Do You Make a Living Trading? If Yes~ What is Your Typical Day Like?

I am sure this has crossed the minds of all aspiring traders. I know for me it has been my goal for many years. I still hope to some day do this for a living.

Please take the time to answer the questions with honesty. Perhaps this thread will help everybody. I am especially interested to hear from those that are actually doing it successfully.

2% must be your monthly salery. its big problem wins everyday and use laverage. laverage kill you in long time.

example you need 1000 usd every month, minium is 50 000 deposit. good is 100 000. but this money is not small.

no laverage is 1 step. not need use stoploss and is ok hold position many weeks. (swap must be positive)

you wins 200 pip every month and you have salery. simple. daily,weekly chart. meabe is good trade stock.

typical day? great boredom. you need any funny. market,market, every day..........12-18 hours. easy job. hahaha.


great trader have 1mio and go for 5%.
speculant have 5% and go for 1mio.
95% speculant kill account in first year......why......

Not yet, because I don't make enough money, I wish is my the future.

Yes Sean.

I am trading forex from last 6 years. I make money for living.

I have in the beginning started as aggressive trader and lost many accounts and dollars while figuring out how trading works. With time and my continuous effort and understanding and experience i managed to make profits over time and Now I can make money living.

elitefx

Yes you can make a living from your trading efforts.
I do and I have made my living from trading for many years.

I started trading in 2001 and I started trading Futures and shortly after found forex and I have been trading them ever since.
I developed my own trading strategy and it took about two years to see consistent profits but most of the challenge was getting myself to follow the rules I set up and not change the trade plan while a trade was open.

My trading routine is very different today than it was a few years back.
I have found that the routine in the beginning was a way to keep me focused and to expose myself to the daily activities of being a trader... example:
what blogs to visit on a daily basis that will not only explain the results of the previous day and how news impacted the markets but to also find reliable sources of information from objective people who weren't calling trade signals.
After a while, with repeatedly watching each report, the reaction and different trading environments you begin to 'get the feel' of the market and you can see things happening before they actually occur.
Im not saying to place trading decisions with out conformation but you can tell how the markets will react in most cases but this takes years of constant exposure to the daily 'grind'

I also trade less today than I did in the beginning and yet I still make more pips per month than when I was a trading fool
trying to trade every price movement around the clock.

I learn over time to trust that the markets will still be there tomorrow and that if I miss a trade today or the market doesn't provide me with a trading opportunity according to my trading system... its okay... it will eventually come my way.

My days now are spent just waiting for the right trade and now that I have been trading my system for many years, I always know my trade right when it appears. I believe that it takes just as much time and effort to know that I don't have a confirmed trading opportunity as it takes to find the perfect trade. This means I still put in a full days works even if the market doesn't provide me with a trading opportunity.
You need to know your trading system so well that you know when not to use it and stop trading and you need to know when the best conditions are for your trading system to produce the greatest trading opportunities.

John Bollinger said,
“In any given environment there are a limited number of good opportunities...
places to transact where the risk and reward relationships are properly balanced in your favor”


Good Luck Trading
Joseph
4x Trading Coach

elitefxblog posted:
Yes Sean.

I am trading forex from last 6 years. I make money for living.

I have in the beginning started as aggressive trader and lost many accounts and dollars while figuring out how trading works. With time and my continuous effort and understanding and experience i managed to make profits over time and Now I can make money living.

elitefx

What is your secret? What is your usual day like?

coachof4x posted:
Yes you can make a living from your trading efforts.
I do and I have made my living from trading for many years.

I started trading in 2001 and I started trading Futures and shortly after found forex and I have been trading them ever since.
I developed my own trading strategy and it took about two years to see consistent profits but most of the challenge was getting myself to follow the rules I set up and not change the trade plan while a trade was open.

My trading routine is very different today than it was a few years back.
I have found that the routine in the beginning was a way to keep me focused and to expose myself to the daily activities of being a trader... example:
what blogs to visit on a daily basis that will not only explain the results of the previous day and how news impacted the markets but to also find reliable sources of information from objective people who weren't calling trade signals.
After a while, with repeatedly watching each report, the reaction and different trading environments you begin to 'get the feel' of the market and you can see things happening before they actually occur.
Im not saying to place trading decisions with out conformation but you can tell how the markets will react in most cases but this takes years of constant exposure to the daily 'grind'

I also trade less today than I did in the beginning and yet I still make more pips per month than when I was a trading fool
trying to trade every price movement around the clock.

I learn over time to trust that the markets will still be there tomorrow and that if I miss a trade today or the market doesn't provide me with a trading opportunity according to my trading system... its okay... it will eventually come my way.

