Forex trading profissão perigosa e difícil

Fundações da Sociedade Aberta.

George Soros é um dos principais filantropos do mundo. Ele doou mais de US $ 32 bilhões de sua fortuna pessoal para financiar o trabalho da Open Society Foundations em todo o mundo. Ele também é o fundador e principal financiador da Universidade da Europa Central em Budapeste, um importante centro regional para o estudo das ciências sociais.

Sob sua liderança, as Open Society Foundations têm apoiado indivíduos e organizações em todo o mundo que lutam pela liberdade de expressão, governo responsável e sociedades que promovem a justiça e a igualdade. As fundações também forneceram taxas escolares e universitárias para milhares de estudantes promissores que, de outra forma, teriam sido excluídos de oportunidades por causa de sua identidade ou onde moram.

Esta doação tem freqüentemente focado naqueles que enfrentam discriminação puramente por quem eles são. Ele apoiou grupos que representam o povo cigano da Europa, e outros empurraram para as margens da sociedade, como usuários de drogas, profissionais do sexo e pessoas LGBTI.

Soros experimentou tal intolerância em primeira mão. Nascido na Hungria em 1930, ele viveu a ocupação nazista de 1944-1945, que resultou no assassinato de mais de 500.000 judeus húngaros. Sua própria família judaica sobreviveu garantindo documentos de identidade falsos, ocultando seus antecedentes e ajudando outros a fazer o mesmo. Soros mais tarde lembrou que “em vez de nos submetermos ao nosso destino, resistimos a uma força maligna que era muito mais forte do que nós - mas prevalecemos. Não apenas sobrevivemos, mas conseguimos ajudar os outros ”.

Enquanto os comunistas consolidavam o poder na Hungria depois da guerra, Soros partiu de Budapeste em 1947 para Londres, trabalhando meio expediente como carregador de ferrovias e como garçom de boate para apoiar seus estudos na London School of Economics. Em 1956, ele emigrou para os Estados Unidos, entrando no mundo das finanças e investimentos, onde ele iria fazer sua fortuna.

Em 1970, ele lançou seu próprio fundo de hedge, Soros Fund Management, e se tornou um dos investidores mais bem-sucedidos da história dos Estados Unidos.

Soros usou sua fortuna para criar a Open Society Foundations - uma rede de fundações, parceiros e projetos em mais de 100 países. Seu nome e obra refletem a influência no pensamento de Soros sobre a filosofia de Karl Popper, que Soros encontrou pela primeira vez na London School of Economics. Em seu livro Sociedade Aberta e Seus Inimigos, Popper argumenta que nenhuma filosofia ou ideologia é o árbitro final da verdade, e que as sociedades só podem florescer quando permitem governança democrática, liberdade de expressão e respeito pelos direitos individuais - uma abordagem na núcleo do trabalho da Open Society Foundations.

Soros começou sua filantropia em 1979, dando bolsas para negros sul-africanos sob o apartheid. Nos anos 80, ele ajudou a promover a troca aberta de idéias na Hungria comunista, financiando visitas acadêmicas ao Ocidente e apoiando jovens grupos culturais independentes e outras iniciativas. Após a queda do Muro de Berlim, ele criou a Universidade da Europa Central como um espaço para promover o pensamento crítico - na época um conceito estranho na maioria das universidades do antigo bloco comunista. Com o fim da Guerra Fria, ele gradualmente expandiu sua filantropia para os Estados Unidos, África, América Latina e Ásia, apoiando uma vasta gama de novos esforços para criar sociedades mais responsáveis, transparentes e democráticas. Ele foi uma das primeiras vozes proeminentes a criticar a guerra contra as drogas como "possivelmente mais prejudicial do que o problema das drogas", e ajudou a dar o pontapé inicial no movimento pró-maconha medicinal dos Estados Unidos. No início dos anos 2000, ele se tornou um defensor vocal dos esforços do casamento entre pessoas do mesmo sexo. Embora suas causas tenham evoluído ao longo do tempo, eles continuaram a seguir de perto seus ideais de uma sociedade aberta.

Suas doações foram além de suas próprias fundações, apoiando organizações independentes como a Global Witness, o International Crisis Group, o Conselho Europeu de Relações Exteriores e o Institute for New Economic Thinking.

Agora com 80 anos, Soros continua a ter um interesse pessoal ativo no trabalho da Open Society Foundations, viajando amplamente para apoiar seu trabalho e defendendo mudanças políticas positivas com líderes mundiais, tanto públicos quanto privados.

Em 2017, a Open Society Foundations anunciou que Soros havia transferido US $ 18 bilhões de sua fortuna para uma dotação que financiaria o trabalho futuro das fundações, elevando sua doação total às fundações desde 1984 para mais de US $ 30 bilhões.

Ao longo do legado filantrópico de Soros, uma coisa permaneceu constante: um compromisso de lutar contra os problemas mais intratáveis ​​do mundo. Ele é conhecido por enfatizar a importância de lidar com causas perdedoras. De fato, muitas das questões que Soros assumiu - e ele seria o primeiro a admitir isso - são os tipos de questões para as quais uma solução completa nunca poderia emergir.

“Meu sucesso nos mercados financeiros me deu um grau maior de independência do que a maioria das pessoas”, escreveu Soros certa vez. Essa independência permitiu-lhe criar o seu próprio caminho para um mundo mais aberto, mais justo e mais equitativo para todos.

Para mais informações sobre as atividades de George Soros que são separadas das Open Society Foundations, visite georgesoros.

