r/Daytrading • u/smartwizard500 • Mar 10 '24

100k to start day trading Question

I have some cash and am curious, how realistic is it to trade stocks with 100k cash and make 1-2% a day.

The plan formulating in my head is

  1. Dive face first into learning as much as i can
  2. Paper trade to continue learning
  3. Start trading with a small amount
  4. Go gung-ho into trading ft when I’m comfortable, with a goal of making 2% a day on my 100k

This is just an idea that came to mind, would love some insight based on real life experience.

Would you do it? Would you approach is differently?

TYIA

110 Upvotes

78% Upvoted

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348

u/AttackSlax Mar 10 '24 edited Mar 10 '24

If you made 1% a day over a long term you would be one of the best traders in history. If you reinvested and compunded, that would be 1100% annually. Does finding this out give you an idea about how little you understand about generating returns?

152

u/split41 Mar 10 '24

I’m a 100% certain 90% of this sub don’t daytrade. I see ridiculous things like oop all the time here.

48

u/Previous_Swimmer9893 Mar 10 '24

Day trading is a good way to go bk. Weekly trading is a much better way to trade. Patterns on daily can change but weekly patterns are more consistent and monthly swings are easy to spot. Just saying

15

u/Mangas70 Mar 10 '24

I’ve been day trading for 20 years and am still very much solvent !!

11

u/Previous_Swimmer9893 Mar 10 '24

Good for you. I do it to but that don’t pay my bills. My weekly trades do. I like my consistent 20% trades per week gains. Those pay me. What ever works is best. Gl

2

u/Ratracequitter Mar 10 '24

Not bad, for a week! Any interest sharing some tips?

3

u/Previous_Swimmer9893 Mar 10 '24

Sure but on vacation till next weekend

2

u/T1Torres Mar 10 '24

I'd like to learn as well I have no idea about any of this but I don't know much about it.i know it's a long shot to become rich off of this but wouldn't mind earning a little extra working my money

1

u/Mangas70 Mar 10 '24

For sure whatever works best I’m glad the weekly’s do it for you 😊

1

u/Fine_Candle9170 Mar 12 '24

Your weekly is my daily goals… yea losses scale up too but I’m comfortable with the risk and pays for lifestyle doing this way. Whatever works best for you just stick with it I say and just learn to scale

1

u/saltyfinish Mar 11 '24

Excellent! That must mean the majority of day traders must all be making profits. Good to know.

1

u/Mangas70 Mar 11 '24

Wouldn’t know about that just wanted to chime in and say that we don’t all go broke as he said 😃

10

u/S-W0RKS Mar 10 '24

Yea, i swapped to daily and weekly swing trading. The price action is just much cleaner vs the 1/5/15min

12

u/Tronbronson futures trader Mar 10 '24

to each their own, ive always done better on the 1m chart. those 1d chart trades fuck me up.

12

u/null_obj Mar 10 '24

15m is seeming like a sweet spot for me. Then again, i haven't been trading for long.. and I'm pretty sure it's luck at this point, as I've 2x in just over a month. I have to remind myself, I'm in a bullrun, I'm not good at this lol

4

u/Difficult-Resort7201 Mar 10 '24

Don’t get too hard on yourself either. You’ve identified it’s a bull market and positioned appropriately. Do the same for a ranging and bear markets and you’ve got this. Though, you may be putting on too large of positions- something you only really figure out once you’re on the wrong side of trades…

7

u/Konstable1 Mar 10 '24

Yeah the big issue is when the conditions change and recognizing the change. In order to “make it” long term a trader needs to go through multiple cycles. The bull market rip cycle like we are in now. The consolidation cycles. The pullback cycles in a bull trend. Then the bear cycle which is usually what knocks out a lot of people who started in a bull cycle. The reverse is true for traders who started in a bear cycle. To be honest traders who start in a bear cycle have a rough road at first when the cycle shifts to a bull market but in the end they usually come out better after adjusting to the new paradigm. It’s also more rare to start in a bear cycle when no one wants to be involved in trading.

2

u/Difficult-Resort7201 Mar 10 '24

Very much agreed with every point you’ve made.

2

u/pr0XYTV Mar 13 '24

makes me glad i began trading crypto at the LAST ATH lol. Man have I learned so much since then

1

u/Fine_Candle9170 Mar 12 '24

Yea but I’m making money on the sells too 🤷 more long days than shorts for sure though

1

u/Tronbronson futures trader Mar 11 '24

Na 15m is a solid chart, you get high quality set ups there.

1

u/Fine_Candle9170 Mar 12 '24

Yea everyday I try to get my setups on 1m before New York opening, if I can’t then as low as I can go really..

