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Trading for a living

  • #801
  • Nov 30, 2025 6:11am Nov 30, 2025 6:11am
Hi everyone,
Just a tip of advice Trading , I have been watching the market for years and did too many backtests , the only purpose of watching the charts for many days or years is to understand the market behavior and believe me most of the time history repeats itself just need to be committed, 1 year ago I started trading live with my strategy and the result is astonishing.

I will start trading on the account that I have added on my forexfactory account just to show results and share what I know.

Am just trading AUDCAD On Wednesday and Thursday, it's the most suitable for my strategy and it's the most ranging currency you can ever find, in average I take only 1 or 2 trades a week, not important how many you take but the risk to reward.
Wealthy
  • #802
  • Nov 30, 2025 7:07am Nov 30, 2025 7:07am
Quoting Noisy
{quote} https://www.reuters.com/business/cme...rs-2025-11-28/
Yep, that's what I said. I was "there" and experienced it, given that I was "working" on the 28th, had read the news, had been watching the news, and had been watching charts. It's called being a trader.
  • #803
  • Nov 30, 2025 7:41am Nov 30, 2025 7:41am
Quoting GEfx
{quote} Yep, that's what I said. I was "there" and experienced it, given that I was "working" on the 28th, had read the news, had been watching the news, and had been watching charts. It's called being a trader.
Yes. I was asleep at the time. It was the middle of the night here. It seems things were back to normal by the regular market opening time, and that the market generally closes earlier on Fridays after Thanksgiving, as you mentioned.
  • #804
  • Nov 30, 2025 8:43am Nov 30, 2025 8:43am
Quoting Noisy
Something different. Yes, I know that CFD brokers, including CFD prop firms, have different price feeds, but look at this. Gold for Friday at 07:05 UTC and 07:20 UTC. That was around the time the CME was experiencing the outage. On my Darwinex account, the price fluctuation around that time was 0.35%, while FTMO showed 1.40%. That's four times as much? {image} {image}
CFD brokers make they own data feed. Some may hedge they risk into futures market. Lower chart broker seems to have done that.
That's why I recommend to trade futures. Centralize market, price for all trades same, does not matter what broker he uses.
I might be wrong , I have been wrong before
  • #805
  • Nov 30, 2025 9:13am Nov 30, 2025 9:13am
Quoting Noisy
{quote} Yes. I was asleep at the time. It was the middle of the night here. It seems things were back to normal by the regular market opening time, and that the market generally closes earlier on Fridays after Thanksgiving, as you mentioned.
You were asleep? The CME recovered at around 9:00 AM EST on Friday, which is early afternoon in Germany, where you live. The system went down at around 12:00 AM EST, which is around 8 AM in Germany. Do you sleep during the day? During trading hours in the EU, UK and NY? As for CFD trading, that is illegal in the US.
  • #806
  • Nov 30, 2025 9:55am Nov 30, 2025 9:55am
Quoting GEfx
{quote} You were asleep? The CME recovered at around 9:00 AM EST on Friday, which is early afternoon in Germany, where you live. The system went down at around 12:00 AM EST, which is around 8 AM in Germany. Do you sleep during the day? During trading hours in the EU, UK and NY? As for CFD trading, that is illegal in the US.
The disruption apparently lasted from Thursday night until Friday afternoon. I get up about an hour before the London session starts and go to bed two hours after the New York session ends. CFDs. Yes, I know it's not possible in the US.
  • #807
  • Nov 30, 2025 10:26am Nov 30, 2025 10:26am
Quoting Noisy
{quote} The disruption apparently lasted from Thursday night until Friday afternoon. I get up about an hour before the London session starts and go to bed two hours after the New York session ends. CFDs. Yes, I know it's not possible in the US.
You said you were asleep when the outage happened, and apparently it had some impact on your open trades. The outage went from around midnight Thursday EST to around 9 am Friday morning EST. That was approximately from the London open (your time) to mid-afternoon (your time). The US markets were open on Friday until around 7 pm in Germany, with bonds trading until around 8 pm. So, as a trader, you slept in on Friday, all day? I'm trying to understand the basis of one of your previous posts. You said that you had open trades on Friday, implied that the CME situation had impacted your situation, and then went on about how unreliable trading systems can hurt your trading. I have been reading about your experience as a trader, and this post was among those that made no sense to me. On Friday, if you followed the above stated procedure that you follow, it is unclear how you ended up with open trades.
  • #808
  • Edited 11:29am Nov 30, 2025 10:56am | Edited 11:29am
Quoting GEfx
{quote} You said you were asleep when the outage happened, and apparently it had some impact on your open trades. The outage went from around midnight Thursday EST to around 9 am Friday morning EST. That was approximately from the London open (your time) to mid-afternoon (your time). The US markets were open on Friday until around 7 pm in Germany, with bonds trading until around 8 pm. So, as a trader, you slept in on Friday, all day? I'm trying to understand the basis of one of your previous posts. You said that you had open trades on Friday, implied...