Conecte-se com George Soros.

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Paredes em Movimento 24.

A Moving Walls é uma exposição de fotografia documental que explora uma variedade de questões de justiça social e direitos humanos.

Política de uso de conteúdo.

Salvo indicação em contrário, você pode republicar nosso conteúdo gratuitamente com algumas restrições.

© 2018 Open Society Foundations, alguns direitos reservados.

Quanto dinheiro os comerciantes do dia podem fazer (ações, Forex e futuros)

Quanto dinheiro posso fazer como um comerciante do dia? & # 8211; Aqui nós vamos olhar para o potencial de renda para traders de ações, forex e futuros.

Vamos enfrentá-lo, isso é o que os comerciantes e potenciais comerciantes querem saber "Quanto dinheiro eu posso fazer como um comerciante de dia" & # 8221; Obviamente, há uma enorme variedade de potencial de renda quando se trata de comerciantes do dia. É bem possível que algumas pessoas ainda precisem trabalhar em outro emprego, mas consigam tirar um pouco de dinheiro do mercado a cada mês durante o dia de negociação. Há aqueles que podem viver confortavelmente no que eles fazem no dia de negociação, e há a pequena porcentagem que fará muito. Há também um grande grupo de comerciantes que vão falhar e nunca ganharão dinheiro.

Quanto dinheiro você faz como day trader é determinado em grande parte por:

Qual mercado você negocia. Cada mercado tem diferentes vantagens. Os estoques são geralmente a classe de ativos mais intensiva em capital, portanto, se você negociar outra classe de ativos, como futuros ou forex, você geralmente pode começar a negociar com menos capital. Quanto dinheiro você começa. Se você começar a negociar com US $ 2.000, seu potencial de renda (em dólares) é muito menor do que alguém que começa com US $ 20.000. Quanto tempo você dedica à sua educação comercial. Para criar uma receita consistente de negociação diária, onde você tem um plano de negociação sólido e é capaz de implementá-lo, provavelmente levará um ano ou mais se você se dedicar a ele em período integral. Se você praticar apenas meio-período, pode levar vários anos para desenvolver uma consistência real e atingir o tipo de retorno discutido abaixo.

Seu potencial de renda também é determinado por sua personalidade (você é disciplinado e paciente?) E as estratégias que você usa. Essas questões não são nosso foco aqui. Se você quiser estratégias de negociação, tutoriais de negociação ou artigos sobre psicologia de negociação, você pode visitar a página de Tutoriais de Negociação, ou verificar o meu eBook Guia de Estratégias Forex.

O potencial de rendimento também é baseado na volatilidade do mercado. Os cenários abaixo assumem um certo número de negociações a cada dia, com um certo risco e potencial de lucro. Em condições de mercado muito lentas, você pode encontrar menos negócios do que o discutido, mas em condições de mercado ativo, você pode encontrar mais negócios. Com o passar do tempo, o número médio de negócios se equilibra, mas em qualquer dia, semana ou mês, você pode ter mais ou menos operações do que a média, o que afetará a receita naquele mês.

Agora, vamos passar por alguns cenários para responder à pergunta: "Quanto posso ganhar como comerciante de dia?"

Para todos os cenários, assumirei que você nunca arrisca mais de 1% de sua conta em uma única negociação. Risco é a perda potencial em uma negociação, definida como a diferença entre o preço de entrada e o preço de perda de parada, multiplicada por quantas unidades do ativo você tira (chamado tamanho da posição).

Não há motivos para arriscar mais de 1% da sua conta. Como mostrarei, mesmo mantendo o risco baixo (1% ou menos por negociação), você pode potencialmente obter altos retornos.

Os números abaixo são baseados puramente em modelos matemáticos e não servem para indicar que você fará isso. Os números abaixo são usados ​​para mostrar o potencial, mas não para refletir retornos típicos. Como indicado no primeiro parágrafo, a maioria dos traders falham.

Para todos os cenários abaixo, usaremos contas relativamente pequenas, já que é com isso que a maioria dos comerciantes de dia começa. É mais fácil gerar retornos mensais de alta porcentagem em uma conta menor em comparação a uma conta maior. Portanto, será cada vez mais difícil gerar esses retornos à medida que a conta se torna cada vez maior (esse é um problema que todos esperam ter!). Dito isso, à medida que a conta cresce, sua renda em dólar pode continuar a crescer, mesmo que seu percentual de retorno fique estagnado ou diminuído.

Conecte números diferentes nos cenários abaixo e você verá diferentes maneiras de negociar (por exemplo, você pode reduzir o número de negociações e tentar uma recompensa muito maior: operações de risco). Mudanças muito pequenas podem ter um impacto enorme na lucratividade. Para esses cenários, assumimos uma modesta razão de risco / recompensa de 1,5: 1, 5 negociações por dia e uma taxa de ganho de 50%.

Quanto dinheiro posso fazer dia negociando ações?

As ações de day trading são provavelmente o mercado de dia mais conhecido, mas também o mais intensivo em capital. Nos EUA você deve ter pelo menos US $ 25.000 em sua conta de day trading, caso contrário você não pode negociar (veja: quanto dinheiro eu preciso para me tornar um day trader). Para ficar acima desse limite, financie sua conta com mais de US $ 25.000.

Suponha que você comece a negociar com US $ 30.000. Você usa alavancagem de 4: 1, o que lhe dá $ 120.000 em poder de compra (4 x $ 30.000). Você utiliza uma estratégia que lhe dá $ 0,15 em negociações vencedoras e você perde $ 0,10 em negociações perdidas. Trata-se de uma taxa de recompensa para risco de 1,5: 1.