My days now are spent just waiting for the right trade and now that I have been trading my system for many years, I always know my trade right when it appears. I believe that it takes just as much time and effort to know that I don't have a confirmed trading opportunity as it takes to find the perfect trade. This means I still put in a full days works even if the market doesn't provide me with a trading opportunity.
You need to know your trading system so well that you know when not to use it and stop trading and you need to know when the best conditions are for your trading system to produce the greatest trading opportunities.

John Bollinger said,
“In any given environment there are a limited number of good opportunities...
places to transact where the risk and reward relationships are properly balanced in your favor”


Good Luck Trading
Joseph
4x Trading Coach

Thank you Joseph. Do you look for opportunites in all time frames or do you have preference?

If I may add to Sean's question. Would you mind telling us if you use sophisticated indicators or simple technical analysis on naked charts with simple MA?

Cheers,

dvejn posted:
2% must be your monthly salery. its big problem wins everyday and use laverage. laverage kill you in long time.

example you need 1000 usd every month, minium is 50 000 deposit. good is 100 000. but this money is not small.

no laverage is 1 step. not need use stoploss and is ok hold position many weeks. (swap must be positive)

you wins 200 pip every month and you have salery. simple. daily,weekly chart. meabe is good trade stock.

typical day? great boredom. you need any funny. market,market, every day..........12-18 hours. easy job. hahaha.


great trader have 1mio and go for 5%.
speculant have 5% and go for 1mio.
95% speculant kill account in first year......why......

well that's an interesting idea: you suggest carry trades with no leverage as the way to go? And you generate 2% every month.... well interesting, how long are you already running such a strategy , if I may ask?

I live off trading and my typical days is like this:

Tools of Trade:
2 Laptops, 1 Smart Phone and 1 Tablet and 2 Internet Connections (by any chance if one goes down).

Monitoring Tools:
MyFxBook
ForexFactory
My Excelsheets

Trading Tools:
FxTrade (for Oanda)
MT4
MT4 Demo (for various charting, homework, indicator study etc)

Time:
US session / UK session Overlap (8:00 AM est to 11:30 AM est)
Japan Session (8:30 PM est to 11:30 PM est)

What I do in spare time ?
Read, Study, Make Charts, (I am into technical and fundamental trading).

Very Important Thing as @seankelly63 said, there is always tomorrow if you miss your trade today. Have patience. Get off the screen, starting at charts won't do any good.

Activities I am involved in:
Reading Business Magazines, Cycling for now (I have piled on some weight from couple of vacations), Business Mentoring and consulting (I have been involved in couple of startup projects), Cooking.

Things to stay away from:
Don't Speculate, Don't follow TV news (each analysts will have a different opinion from others), Don't buy into so called get rich overnight schemes.

That's all,
dxnation.

dxnation posted:
I live off trading and my typical days is like this:

Tools of Trade:
2 Laptops, 1 Smart Phone and 1 Tablet and 2 Internet Connections (by any chance if one goes down).

Monitoring Tools:
MyFxBook
ForexFactory
My Excelsheets

Trading Tools:
FxTrade (for Oanda)
MT4
MT4 Demo (for various charting, homework, indicator study etc)

Time:
US session / UK session Overlap (8:00 AM est to 11:30 AM est)
Japan Session (8:30 PM est to 11:30 PM est)

What I do in spare time ?
Read, Study, Make Charts, (I am into technical and fundamental trading).

Very Important Thing as @seankelly63 said, there is always tomorrow if you miss your trade today. Have patience. Get off the screen, starting at charts won't do any good.

Activities I am involved in:
Reading Business Magazines, Cycling for now (I have piled on some weight from couple of vacations), Business Mentoring and consulting (I have been involved in couple of startup projects), Cooking.

Things to stay away from:
Don't Speculate, Don't follow TV news (each analysts will have a different opinion from others), Don't buy into so called get rich overnight schemes.

That's all,
dxnation.

Thanks for all the details. Just a couple of questions:

a) What financial instruments do you trade?
b) what was your trading capital when you started
c) for how long do you have been doing this?


Thanks gain!

dxnation posted:
I live off trading and my typical days is like this:

Tools of Trade:
2 Laptops, 1 Smart Phone and 1 Tablet and 2 Internet Connections (by any chance if one goes down).