Sorry for the confusion. If the disruption only started early this morning, I was awake, but as I mentioned, I'm currently trading an automated system and therefore don't spend any active time looking at charts during the day (London or New York sessions), as I lack a clear plan for doing so, even if I wanted to trade manually during these times.

The system is currently trading DAX, NASTAQ, and Gold. Positions for the DAX are opened within the first 45 minutes after the Xetra market opens, which is between 9:00 and 9:45 AM here. For NASTAQ and Gold, positions are opened within the first 45 minutes of the NYSE opening, which is currently between 15:30 and 16:15 PM here.

On Friday, a position for NASTAQ and Gold was opened as expected at the NYSE open (by which time the disruption had apparently already ended). I was out all day Friday afternoon and only noticed that the positions were still open when I returned late that evening, which surprised me, as all positions are instructed to get closed automatically one hour before the official market closing times. However, since Friday was a shortened trading day, this apparently didn't work. Unless we open with a large gap down, everything should turn out fine. NAS/Gold buys are currently slightly profitable.

So it wasn't due to the CME malfunction. It's all fine. Memo to myself: Take holidays and shortened trading days into account.
  • #809
  • Edited 1:11pm Nov 30, 2025 11:22am | Edited 1:11pm
Quoting Noisy
{quote} What he says is correct if he means that it's probably not necessary to stare at a screen all day, and it's not particularly sustainable if you try to run a business/career doing it. However, I understand that this is something many people associate with the image of a trader—preferably with lots of screens and flashing alerts that keep you on your toes all day long. Presumably mostly young people or pensioners who have secure finances and do this as a kind of hobby because they enjoy it. If you enjoy it and make money from it, keep doing...
Here's the thing, it is possible to make money whether you watch the market all day or not. But if you wanna maximize the profits and minimize the losses, then you gotta pay more attention than that.

For example: GEfx mentioned that you were asleep during the CME outage and it affected your trades. Idk the details, but these kinda things can eat up your profits if you are not there. That is exactly why professional traders are sitting on their ass all day looking at gazillion screens, watching different markets and the Bloomberg Terminal. The goal is to minimize the losses and maximize the profits.

Can you imagine professional and competent traders at the trading floors not showing up for work? Even if they are not actively trading, they are trying to generate ideas, looking for, searching for new stocks to trade, reading their financials, looking for different countries to invest in etc. etc. Catching up with the new trends and the next big thing. That's what they are paid to do.

Ofc we retailers are not under that pressure, but our struggle is to put food on the table. I think that's why we gotta be even more locked in than a professional. Pros have a paycheck but a retailer doesn't. So we eat what we kill. In order to kill more, we gotta go hunting more often.

If one is a hobby trader, yeah they have the luxury to watch the markets occasionally and be happy with what they get. But if we are talking about "trading for a living" then the work never ends depending on the lifestyle you want.
You have to have an IQ higher than 90 to interact with this user.
  • #810
  • Nov 30, 2025 11:43am Nov 30, 2025 11:43am
Quoting Nordling
{quote} Here's the thing, it is possible to make money whether you watch the market all day or not. But if you wanna maximize the profits and minimize the losses, then you gotta pay more attention than that. For example: GEfx mentioned that you were asleep during the CME outage and it affected your trades. Idk the details, but these kinda things can eat up your profits if you are not there. That iş exactly why professional traders are sitting on their ass all day looking at gazillion screens, watching different markets and the Bloomberg Terminal....
  • #812
  • Dec 1, 2025 3:22am Dec 1, 2025 3:22am
Quoting Noisy
...Some questions to get the conversation rolling: What has helped you most in moving towards consistent profitability? Do you focus on day trading, swing trading, or longer-term investing? How do you deal with the pressure of needing to cover regular monthly expenses while trading income can be irregular? What resources, tools, or routines have been game-changers for you? Whether you’re already trading full-time or still working towards it, your insights could be really valuable to others here. Let’s make this a space where we can share practical...
What has helped you most in moving towards consistent profitability?