Com uma conta de US $ 30.000, o máximo que você pode arriscar em cada negociação é US $ 300 (1% de US $ 30.000). Como seu stop loss é de US $ 0,10, você pode ter um tamanho de posição de 3.000 ações (as ações precisarão ter um preço abaixo de US $ 40 para aproveitar esse tamanho de posição, caso contrário você não terá poder de compra suficiente). Para obter esses tipos de estatísticas de uma negociação, você provavelmente precisará negociar ações que tenham volatilidade decente e muito volume (veja Como encontrar ações voláteis para day trading).

Um bom sistema de negociação ganhará 50% do tempo. Você faz uma média de 5 negócios por dia, então se você tem 20 dias de negociação em um mês, você faz 100 negócios por mês.

50 deles foram lucrativos: 50 x US $ 0,15 x 3.000 ações = US $ 22.500.

50 deles não foram lucrativos: 50 x US $ 0,10 x 3.000 ações = (US $ 15.000)

Você ganha US $ 7.500, mas ainda tem comissões e possivelmente outras taxas. Embora isso seja provável no topo, suponha que seu custo por transação seja de US $ 20 (total, para entrar e sair). Seus custos de comissão são: 100 negociações x $ 20 = $ 2000. Se você paga por sua plataforma de negociação / negociação ou troca de direitos, essas taxas também são adicionadas.

Portanto, com uma estratégia de negociação decente em dias úteis e US $ 30.000 (alavancado em 4: 1), você pode fazer aproximadamente:

Lembre-se, você está realmente utilizando cerca de US $ 100.000 a US $ 120.000 em poder de compra em cada negociação (não apenas US $ 30.000). Isto é simplesmente uma fórmula matemática, e requereria encontrar um estoque onde você poderia fazer esta recompensa: relação de risco (1: 5: 1) cinco vezes por dia. Isso pode ser difícil. Além disso, você é altamente alavancado, e há uma chance de perda catastrófica se uma ação para onde você se move agressivamente contra você e sua perda de parada se tornar ineficaz.

Quanto dinheiro posso fazer dia de negociação de futuros?

Para negociar um contrato futuro de E-mini S & P 500, você deve ter pelo menos US $ 7.500 em sua conta de negociação de futuros. Isso permitirá que você negocie um contrato com um stop loss razoável e ainda apenas arrisque 1% do capital.

Suponhamos que você tenha US $ 15.000 para iniciar sua conta de negociação. Mais uma vez, você só arrisca 1% do seu capital, ou US $ 150, em qualquer negociação única.

Cada tick & # 8211; o menor movimento & # 8211; em um contrato E-mini S & P 500 resulta em uma perda / ganho de $ 12,50. Se você arrisca até US $ 150 em cada negociação, isso significa que você pode negociar 2 contratos e arriscar 6 ticks em cada negociação, para um risco total de US $ 150 (6 ticks x US $ 12,50 x 2 contratos). O seu risco é de 6 carrapatos e você tentará fazer 9 carrapatos, já que é uma proporção de recompensa para risco de 1: 5.

Uma vitória de 9 ticks é de $ 112,5 para cada contrato.

Uma perda de 6 ticks é de US $ 75 para cada contrato.

Um bom sistema de negociação ganhará 50% do tempo. Suponha que você tenha em média 5 negociações por dia, portanto, se você tiver 20 dias de negociação em um mês, fará 100 negociações por mês.

50 deles foram lucrativos: 50 x US $ 112,50 x 2 contratos = US $ 11.250.

50 deles não foram rentáveis: 50 x contratos de US $ 75 x 2 = (US $ 7.500)

Você ganha US $ 3.750, mas ainda tem comissões e possivelmente outras taxas. Seu custo por transação é de US $ 5 / contrato (ida e volta). Seus custos de comissão são: 100 negociações x $ 5 x 2 contratos = $ 1000. Se você paga por sua plataforma de negociação / negociação, ou troque por direitos, adicione essas taxas também (a plataforma de negociação recomendada para negociação de futuros é NinjaTrader).

Portanto, com uma estratégia de negociação decente no dia dos futuros e uma conta de US $ 15.000, você pode fazer aproximadamente:

US $ 3.750 & # 8211; $ 1000 = $ 2750 / mês ou cerca de 18% de retorno mensal.

Isso é simplesmente uma fórmula matemática e exigiria cinco transações por dia que ofereçam essa recompensa: risco. Isso pode ser difícil. Além disso, você é altamente alavancado, e há uma chance de perda catastrófica se um mercado onde se mover agressivamente contra você e seu stop loss se tornar ineficaz.

Quanto dinheiro posso fazer dia de negociação Forex?

Forex é o mercado menos intensivo em capital para negociar. Alavancar até 50: 1 (maior em alguns países) significa que você pode abrir uma conta por apenas US $ 100. Eu não recomendo isso. Se você quer ganhar dinheiro, comece com pelo menos $ 3000. Apenas arrisque 1% do seu capital.

Cada pip de movimento no mercado cambial resulta em um ganho / perda de $ 10 se você negociar um lote padrão (100.000 em moeda). Cada pip com um mini lote (10.000 em moeda corrente) vale $ 1. Cada pip com um lote micro (1.000 em moeda) vale US $ 0,10. & # 8220; Valor de pip & # 8221; varia com base no par de moedas que você está negociando, mas os números acima se aplicam ao EUR / USD, que é o par de moedas recomendado para o day trading.