Monitoring Tools:
MyFxBook
ForexFactory
My Excelsheets

Trading Tools:
FxTrade (for Oanda)
MT4
MT4 Demo (for various charting, homework, indicator study etc)

Time:
US session / UK session Overlap (8:00 AM est to 11:30 AM est)
Japan Session (8:30 PM est to 11:30 PM est)

What I do in spare time ?
Read, Study, Make Charts, (I am into technical and fundamental trading).

Very Important Thing as @seankelly63 said, there is always tomorrow if you miss your trade today. Have patience. Get off the screen, starting at charts won't do any good.

Activities I am involved in:
Reading Business Magazines, Cycling for now (I have piled on some weight from couple of vacations), Business Mentoring and consulting (I have been involved in couple of startup projects), Cooking.

Things to stay away from:
Don't Speculate, Don't follow TV news (each analysts will have a different opinion from others), Don't buy into so called get rich overnight schemes.

That's all,
dxnation.

Thank you very much. That is what I was hoping to hear from experienced traders.

a) What financial instruments do you trade?

I trade USD, JPY, EUR, AUD crosses

My theories works best for JPY based pairs and I do most of my work in Japan Session as well.

b) what was your trading capital when you started
I started part time in early 2009 and invested $ 500.00 (Being Cautious).

c) for how long do you have been doing this?
I have been doing this since 2012. Have taken good vacations in between as well (My Motivation Factor)

ForexGuru,

You very much use the same aproach i use and almost the same tools, except that i don't use forexfactory. Instead i use Fxstreet mostly because of the news feed. I don't ever trade the news. I only use it to keep track of the financial market sentiment.
I only trade EURUSD, USDJPY and sometimes GBPUSD and also DAX CFD.

Another difference is that i don't trade for living yet. After 6 years of experience i'm ready to do it. i've got the capital and found a system that suits me. I only need to find the right oportunity to leave my dayjob. It's difficult because o co-own a business and work in the company along with my partners and i don't want to let them down.

Typical day of mine , is wake up - check all VPSes (because having robots on laptop might be risky) , calculating etc.

Mostly next is free time (Except things like shopping). Very often I take my car for a ride into local race track to have a bit of entertainment. I have always next to me my BlackBerry smartphone + BlackBerry Playbook tablet to check VPS if needed and place trades on news publication.

adrian8891 posted:
Typical day of mine , is wake up - check all VPSes (because having robots on laptop might be risky) , calculating etc.

Mostly next is free time (Except things like shopping). Very often I take my car for a ride into local race track to have a bit of entertainment. I have always next to me my BlackBerry smartphone + BlackBerry Playbook tablet to check VPS if needed and place trades on news publication.

I would say the same as Adrian8891 regarding the VPS, as it is an obvious need if you trade EAs.

Then on the other hand I spend most of my time at work and I don't plan on stopping. FX is like an extra earning, or I should say a better alternative that cheap mutual funds or any investment proposed by your bank that yield 5-10%.....yearly!
I must say that a certain part of my income comes from cashback rebates. This has been a very stable income source that one should not ignore. It pays my VPS and gives me an extra 1-1.5% perf on my balance monthly.

its hard to make a living, but there are several people who are actively making money, what is an adequate amount? $2500 a month?

there is no secret, its all about patience and consistency

I'd say, if anyone wants to find the right balance needed to stop working and trade for a living, think like this:

1) How much do you think you need every month to pay your rent, utility bills and other costs of living? I live in France and I'd estimate this amount at around 2000€ to be 'ok-good'.

2) To make these 2000€ you need to get in touch with someone already in the business or any tax expert to tell you how much you need to make gross to 'keep' this amount net (let's say you need to make 3000€ gross).

3) Now that you have a monthly target of at least (don't forget your balance needs to grow) 3000€, you need to look at the strategy that you practice in demo or live on a small account so that your risk is respected (no more than 1-2% risk per trade at maximum). If with this safe strategy you managed to consistently make 5% a month you'd therefore need 3000€/5%= 60,000€ available.

seankelly63 posted:
I am sure this has crossed the minds of all aspiring traders. I know for me it has been my goal for many years. I still hope to some day do this for a living.

Please take the time to answer the questions with honesty. Perhaps this thread will help everybody. I am especially interested to hear from those that are actually doing it successfully.

Hello I have been trading for 19 months and have learned from what I would consider the best teacher ever. I am a technical trader and have learned to anticipate the market by what the money makers or big banks are doing. I average 100-200 pips minimum a day. I am only trading dollar pips but raise the bar as I get better and better I started with a demo and then micros now i trade mini's. If you take the time to learn have rules and acct margin management you can surely make a living. With between 2-4 thousand pips a month it is only a matter of increasing my lot sizes.

Thanks Michael Anthony