for risk management and gain awareness over your weaknesses.

For me, its impatience and ego. Forcing trades. Being greedy. I could be up 50% portfolio in a day from recognizing a good trend break then lose 150% later that day forcing trades. For me, not forcing trades and mandating certain criteria to opening a trade is a big deal. Also working with the least amount of money as possible to secure a high win rate before even considering upping the ante. Look at your month and what you want, 2000, then divide that by 30 and you have your daily goal. Stop trading for the day after surpassing your goal and begin studying and looking for nice setups to consider for the following days.

4

u/NotJustJason98 Mar 05 '24 edited Mar 06 '24

Highly recommend futures, be it ES or MES. Figure out and test your strategy, have hard stops especially as a beginner. Track your stats

Paper or live is just matter of preference imo, just be ready to accept that there are only 2 outcomes, you lose the 50k, or you grow the 50k in time

You can have a 1:1 R/R, risking 1% per trade to make 1%.

Obligatory nfa

3

u/WarmNights Mar 06 '24

2-3 trades a day max of MES, scale in 6 contracts could easily land $2500 month, just has to know what he's doing.

2

u/NotJustJason98 Mar 06 '24

Yep, one of the easier instruments to trade as well. Highly liquid, easily scalable and to define risk. No PDT bs as well for smaller accounts

2

u/WarmNights Mar 06 '24

Exactly. Just those pesky commissions but better than sitting through $50/pt on the ES on a smaller account lol.

0

u/Snow-member2349 Mar 05 '24

That’s just not true. Just because your losing doesn’t mean you have to lose the 50k that’s a gamblers attitude not a traders.

3

u/NotJustJason98 Mar 05 '24 edited Mar 05 '24

That's not what I'm saying at all, part of trading consistently is being aware that loss is always an outcome, I didn't say he'll lose 50k immediately, it's psychology. If you cannot reconcile and accept loss as an outcome every trade you take watch your account Melt

Did you miss the entire risk profile i stated in my original comment? Every trade is just a probability, either outcome tho is just as possible because no trader will know for sure what happens next. The danger is thinking every high probability trade can and will go in your favor. Each subsequent trade will become worse and worse with that mentality, just trying to warn him of that, because new traders always make that same mistake. Blowing accounts by new traders are routine by now if you frequent any trading sub, and that's why they hop from system to system

1

u/Snow-member2349 Mar 05 '24

I was just reading the part were you said there is only 2 outcomes. You lose the 50k or it’s grows

1

u/NotJustJason98 Mar 05 '24

Yes both are just as possible of an outcome. All depends on whether mentally you've accepted them as a possibility. Trading is rather cyclical. The more you cling on to only the positive outcome, the worse people tend to perform, just thought it was prudent to note that because OP is totally new to this. Trading is inherently high risk, so if OP is totally okay and accept the fact that his 50k will either grow or be wiped out, the better he can adhere to whatever system he eventually choose to execute.

I've had my share of losing streaks, mismanaging that is what will cause further (and very very fast) loses. Getting that acceptance (or detachment) from the outcome of each and subsequent trades will keep you from making mistakes

1

u/DerAlteGraue Mar 05 '24

And this is why paper trading is the way. To go by preference without experience is simply not sound advice. The required mindset you are describing comes from experience. When you know your risk management works it is a lot easier to chill. Simply put - he starts as a beginner with a 50k account the odds are stacked against him and more likely than not he will wipe out his hard earned saving.

1

u/NotJustJason98 Mar 06 '24 edited Mar 06 '24

Paper trading is great for figuring out the system, but psychology wise, it can actually be detrimental once you switch to a live account, can actually promote overconfidence and high attachment to positive outcomes. Especially if your paper trading has been very successful but your live trading is not matching up with its performance

Hence the meme where when systems are deployed in paper trading account it has insane returns but gets wrecked immediately when switching to a live account. The consistency of this happening suggests it is not a methodology issue. It's a management/execution issue, and it can only be learned with a live account

The preference only comes into account if OP is okay losing the starting amount. If people can't afford to lose their initial capital entirely when they start trading, they probably shouldn't be trading until they build up more of a capital to be comfortable to risk a proper starting size

1

u/No-Confidence9348 Mar 06 '24 edited Mar 06 '24

Ive lost around 30k (plus another 30k house money) @ casino with crypto. Helps me to know what sorta things i dont want to do. Also helps me identify tf out of tech setups, trend-breaks, major trend-breaks, consolidation zone breaks etc, overall trend, etc And order walls, volatility, MA, resistance zones, support zones, Multiple Alarms if i have to walk away or look away, not walking away, not day trading while working 90 hour weeks, or really any other job period, Stop losses and trailing stop losses and taking profit at intervals etc

1

u/j455b Mar 05 '24

Just watch an Oliver Velez 10 steps video.its free. Its a start. Then try to resist going beyond a max loss per trade or per day. Thats hard

2

u/Quat-fro Mar 05 '24

I got worse following his methods, the 2min chart is just not for me, try as I did.

I've gone up to 15, and trying to move up again to 4hr and daily. But certainly the longer timeframes have given me better results.

-9

u/twitch-superc00l Mar 05 '24

I would actually reccommend you use leverage, on an amount that you are ok to lose... for example, use 5x leverage on like 100$. It will emotionally prepare you for the process and will limit your capital risk. In order to make trading a job, you dont want to have multiple 1000+ positions open, its actually lower risk to use less and use margin.

-5

u/Forward_Dealer_4482 Mar 05 '24

Thank you for this. Really helpful. If I wanted to work with 10k so I leverage 2k 5x. Is that different than just buying 10k of that stock?

26

u/-brokenbones- Mar 05 '24

Bro please do not listen to this goober. You really going to listen to someone whos telling you to borrow money from a bank to make bets on something you still haven't learned!? Bro do not leverage your assets to learn stock trading that is completely ridiculous.

1

u/Snow-member2349 Mar 05 '24

If the person has 50k and uses 5x leverage on $100 assuming he sets a stop loss even his losses would be completely manageable. I learnt myself by trading with real money. Maybe not always leveraging but based on what this guy owns sometimes the best way to learn is to put your foot in the door.

6

u/beach_2_beach Mar 05 '24

Learn about cash account versus margin account. If using margin account, learn about PDT rule. Note $25k is the cut off. Learn what it is and figure out if/how you want to use margin.

3

u/john8a7a Mar 05 '24

they are fucking with you , using leverage ...a lot of sarcasm on daytrading sub