Suponha que sua estratégia limita o risco a 6 pips, você tenta fazer 9 pips sobre os vencedores (em média) e você tem uma conta de US $ 5.000.

Com 6 pips de risco, você pode negociar 8,3 lotes, o que equivale a $ 49,8 de risco por negociação. Isso é menos do que seu risco máximo de US $ 50 (1% de US $ 5.000). Observe como essa posição é altamente alavancada. A conta tem US $ 5.000, e a posição tomada é de US $ 83.000, perto da alavancagem de 17: 1. Se desconfortável com essa quantidade de alavancagem, reduza o tamanho da posição.

Uma vitória de 9 pip é de $ 9 para cada mini-lote.

Uma perda de 6 pip é de US $ 6 para cada mini lote.

Um bom sistema de negociação ganhará 50% do tempo. Você calculou a média de 5 negócios por dia, então se você tem 20 dias de negociação em um mês, você faz 100 negociações.

50 deles foram lucrativos: 50 x US $ 9 x 8,3 mini-lotes = US $ 37.335.

50 deles não foram lucrativos: 50 x US $ 6 x 8,3 mini-lotes = (US $ 2490)

Se forex forex, use um corretor ECN. Os corretores ECN oferecem os spreads mais apertados, o que torna mais fácil para os seus objetivos serem alcançados. As comissões com um bom corretor ECN serão entre US $ 0,2 e US $ 0,5 para cada negociação de ida e volta por mini-lote. Portanto, os custos de comissão são 100 negócios x 8,3 lotes micro x $ 0,5 = $ 415.

Portanto, com uma estratégia decente de negociações diárias e uma conta de US $ 5.000, você pode fazer aproximadamente:

$ 1245 & # 8211; $ 415 = $ 830 / mês ou 17% de retorno mensal.

Seu tamanho de posição é de 8 mini lotes, que é de US $ 83.000. Portanto, para obter esse retorno, é necessário pelo menos 17: 1 de alavancagem. Seu retorno sobre seu próprio capital é muito alto, mas seu retorno sobre o poder de compra (83.000) é um retorno mensal mais modesto de 1%. A alavancagem é muito poderosa e faz toda a diferença aqui.

Isso é simplesmente uma fórmula matemática e exigiria cinco transações por dia que ofereçam essa recompensa: risco. Isso pode ser difícil. Além disso, você é altamente alavancado, e há uma chance de perda catastrófica se um mercado onde se mover agressivamente contra você e seu stop loss se tornar ineficaz.

Quanto dinheiro posso ganhar como comerciante do dia & # 8211; Palavra final.

Todos os cenários, e potencial de renda, estão assumindo que você é um dos poucos comerciantes do dia que atinge este nível e pode ganhar a vida com os mercados. No início do artigo, afirmava-se que um grande grupo de day traders fracassa: apenas cerca de 4% das pessoas que tentam o day trading serão rentáveis. Os comerciantes muito lucrativos são uma porcentagem menor.

Cada mercado usa quantidades diferentes de capital, portanto, não pense que um mercado é melhor do que outro baseado apenas nos retornos do dólar. A principal diferença é simplesmente que para se envolver em ações você precisa de mais capital, e você precisa de menos para começar com forex. Negociação de futuros cai no meio. Todos são ótimos e lucrativos mercados se você encontrar uma estratégia que permita replicar as estatísticas discutidas acima. Os números exatos não importam, por exemplo, uma perda de US $ 0,12 e uma meta de US $ 0,18. Com uma taxa de ganho de 50%, uma média de 1,5: taxa de recompensa para risco e 5 negócios por dia, os resultados acima podem ser replicados. Tenha uma taxa de vitórias mais alta e / ou uma recompensa maior: o risco e os resultados poderiam ser melhores. Tem estatísticas piores e os resultados serão piores.

Lembre-se de que você não pode compor sua conta perpetuamente nesses retornos. A maioria dos comerciantes de dia negocia com uma quantia fixa de capital e retira todos os lucros acima e acima dessa quantia a cada mês. Para entender por que, por favor, leia porque os comerciantes do dia fazem grandes retornos, mas não são milionários. Ele contém informações importantes sobre o gerenciamento de expectativas e a criação de riqueza.

Os cenários são configurados para que você ganhe apenas um pouco mais do que você perde, e suas negociações vencedoras são apenas um pouco maiores que suas negociações perdidas. No mundo real, isso é tipicamente como o dia de negociação vai.

O problema é que a maioria dos operadores não pode perder 40 a 50% do tempo. Eles acham que estão fazendo algo errado e continuam trocando de estratégia. Esse constante movimento de estratégias resulta em uma perda ainda maior.

Mantenha a disciplina, mantenha suas vitórias um pouco maiores que suas perdas e se esforce para ganhar 50% ou mais de suas negociações. Faça isso e você pode se juntar às pequenas fileiras de traders bem-sucedidos.

Ganhar 50% do tempo não é tão fácil, mas você pode não conseguir encontrar 5 negociações válidas por dia em todas as condições de mercado, como nos exemplos. Espere variação em sua renda de mês para mês.

Por Cory Mitchell, CMT.

Mais de 300 páginas de noções básicas de Forex e 20 + estratégias de Forex para lucrar no mercado Forex de 24 horas por dia. Este não é apenas um livro eletrônico, é um curso para desenvolver sua habilidade de negociação passo a passo.