I know exact my first hour of trading. I start to watch the bit/ask price window and set way to large positions. I moved my account fast to a double in late day and close my terminal. I have had no clue what i am done. Next day i was sure can do it once again and this was not the fact. I had open a large position in loss and my account was living one week.
After that i start searching here for some input and focused on scalping. I found some material here and bought a strategy aswell. Reading it and start again with new account. I was not able to make that fast profit as in my first hour of trading again. It takes now much longer to kill the account. But it cant help me to go in profit.

Years later i realize that i must change focus. I start to invest more time in money management as building a trading system. Not long ago i have switched to longterm trading, as the big money needs time to build positions aswell. That changed my view dramatically. I today trade with less stress, give me the time to follow my trading plan. All this was not madeable in minute charts.
I also switched back to a more classical trading method as i realized, all the things that around trading has not changed, all is available since decades. The things that come out bring no new input or are absolute a upcoming secret. Be sure you can make enough money with a simple method, IF you are able to build it on suitable money management.

Do you focus on day trading, swing trading, or longer-term investing?

I would prefer longterm investment in the manner i position early with focus what will big money move over next months. If someone struggle to have profit from trading, start with longterm. If things go well, a way to swing trading can be on plan, BUT onyl if things in longterm be good. Daytrading is something that can be ignored if the first two running good, also here are the guys who invest or you mean they trading millions over millions in 24 hours without having longterm focus on market? Be not naive
postion building for them takes time and for what watch the charts. you find the hint fast.

How do you deal with the pressure of needing to cover regular monthly expenses while trading income can be irregular?

This is only a fault if your plan is to small calculate. If you need x money in the month, you not can trade around x money. You must achieve a much much higher output!
Why this? Many things personal or trading can be run out of order. Say you will be invest days in holiday (and be sure you must do it much more as on a regular job) or you are getting ill for some time. These times your trading outcome will zero that you must recover fast as you have not placed in trading plan. Here in Germany we have taxes on almost everything and we secured on health issues about our system. If you not work for some business you must yourself secure if life change your health. Think one moment about how things can drop if you have a health damage that you can not trading anymore. All this must be involved in the plans.
I would not calculate under the 3-4 times higher the amount you have from regular job. Say you are getting 3000 Euro in regular work, your trading outcome must 9000 - 12000 the month to recover the all the costs that comes with fulltime trading. Means not you are can take all the money for the month. You must transport some to hold back for heavy times that are coming and they come be sure.

Now calculate what must the initial account height and what are realistic result can be over the year after all taxes! Be sure you need much!
If you take the 9000 a month and for the year you must have 108.000 result.
Say this 108.000 is the profit and you can achieve a minimum 10% the year your trading account must start with over one million!
If you only calculate with the half and be sure it will stress you, you must have a half million. Starting with much lower is a real uncalculable lifetime risk. Go first working if you have the capital, taking trading incount to help reaching that level earlier. Never take money much lower from bank say 50.000 as you not have the starting capital yet, that lead to a more dramatically fall. After the fall you will never come up again.

What resources, tools, or routines have been game-changers for you?

All start with one book back in times i bought, but not realize how good it was, as it is not that shiny and heavy to read, but it is my changing. A second book helped me to cover the money management tasks. First i want to take all the information to scalping, but i dropped it last months forever. It is really not needable to profit from trading.
I start my analysis in complete outzoomed weekly chart an make my few lines on it. If i have no clue what is going on here, i will not have a clue how big money will move the money next months/years. I go over to daily and same thing again. If here things not tell a path, STOP! If it is clear i going to hourly for finetune the entry.
This is my basic routine, BUT as mention earlier, things can change! You going ill, you get lifetime task that reduce your time to follow the market. For this scenario i have a second routine that keeps me only for a few minutes on terminal to position on market. Here i trade the daily in another focus.

Tools. I drop nearly all indicator, as they are not really helpful. They came to late, they can not cover the story in the market. The only what is left is the ADR as i do not want calculate it on every candle myself.

Result:

Before going to think trading fultime, calculate first and if not can be achieved, take trading to a second income, a plus to your money. Sometimes it can help to start the retirement earlier or you build capital for the years after active working. Also you can achieve to work less as you can compensate it with money from trading. Much more things can be thought. Trading fultime is only an option if you can do it. Working in a real job is not ever the bad thing, if you do work with less stress.
Perfection is the enemy of good enough!
  • #813
  • Dec 1, 2025 4:07am Dec 1, 2025 4:07am
Quoting MichaelSch
{quote} What has helped you most in moving towards consistent profitability? I know exact my first hour of trading. I start to watch the bit/ask price window and set way to large positions. I moved my account fast to a double in late day and close my terminal. I have had no clue what i am done. Next day i was sure can do it once again and this was not the fact. I had open a large position in loss and my account was living one week. After that i start searching here for some input and focused on scalping. I found some material here and bought a strategy...
It's nice to see that someone actually pays attention to the topic title.