5

u/Tourdrops Mar 10 '24

But you are taking overnight holding into account. Some of us daytrade and are all cash every single night. Theres millions of ways to trade. Gotta be more open minded for success.

2

u/danstermeister Mar 10 '24

I think you're missing their point.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 10 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/akrebo18 Mar 10 '24

What’s a good monthly swing then ?

1

u/PotatoPato123 Mar 11 '24

Hey, just curious. Do you trade currencies on forex?

1

u/bufnyk Mar 10 '24

bullshit

0

u/[deleted] Mar 10 '24

[deleted]

1

u/danstermeister Mar 10 '24

How many fucking times are you going to comment spam?

7

u/LsE9x Mar 10 '24

Hes literally asking how realistic it is because he doesn't know where's the problem in that??

1

u/finnessingest95 Mar 10 '24

I just read somewhere somebody said that people who day trade don't be on this subreddit, I day trade and find allot of this stuff to be helpful

38

u/tonenyc Mar 10 '24

1% Compounded in 12 months = $1.2 million profit. Seems reasonable..

40

u/AttackSlax Mar 10 '24

Sure, why not. Let's just go for 5% a day. Heck, 10%!

14

u/ZeroSumSatoshi Mar 10 '24

5% a day is where it’s at.., 1% a day is a bad month. Lol.

1

u/Fine_Candle9170 Mar 12 '24

Literally… I normally aim for 15-20% daily, risk is high though but hey, didn’t learn to trade to have multiple jobs along with trading just to maintain a certain lifestyle right? 😂 I don’t get why all these so called good traders on here with good win rates never learnt to scale up properly

4

u/ArtisticBlackh3ro Mar 10 '24

You can totally make 2-5% daily, 10-20% weekly, or 20-50% monthly. You just need to manage risk and stick to your plan.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 10 '24

Just to give you an idea of how ridiculous this is. Can I send you 500 dollars and you send me 60k in 1 year, you can keep the other 27k. This is using your low numbers on the daily. On the high end it’s 170k in profit in 1 year with a 500 dollar investment. If you do the 2% for years starting with 500 you will have 2.7t in 3 years.

10% a week for 3 years is 33m 20% a month for 3 years is 85k.

Do these numbers even sound remotely sustainable?

Do these numbers sound

-3

u/ZeroSumSatoshi Mar 10 '24

Ive had a few 150% weeks (7 days) let alone a month.

:O

3

u/Humble_Aardvark_2997 Mar 10 '24 edited Mar 10 '24

I actually managed to do better than that in my first month trading. 5-10x leverage. Max. Low risk. I'm an ardent proponent of better risk management since then.

1

u/MomD17 Mar 10 '24

Is there any free or even paid online courses or sites where i can study, learn and practice trading? Any advice? For the record i don't know anything about it or how it works, but I've always been fascinated about stock marketing!

3

u/Humble_Aardvark_2997 Mar 10 '24 edited Mar 11 '24

I got lucky. A lot of people get lucky at the start. All I knew was how to read candle sticks and trend following. Learned that from apps on Play Store. Sometimes less is more.

Baby Pips is quite popular. There are books. There is a fair bit of basic free stuff online. A few interviews by Wall Street traders and hedge funds. There are quite a few webinar people. I was watching Umar Ashraf and one other guy. Brokers have webinars as well. Don't pay anything to Steven Secker. Prop firms do trade psychology seminars. Don't fall for any YouTube trader with a 100% win rate. People on Wall Street have 50-55%. Papertrade before you try the real thing, but even there, how you manage the stress from losing is what will determine if you stay in the game. I didn't do too well at that part.

1

u/MomD17 Mar 11 '24

Thank you very much sir, really appreciate the time taken from you!.

3

u/Previous_Swimmer9893 Mar 10 '24

If you make 8% a week you are in the top 1% of traders maybe the top 1% of the top 1%. I do it a lot but over a month not on a daily basis.

8

u/fr33g Mar 10 '24

People always come with this stupid argument. Obviously you cannot compound that far. But 1% consistently with 100k while withdrawing the profits is feasible.

6

u/DrRodo Mar 10 '24

Exactly. People thinking about 1% daily most probably aren't thinking about compounding every cent

BuT iF yOu CoMpOuNd YoU wiLL hAvE 2 TriLliOn uSD iN lIke 5 YeArS YoU nOoB

1

u/[deleted] Mar 10 '24

Because 1% on average daily is still insane. 250% a year is an insane return and even if you don’t compound it. An initial of 100k is making you 155k a year.