90 pensamentos sobre & ldquo; Quanto dinheiro os comerciantes do dia podem fazer (ações, Forex e Futuros) & rdquo;

Eu realmente gosto do seu site. Eu era um trader por alguns anos, alguns anos atrás, e eu tinha uma estratégia vencedora no começo, então me desviei e entrei em um mercado que eu não conhecia e acabei perdendo tudo. Se eu tivesse apostado em investimentos de qualidade e não em ações de baixo custo, teria ganho muito mais dinheiro, mas fiquei ganancioso e fui para biotecnologia de alto risco / alta recompensa. Eu nunca mais cometerei esse erro.

O que eu pretendo fazer agora é talvez investir cerca de 20k e apenas pegar pequenos 5% de lucros algumas vezes por mês (esperamos que pelo menos 2 por semana). Eu acho que com essa estratégia eu poderia fazer o suficiente regularmente para gerar retornos mais altos e apenas trocar / trabalhar de casa. Mantenha o bom trabalho! Eu vou estar de volta.

HI CORY AGRADECE AO SEU ARTIGO, COMO SERIA APLICÁVEL ÀS OPÇÕES DIÁRIAS, PORQUE DEIXAR DIZER UMA CONTA DE 10.000 $ PODERIA ENVIAR UM EXEMPLO.

Eu não faço opções de troca do dia. E eu não conheço muitos comerciantes de varejo que fazem isso. A maioria mantém negociações de opções por pelo menos dois dias.

Você ainda pode trabalhar seu potencial de lucro embora. É provavelmente o mesmo que os outros mercados. Observe como eles são todos iguais em termos percentuais? Um mercado não é necessariamente melhor que o outro.

O que afeta o lucro é: recompensa em risco, número de negociações e taxa de vitória. Então, se eles permanecerem semelhantes aos números descritos no artigo, seus resultados serão os mesmos (ou bem próximos), não importa em qual mercado você negocie. Comissões então se tornam um fator. Qualquer variação nesses fatores principais afeta o lucro. Insira os números com base em sua própria experiência para ver qual será o resultado esperado com as opções (a expectativa e a capacidade de fazê-lo são, no entanto, duas coisas muito diferentes).

Considere qual é a sua recompensa média: o risco é e a taxa de ganho é. Você deve ter uma boa ideia disso por meio de uma demonstração ou negociação anterior. Considere o tamanho da sua posição para poder calcular o que a sua média ganha e a perda média em dólares será. Multiplique-os pelos ganhos e perdas, conforme indicado no artigo. Também leva em conta quantas negociações você realiza a cada dia e a cada mês. Deduzir comissões.

Cory obrigado pela sua pronta resposta & amp; sugestões, eu normalmente trocas de opções semanais e mensais, no entanto.

Eu tinha notado que estes poderiam ser feitos como você mencionou 1 ou 2 dias, tendo opções que expiram no vencimento semanal mais próximo ou na próxima semana, no máximo, (com pouco valor extrínseco) eu fiz alguns papéis comerciais com resultados mistos, no entanto, depois de ler o seu artigo não tinha certeza do que seriam os colchetes apropriados para obter lucros e perdas com esse tipo de negociação, indiferentemente de depender do meu custo.

sair a 0,50c por contrato se os lucros forem feitos? ou sair com uma perda de 0,20 centavos por contrato - como essas taxas parecem? (eu normalmente entrava em negociações cedo, a primeira coisa que os mercados abrem e saem o mais rápido possível).

Obrigado mais uma vez tudo de bom.

Ei! Como esta estratégia está indo? Você está negociando apenas com o 20K ou você está aproveitado? Em que proporção?

Que setor do mercado, se não ações da moeda de um centavo, dizem ações em US $ 40 por ação ou menos, você está negociando? Tamanho médio de comércio?

Muito obrigado por seus pensamentos. Realmente util!

Estou muito agradecido por seus comentários detalhados sobre negociação. As informações que você compartilhou são realmente enriquecedoras.

Se eu puder perguntar sobre o risco recomendado por comércio em 1% em detalhes, digamos que eu tenha um capital inicial de US $ 5.000.

A aplicação de 1% de risco por negociação significaria US $ 50 para a posição A. Para a abertura subsequente de negociações, aplico 1% de risco no Saldo ou no Patrimônio Líquido? Quantos trades eu poderia abrir? O que é um rebaixamento e como administro bem meu rebaixamento?

Normalmente, quando a troca do dia eu me concentro em apenas um comércio de cada vez. Mas você pode ter várias negociações abertas potencialmente. Eu continuaria a arriscar 1% (ou menos) em cada um.

Você controla seu risco total usando um stop loss DIÁRIO: vantagepointtrading / day-traders-use-daily-stop-loss / Então, assim como você tem um stop loss em cada negociação, você também quer limitar o quanto você perde a cada dia. Por exemplo, você pode limitar-se a perder US $ 150 (que é 3% do saldo da conta $ 5000). Se você está perdendo mais de US $ 150 no dia, feche as posições e pare de negociar naquele dia.

Mas geralmente com o dia de negociação você não vai ter muitas posições. Um, dois, talvez três de cada vez, embora eu ache que isso dependesse do comerciante. Normalmente eu só tenho um de cada vez.

Obrigado pela sua resposta rápida.

Se eu quiser gerenciar um saque de menos de 40% da minha conta inteira com negociações múltiplas e capotar nos próximos dias, cada negociação com risco de 1%, então normalmente eu preciso abrir mais de 40 negociações a qualquer momento matematicamente? Que tipo de trader é esse chamado? Aumentará meu nível de probabilidade de ganhar também?