I agree with you that as a self-employed person, you need a higher income than an employee, because expenses for taxes, social security, and operating costs are higher. Ideally, one should also have a financial cushion to cover illnesses or unforeseen expenses.

I deliberately keep my living expenses low and I've already factored all of that in. As you know our country is not the cheapest. I need at least €5,000 per month to live off trading. That would be the absolute minimum. At a 2% monthly return, that would require €250,000 in trading capital.

Long-term profits would hardly help me, as I have no savings to cover months of unprofitability.

Guter Beitrag. Danke!
  • #814
  • Dec 1, 2025 4:42am Dec 1, 2025 4:42am
Quoting Noisy
{quote} It's nice to see that someone actually pays attention to the topic title. I agree with you that as a self-employed person, you need a higher income than an employee, because expenses for taxes, social security, and operating costs are higher. Ideally, one should also have a financial cushion to cover illnesses or unforeseen expenses. I deliberately keep my living expenses low and I've already factored all of that in. As you know our country is not the cheapest. I need at least €5,000 per month to live off trading. That would be the absolute...
This is the absolute minimum i think. Only if you have no family to take care off, i would go with 250.000 euro.
Denke an die Familienversicherung um nur ein Beispiel anzufügen.
Was ich nicht auf dem Schirm hatte und habe auch die ersten Jahre verpasst. Du kannst in dem deutschen System ab dem 50. Lebensjahr auch Rentenpunkte kaufen, wenn du eine CHance hast realistisch 35 Beitragsjahre zu erreichen. Rückblickend wäre das eine gute Sache MIT breitgestreuten Investitionen. Ich habe die 50 überschritten jedoch will ich mir noch wenige kaufen.
Perfection is the enemy of good enough!
  • #815
  • Dec 1, 2025 6:34am Dec 1, 2025 6:34am
Quoting MichaelSch
{quote} This is the absolute minimum i think. Only if you have no family to take care off, i would go with 250.000 euro. Denke an die Familienversicherung um nur ein Beispiel anzufügen. Was ich nicht auf dem Schirm hatte und habe auch die ersten Jahre verpasst. Du kannst in dem deutschen System ab dem 50. Lebensjahr auch Rentenpunkte kaufen, wenn du eine CHance hast realistisch 35 Beitragsjahre zu erreichen. Rückblickend wäre das eine gute Sache MIT breitgestreuten Investitionen. Ich habe die 50 überschritten jedoch will ich mir noch wenige kaufen....
Danke für den Hinweis. Ich muss "zum Glück" nur für mich selbst sorgen, aber das fällt mir auch schon schwer genug. Ich bin schon seit meinem 25. Lebensjahr selbstständig, allerdings nicht mit dem Trading, sondern im Bereich der IT. In den letzten Jahren läuft es allerdings nicht mehr so gut und ich würde dies gerne mit dem Trading ersetzen können. Zumindest zum größten Teil. Ich bin gesetzlich krankenversichert. In die gesetzliche Rentenversicherung hab ich bisher nichts eingezahlt bzw. so gut wie nichts, da nie lange angestellt gewesen. Ich "versuche" privat vorzusorgen. Habe einige ETFs die ich monatliche bespare, ein paar Aktienfonds, Crypto und ein Tagesgeldkonto, keine Immobilien.
  • #816
  • Dec 1, 2025 8:35am Dec 1, 2025 8:35am
Quoting Noisy
{quote} Danke für den Hinweis. Ich muss "zum Glück" nur für mich selbst sorgen, aber das fällt mir auch schon schwer genug. Ich bin schon seit meinem 25. Lebensjahr selbstständig, allerdings nicht mit dem Trading, sondern im Bereich der IT. In den letzten Jahren läuft es allerdings nicht mehr so gut und ich würde dies gerne mit dem Trading ersetzen können. Zumindest zum größten Teil. Ich bin gesetzlich krankenversichert. In die gesetzliche Rentenversicherung hab ich bisher nichts eingezahlt bzw. so gut wie nichts, da nie lange angestellt gewesen....
Die geschilderte Situation würde ich tatsächlich auch nutzen wollen. Hierfür würde ich mich erst einmal drastisch einkürzen, also meinenLebenstil soweit minimieren, das ich nicht am Hungertuch nage aber auch keine grpßen Sprünge mache. Mit die größten Faktoren sind die Unterkunft und Ausgaben für Freizeitaktivitäten. Hier hilft eine Auflistung aller Ausgaben und dann die nüchteren Betrachtung was überhaupt notwendig ist und bleibt. Je weiter dies reduziert werden kann, umso weniger Startkapital wird benötigt. Bei nicht gezahlten Rentenbeiträge hoff ich sehr das dann zumindest eine private Vorsorge getroffen wurde? Wenn dem nicht so ist, kommt ein gehöriger Betrag dazu, der erst einmal generiert werden müsste. Mal anders gesagt, ich würde die Wohnung zu einem Zimmer wechseln und dafür die private Vorsorge vorziehen.
Perfection is the enemy of good enough!
  • #818
  • Dec 2, 2025 5:34am Dec 2, 2025 5:34am
Quoting MichaelSch
Bei nicht gezahlten Rentenbeiträge hoff ich sehr das dann zumindest eine private Vorsorge getroffen wurde?
Ich hatte mal überlegt freiwillig in die GRV einzuzahlen, aber bei meinen derzeit eher geringen und stark schwankenden Einnahmen macht das aus mehreren Gründen kaum Sinn. Ich muss diese Situation zunächst grundlegend verbessern und schlichtweg mehr und regelmäßigere Einnahmen erzielen, dann kann ich auch besser fürs Alter vorsorgen.