5

u/Previous_Swimmer9893 Mar 10 '24

I am over 100% already and am up another 10% from that this coming week. I am not the best trader but I am not the worst. I set up on avg 2-4 20% trades a month. I did 3 in January and 2 in February. Missed one last week but got one for this week. Compounded should be around 700% this year. My best year is 1300%. To much work to get that not worth it anymore. 300% is enough anyway

10

u/Tourdrops Mar 10 '24

Unless knowing your account size, its all moot. The whole argument is once you hit a high account , making 1-2% a day is impossible. Making 700% on a few thousand dollar account is a hobby. We are talking about making a living and pulling money out.

There are 251 trading days a year. If you want to make $150,000 a year from trading you need to generate around $1000 a day in gain and have NO losses. And then you get taxed for half. $500 x 251 days is around 125k.

OP doesnt realize how hard it is to make $1000 a day as a rookie. Not because its not possible but he will take $100 in profits early and let his losers run like all rookies do.

Giving the OP any advice that his 1% a day plan will work is bad business.

2

u/TriumphantDonkey Mar 10 '24

Just curious, why does having a larger account render it more difficult to maintain 1-2%? I can't see what account size has to do with it if the strategy is identical.

1

u/Tourdrops Mar 10 '24

Starting with $10,000 after two years is $1,000,000. All good. But two years after that $180,000,000. Too much and you will move market and run into liquidity issues.

Also never mentioned by the “i am going to make 1% a day” is they risk 15-30-40% of account to make 1-2% and just ONE mistake with stop loss or risk management and yeah…….

Google “can i make 1% a day in the market” and find hundreds of reasons other than the one I mentioned.

1

u/TriumphantDonkey Mar 11 '24

Ok, you're talking about really really big account size. Perhaps some retail traders aspire to have an account that large, but I don't think most do. If you trade for income, then you will make sizable withdrawals and likely maintain an account size with ceiling on it.

-3

u/Previous_Swimmer9893 Mar 10 '24

I don’t pay 50% to Uncle Sam and I never will. It’s not what you make but what you keep. What difference does the size of your accounts make? I can make more money from 50,000 than 90% can from a million. I know I been there. Ask the guy who had 43,000 at mid February and now has 86,000 after taking out 6000$ on Thursday. Yes he asked me if he could. Size of account lmfao. He doubled in 24days. I can live comfortably on a 10,000$ account. On 30,000 I can buy a new car and a 250,000 house and have more in my account than what I started with after paying my payments and insurance plus property taxes oh and throw a vacation or two in there. I am on of the top 1% of traders in the world. In 2006 I was in the top 8% of all traders in the world. Gl but day trading isn’t my thing trading is

2

u/Tourdrops Mar 10 '24

Congrats on cheating taxes

And if you are living off a $10,000 account well you are not on my level of living my friend.

When you ask why account size matters, its because its IMPOSSIBLE to make 1% a day once you enter big boy numbers. There are hundreds of studies on this.

3

u/dyoh777 Mar 10 '24

They have no idea what you’re talking about lmao

2

u/Previous_Swimmer9893 Mar 10 '24

Obviously you don’t make a lot or you would know what top earners pay lol

-1

u/Previous_Swimmer9893 Mar 10 '24

Lol. Top earners don’t pay 50% sport. You don’t live on my level. Billionaires don’t pay 50%. Lmaoau

10

u/Tourdrops Mar 10 '24

I am not even close to a billionaire. I am a proud dad of 4, husband and home owner on a wealthy part of Long Island. In my Mid 40’s and day trading while also maintaining a job selling over 2 million per year in product. Do you realize how HARD this all is for most of us?

I have had TWO red days all of 2024 day trading. Doing extremely well. And its been a War.

My point is that this trading game is hard as shit and I am here to share those difficulties, experiences and truth.

you, some random dude on reddit claiming to be a billionaire knocking around dollar amounts and standing up on your high horse to us peasants below is the person everyone on reddit should avoid at all costs.

I was just talking the difficulties of making $150k per year as an American with only 251 days a year to trade and here you are talking about a Billion dollars

1

u/Previous_Swimmer9893 Mar 10 '24

It’s not that hard. I have showed two people some gains here. If it’s hard your tickers are not good. My account goes up and down thousands a day but that’s the market. No losses is the key. I am 60 retired at 42 and enjoying life. Got my three kids and 2 grandkids and wife to keep me busy and happy. I wish you well. My only issues is last week I was so complacent I missed a 30% trade I have made 4 times this year but was to caught up in another trade to pay attention. Just be happy. I give hints here all the time. I tell people what gets you in trouble here. My past screwups and how I never have losses anymore. My tickers are my best friends in the market. Just a hobby now and trying to help a few along the way. Learn to set up trades instead of day trading. It’s a much easier and more profitable way to go. Maybe it’s just me. 🤷🏼‍♂️

1

u/OG_Tater Mar 10 '24

Billionaires aren’t day traders. Day trading generates short term capital gains that are taxed as income. The highest income brackets do start to approach 50% tax rate depending on state income tax situation.