Isso soa como uma má ideia, para ser honesto. Um rebaixamento diário de 40% é muito. Você tem 2 dias ruins e toda a sua conta desapareceu. É muito improvável que você perca todos os 40 negócios, mas ainda assim, você pode ter certeza.

Concentrar-se em um ou dois comércios de cada vez oferece mais do que suficiente potencial de lucro, como mostra o artigo. Mantenha o risco diário em cerca de 3% ou menos.

Além disso, suas chances de poder encontrar e negociar 40 negociações de ALTA QUALIDADE de uma só vez, como um trader solo, são muito baixas. Portanto, ter negociações de 40 dias de cada vez não é realmente uma consideração realista - e você não teria alavancagem suficiente para fazer isso de qualquer maneira (e você não gostaria de ter essa alavancagem alta). ).

Mais uma vez, obrigado pelo seu conselho honesto.

Se eu disser, eu abro o Max 3 negociações simultâneas de diferentes pares de moedas (Max 3%), com uma taxa de risco de recompensa de 1: 2, se eu não conseguir atingir meu lucro alvo, eu transitaria em seguida? dia ou simplesmente fechar com um pequeno lucro?

Isso dependeria da sua estratégia. Mas normalmente os comerciantes de dia fecham posições antes do final do dia. Com o forex, não importa muito, exceto que a volatilidade desaparece e o preço começa a vagar sem rumo após o fechamento dos EUA. Então, torna-se mais uma aposta se a sua perda ou alvo será atingida primeiro. E nós não queremos apostar & # 8230; se o preço não está se movendo tão convincentemente como quando abrimos o comércio, devemos fechá-lo. Então é melhor apenas fechar as negociações se o alvo não for atingido. Se você está segurando durante a noite, isso é mais swing trading, que é um estilo de negociação diferente.

Obrigado por um site excelente e informativo. Eu comprei o seu E-book e li-o # 8211; É bom.

O ponto de correspondência e o aprendizado que aprendi a explodir várias contas, principalmente nos mercados do futuro, são no máximo. risco 1%. & # 8211; Isto está em grande regra e não pode ser repetido o tempo suficiente.

Contudo, a negociação, e. Em um gráfico de 1 min, é difícil calcular o tamanho de posicionamento (devido à limitação de tempo), já que o ponto de entrada nem sempre é conhecido antes da barra de 1 min ter decorrido. & # 8211; Você tem sugestão aqui - negociar uma quantia fixa pode dar a você de 0,3% a 3% de risco, dependendo da volatilidade e da hora do dia em que a negociação é feita.

Agradeço antecipadamente.

Obrigado pelo feedback.

Na verdade, você deve ser capaz de obter uma estimativa muito boa do seu stop loss e entrada antes de entrar no mercado. Eu não deixo as barras de um minuto passarem. Assim que um sinal de negociação ocorre em tempo real (pelo menos durante o dia de negociação) eu recebo o sinal. Isso significa que você sempre pode ver as barras antes, ou um padrão para indicar a perda e a entrada de parada, antes de entrar na negociação. Basta estar nele e, observando esse gráfico, à medida que o preço se movimenta, sempre pense em onde suas configurações de comércio poderiam se desenvolver, até onde o preço poderia se mover (alvo, e a negociação vale a pena) e onde a parada perda seria.

Você não saberá o seu ponto de entrada exato, devido a possíveis derrapagens, etc., mas sabendo o nível de perda de parada e o ponto de entrada (dentro de um pip fracionário), você pode obter um tamanho de posição muito preciso para esse comércio específico. Para ser seguro, reduza ligeiramente o tamanho da posição em caso de derrapagem (o que aumentaria o risco e, portanto, reduziria o tamanho da posição).

A outra opção é definir um tamanho de posição com base no seu & # 8220; típico & # 8221; parar a distância da perda. Dessa forma, na maioria das negociações, você sabe que estará no estádio do seu tamanho de posição correto. Em seguida, ajuste apenas se houver uma negociação em que a distância de perda de parada seja um pouco maior. Para esse método, eu recomendaria definir o padrão para que você esteja arriscando menos de 1%, de modo que, mesmo que sua distância de parada seja um pouco maior do que o normal, você ainda estará arriscando 1% ou menos.

É possível que as pessoas façam 5 negociações se estiverem negociando apenas por 2-3 horas por dia?

É claro que dependerá do ativo que eles estão negociando, quão volátil é (movimentos de preço são o que cria oportunidades), quais são suas estratégias e em que período de tempo eles estão negociando.

Usando um gráfico de 1 minuto ou tick no GBPUSD ou EURUSD, futuros do ES ou algumas ações escolhidas a dedo, encontrar pelo menos 3 negociações não é um problema na maioria dos dias (e eu costumo trocar apenas 90 minutos), e alguns dias produzem muito mais. Mas é possível que em alguns dias possa haver apenas uma ou duas oportunidades. Mas isso é bem raro. 5 comércios, com esse risco / recompensa, é bastante factível nesse período de tempo.

Eu comprei o seu livro e achei muito informativo como para mim tentando aprender forex trading também pode estar tentando aprender outra língua! Ao ler seu livro e seguir seus vídeos e artigos on-line, você acha que há bastante volatilidade no mercado hoje em dia para ganhar dinheiro na negociação forex para iniciantes? Eu estou no mês 1 da minha conta de aprendizado de 6 meses, mas descubro que a volatilidade do mercado está abaixo de 80 pips no eurusd. (Ainda recebendo minha bunda chutada diariamente lol) Deve uma pessoa olhar para outro par para o comércio do dia com mais volitilidade? (Gbpusd?)