Ich hab bisher wie gesagt ein paar Kapitalanlagen (Aktienfonds, ETFs und Krypto). Das sind aktuell so etwas um die 150k. Die Option besteht, die Eigentumswohnung meines Vaters zu übernehmen, damit ich Alter zumindest ein Dach über dem Kopf hätte und keine Miete mehr zahlen bräuchte. Aber wer weiß was in 27 Jahren ist. Vielleicht sprechen wir bis dahin alle Russisch oder Chinesisch

Hast du dich selbst mal mit dem Thema Prop-Trading auseinandergesetzt? Ich habe gestern einen neuen Versuch gestartet, mit meinem aktuellen Handelsansatz. Dazu probiere ich Darwinex aus (www.darwinex.com / www.darwinexzero.com).
  • #819
  • Dec 2, 2025 6:26am Dec 2, 2025 6:26am
Quoting Noisy
{quote} Ich hatte mal überlegt freiwillig in die GRV einzuzahlen, aber bei meinen derzeit eher geringen und stark schwankenden Einnahmen macht das aus mehreren Gründen kaum Sinn. Ich muss diese Situation zunächst grundlegend verbessern und schlichtweg mehr und regelmäßigere Einnahmen erzielen, dann kann ich auch besser fürs Alter vorsorgen. Ich hab bisher wie gesagt ein paar Kapitalanlagen (Aktienfonds, ETFs und Krypto). Das sind aktuell so etwas um die 150k. Die Option besteht, die Eigentumswohnung meines Vaters zu übernehmen, damit ich Alter zumindest...
Ja, die Altersfürsirge ist ein nicht einfaches Thema. Ich habe diverse Fonds am laufen und werde dann in naher Zukunft mit Risiko Kapital Aktien kaufen. Im Moment handel ich auch aktiv den Eurusd. Die Option mit dem Kauf von Rentenpunkte bleibt interessant.

Mit Prop-Firms will ich nicht zusammenarbeiten, das ist mir zu windig.

Ich bin Mitte 50 und habe nicht mehr viel Zeit.
Perfection is the enemy of good enough!
  • #820
  • Dec 2, 2025 6:38am Dec 2, 2025 6:38am
Quoting MichaelSch
{quote} Ja, die Altersfürsirge ist ein nicht einfaches Thema. Ich habe diverse Fonds am laufen und werde dann in naher Zukunft mit Risiko Kapital Aktien kaufen. Im Moment handel ich auch aktiv den Eurusd. Die Option mit dem Kauf von Rentenpunkte bleibt interessant. Mit Prop-Firms will ich nicht zusammenarbeiten, das ist mir zu windig. Ich bin Mitte 50 und habe nicht mehr viel Zeit.
Ach was. Du hast noch genug Zeit. Lebe gesund und bleibe aktiv!

Hier der Typ z.B. hat aus 3k in nur 2 Jahren ein Vermögen gemacht.

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