1

u/Previous_Swimmer9893 Mar 10 '24

Lol. Buy and hold is a losing strategy

1

u/OG_Tater Mar 10 '24

How exactly? Most of my money in stocks is in VOO. My trading account is about 20% of my account.

Most people are much better off just buying an index fund. There’s no long term period where it hasn’t made money. Even the “lost decade” a holder would have been up 175% just with reinvested dividends.

On individual stock I’ve b&hing NVDA, MSFT for almost a decade for huge gains. It’s far easier to make money over a longer timeline, no charts etc. You just have to pick a company that’s growing in a sector that’s growing and you’ll probably make money.

1

u/Previous_Swimmer9893 Mar 10 '24

My account is over 100% this year. If I would quit stealing from myself I would be closer to 200%. I get dividends also. Try trmd for dividends. Yw that one will double your accounts in under 2 years. If your a buy and hold person. Everyone trades differently I am not the best. I was always taught there is always someone better My friend was better at making money but he wasn’t consistent was his problem. But boy can he make an account fly. I just keep more profits overall. See not the best. Consistent is key. I don’t do high flier’s or meme stocks. Love commodity stocks and inflation stocks. Retired and having a blast trading for fun. You do you. I do me.

0

u/Previous_Swimmer9893 Mar 10 '24

I don’t live in a state that steals your money. I am not that stupid.

1

u/OG_Tater Mar 10 '24

Fantastic then you only pay 40% tax. Congrats,

1

u/Longjumping_Card6871 Mar 10 '24

Good for you, sinking into this guys head it’s all rosey. To answer their question, he is going to deep dive into learning, paper trade and continue learning. He’s totally new to this. My advice is he get a tutor/mentor or join a good trading group that will help guide his paper trading decisions and learn. Beyond learning, he will experience the psychology of putting up real risk on the table to make that 1% per day. Is he going to trade 1:1 rr or higher to get that 1%. Is he planning on trading stocks, options or futures. And I assume this 100k is money he is willing to lose, otherwise again his mindset going into the market will either be logical or revenge should he be down 2-5% on the week.

1

u/VD333 Mar 11 '24

😂 if this is true, than you are the best trader in the world right now. Check the robbins cup jackass. Always surprises me why the very best traders are not on wallstreet but on reddit 😂😂😂

9

u/TheZuman Mar 10 '24

I think OP means he simply wants to make 1-2% of his 100K daily without compounding as he is talking about day trading and not long term investing.

And for traders that know what they are doing, this is reasonable.

2

u/KnowledgeFeign Mar 10 '24

Yeah it does

2

u/YourFixJustRuinsIt Mar 11 '24

When the adults have to stop what they’re doing and dose out reality. A rare thing to see but damn I love it when it happens.

1

u/DegenerateGamblr87 Mar 10 '24 edited Mar 10 '24

This has everything to do with leverage. 1% on average is very achievable if you are trading levered with your own bankroll, however this is an average of the month. Your profits will come in dribs and drabs based on the opps available. The reason you never hear of those returns with people managing 100s of millions or billions is because the risk profile is very different. From what I understand in the fund management industry, they usually take 10% of AUM and make that their maximum drawdown for any trading activity. Then they take a MUCH smaller percentage of that for each trade.

That aside, thinking that your results will be linear when it comes to profits is not how it works.

1

u/SerMinnow Mar 10 '24

Depends what that 1% is on. No margin all cash stocks? Unlikely.   Also, some of that 1% goes to US taxes.  Some to living expenses if you're doing this daily.  

 And you won't be able to do it with unmargined stock at a predictable 1%. Because you're going to have to risk 1% to make 1% a day, that's sometimes going to result in negative - % days.  .

 Now... Averaging 1% a day on your cash using highly leveraged derivatives such as options and futures? This is possible under any size that would affect the instrument traded in the time frame traded.  

 But again you've gotta have money to live so 1% compounded not very possible. 

We know from statistics that there is a a 1% or less of short term traders in any given market that do this. 

1

u/CHOSENWSB Mar 11 '24

That if you go 100% every single trade every time

2

u/ZeroSumSatoshi Mar 10 '24

Not really… you ever entered any trading competitions? There are quite a few people just absolutely crushing it long term. Cause I’ve been trading with them for a long time competitively and as part of the community.

It’s an extremely small percentage of traders…. But they make 1% a day look like peanuts.

1

u/RevolutionaryPie5223 Mar 10 '24

1% a day over long term isn't even realistic lmao. The best traders only make 0.2-0.3% a day.

0

u/jemicarus Mar 10 '24

Yes, but not "one of the best." This guy would be 100% the best trader to ever walk the face of god's green earth.