O EURUSD não tem sido tão bom para o dia de negociação ultimamente. Isso não significa que não pode ser feito, mas os comerciantes precisam ser muito seletivos com seus negócios, pois há menos oportunidades.

Sim, negociar o GBPUSD é outra opção.

Eu recomendo adotar o day trading apenas um par de cada vez, mas se o que está sendo negociado não estiver se movendo bem, então procure por oportunidades em outro lugar. E o GBPUSD é uma alternativa viável ao EURUSD em todos os momentos. Então, se você acabar gostando mais desse par, pode ficar com ele.

Obrigado pela resposta rápida! Eu sei que você não pode fazer um vídeo para tudo e eu sei que sendo um mês em treinamento que eu não estou vendo todas as afirmações corretamente, mas eu gostaria de ver sua opinião sobre ser muito seletivo e o que assistir em baixa volitilidade em o gráfico do eurusd. De qualquer forma, obrigado por começar e eu vou continuar praticando!

Oi Cory, informações em alto nível aqui.

Hoje negocio minha própria conta no Brasil, futuros em Real / Dólar e Índice Ibovespa. Sou um operador discricionário que depende apenas do fluxo de pedidos. Às vezes eu penso em trocar outros mercados ao redor do mundo, mas uma coisa me impede de negociar forex. Nunca tentei Forex porque, na minha pequena pesquisa, eles não têm nível 2 e profundidade de mercado. Estou perdido se não sei quantos contratos negocio em cada nível de preço e não consigo ver agressões na licitação e perguntar ao lado, isso está correto? De qualquer forma para usar futuros no CME como uma base para o couro cabeludo e day trade? Melhores cumprimentos do Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.

Alguns corretores de forex fornecem dados de nível 2 (eu tenho, mas não o uso normalmente). Mas não é o mesmo que o mercado de ações ou futuros. O Forex é fragmentado, pois não é um mercado centralizado. Então você verá coisas diferentes no nível 2 dependendo de qual corretor você está usando. Alguns corretores possuem maiores pools de liquidez que outros.

You could potentially use futures level 2 as a guide, but some of futures don’t have a lot of volume either (depending on which currency pair you want to trade). If trying to trade off just level 2 in forex, i suspect there would be a bit of a learning curve, but it is likely possible. I personally mostly rely on my charts as opposed to level 2, so that is about all the insight I can offer.

Cory, thanks for reply. I setup a demo account in FXOpen but there is not a oil instrument in MT (XTIUSD) . I will email they to check this and test this hypothesis. I don’t know too if liquidity is great in this instrument too.

They do offer XTIUSD (oil) trading via CFD, along with a number of other products: fxopen/en/trading-accounts/cfd-trading-account/ (that said, trading actual futures is typically better because of the smaller spread, but the CFD is good if looking for lower margin requirements…especially if holding positions overnight).

If it is not showing up, it may hidden. In MetaTrader, click View > MarketWatch. Right click in the MarketWatch window and select Symbols. Scroll down to CFD Oil Spot. Click on it and make sure that XTIUSD is selected. While in there you can also select gold, silver, natural gas, etc, under the various headings.

“(that said, trading actual futures is typically better because of the smaller spread, but the CFD is good if looking for lower margin requirements…especially if holding positions overnight)”.

I agree 100%. Margins requirements are heavy in USA Futures lol, I didn’t see brokers with less than U$ 1000,00 per contract. U$ 4.500,00 overnight.

I tried insert new symbol but demo servers apparently doesn’t has CFDs, only ECN FX Group 1 and Crypto Coins. I will check this later with FXOpen.

Again, thanks a lot.

Hmm, thanks for this article, as an opinion, I’m more an intermediate timeframe trader thinking holding stock for months/years, I’ve always considered day trading. I think I find my style less time consuming and can still make the same amount give or take, monthly. But I still think there is great potential in there for day trading if you can utilize your strategy into automation and robot ai trading.

First off thank you for this article as well as the other articles you’ve written on this site! This article was definitely informative and well put together. I’m a business owner and a mother of two who’s looking to learn about the forex market in order to become a bit more financially independent and have more time with my family. My husband already day trades futures, but not forex. I have a thinkorswim paper money account and have been diligently learning for about 3 months.

Which online brokerage companies do you recommend that lets you open an account with $1000 or less, and also low fees? I know that’s a small amount to start with, but until I get the hang of trading real money (with all of it’s psychological pitfalls) I’d like to start small. Trading with paper money is great for working out strategies and understanding the rules and general trading mechanics, but the real psychology gets thrown in when there’s real money on the line. That’s my reason for wanting to start with a smaller amount. I’d really love your feedback!

Hi, thank you for the wonderful article. You said something that alarmed me a little bit.

“Also, you are highly leveraged, and there is a chance of catastrophic loss if a stock where to move aggressively against you and your stop loss became ineffective. You could face a significant lose or even lose your entire account where the price to move even several percentage points against you (unable to exit at planned exit point).”

Could you please elaborate why a stop loss would become ineffective? I realize the trade might trigger below my set point but why would it FAIL altogether? Obrigado!

(as you can tell, I trade stocks with my full 4:1 leverage everytime 🙂 )

I discuss “catastrophic losses” and when stop loss may be ineffective (or gets you out at a vastly different price than expected), here: vantagepointtrading/archives/20167.

If my objective was to make/net anywhere between $3,000-$5,000 a month day trading what would be the fastest route to do so of the following? Practice in a demo for 8-12 months logging in the 800 plus hours you have mentioned that it takes for a person to start seeing some profit. After successfully seeing consistent profit in the demo trade futures or forex with $5,000 starting out. Or practice in a demo trading stocks for 8-12 months. Once consistently profitable in the demo with stocks seek a trading firm that can lend me their capital to trade stocks. Assuming that after the 8-12 month practice I am able to see a 10% maybe 15% monthly return on whichever market I select. Are these percentage returns possible within this time frame of practice? Are better percentage returns possible within this time frame of practice? What are your thoughts on the second approach? And based on your experience do trading firms require or prefer people with college degrees? Obrigado.

Firms are fine. I prefer trading on my own, but firms do have the advantage of helping you develop better discipline (someone looking over your shoulder) and you may be able to gain some insight from the traders around you. But this comes at the cost of them taking some your profit (or getting a return some other way)…at the beginning this cost is typically offset by access to more capital and reduced trading fees. So it is a viable way to enter the industry. Most day trading type firms don’t require college degrees…they are looking for work-ethic (self-motivated), entrepreneurial spirit and a certain psychological profile. Depending on the firm, they may train you (more typical of brick and mortar firms with a physical location), or they may only be looking for traders with a successful track record (more typical of firms who only operate online and allow traders to trade remotely).

If you go on your own, with 5000 I would go with forex. 5000 is on the lower end of what is ideal for futures.

The returns are totally dependent on the work put in. But as you can see from the simple math…if you have a viable strategy, and are disciplined and practiced enough to follow it, great returns are possible.

This is such a good site, thanks, it’s the first place I will come to when I actually get round to real trading! I’m reading books too and other sites but I am constantly rereading them because I just don’t easily get their logic or explanations. But here, it just makes sense in the way everything is explained. And you reiterate some basic tenets time and again which is great for us newbies. You make a great teacher, thanks.

Obrigado! Your feedback is much appreciated 🙂

I am self employed and in my early 40’s I have a few thousand in a mutual fund and some money in life insurance etc. I have a tdameritrade accout. Do you have or know of a good course that can teach someone like me how to start off with say 5,000.00 and make money..500.00 – 1000.00 each month pretty consistently?

I’m trying to find a way to grow my money with minimal risk each month over the next 10 years so by the time I’m 55 or so I have turned that 5,000.00 into 100,000 or more…if I made an average of just over 400.00 per month for the next 10 years I’d have over 50,000 dollars in this account. Factor in buyer power and regular contributions over the same ten years wouldn’t my actual cash value in the account be more like 100k? or higher?

I just need to do this..I need training and someone trustworthy who is not just trying to sell me a bag of goods….

Long-term goals are good. But I personally don’t like to think in dollar amounts. Most traders find a return they are comfortable with and that is what they make (it MAY be a dollar amount, or a percentage amount, or a certain number of pips in the forex market). So until you start learning some strategies and making some trades yourself, it’s hard to tell what kind of return you will make. Everyone is different…even if they are trading the same strategy. Some people are more aggressive, some people are more conservative, some people can trade all day, some people can trade for an hour. But 10% per month is reasonable…but not easy. Expect to work hard for at least 6 months to a year before you start to see income. Several months will be spent in a demo account trading fake money and making sure you can actually make a profit. If can’t make money in a fake account (following the exact strategy you will use for real $) then there is no point trading real money. Even once you know it strategy it takes time to learn all the variables to watch for, and to develop the confidence to place trades exactly when they need to placed (not a second before or a second after).

You have some things to work on first. I assume you are interested in day trading? With $5000 you can’t day trade stocks (in the US), futures require at least that much, so you are pretty much left with currencies/forex. I would read through some of the free forex content in the Tutorials drop down menu for a basic understanding of the market and some general strategies to get you started and practicing in a demo account. I don’t offer personal mentoring, but I do respond to comments on all the articles posted on the site. I have compiled a Forex Guide (vantagepointtrading/forex-day-trading-and-swing-trading-strategy-guide), so that combined with the loads of free content and being able to ask questions in the comments should give you good based to start from.

Thanks for the comprehensive overview! Just one quick question regarding the day trading section: Wouldn’t trading equities up to 2300 shares a day (for a total of 20 days) violate the freeriding trading policy? In other words, can I apply all of my buying power for each of the 20 trading days and still sell all my positions at the end of each day and not violate the policy?

If I am understanding the day trading scenario correctly and we are assuming that we are trading up to 2300 shares each day, we are using most of our 120K buying power for each day – 2300 shares x approx $50/share (maximum) = 115K.

If we sell all our positions that day, our buying power will reset to 120K the next day however, we should not be able to sell any additional positions until the T+3 settlement rule kicks in. So, instead of having 20 trading days, we would only have about 6 trading days for a total of 30 actual trades (6 x 5 trades a day).

Please let me know if I am not understanding the freeriding rule correctly because it would awesome if I could max out my buying power each day! Thank you for your time.

It is best to check with your broker (or the broker you intend to trade with)…so you and them are both clear on how you wish to trade and can handle any issues now before you begin day trading.

I have never experienced a problem with this. Day traders often make MANY trades in the same (and different) stocks each day. As long as those trades are closed at or before the closing bell, there shouldn’t be an issue. Most day traders use all, or most of, their capital in a day…or even WAY more, if you add up the value of many trades which could be taken in a day. As long as you have capital (and margin) to cover all your trades, you are fine. Your broker will net your trades and you get the profit or loss on the trades added/subtracted from your capital (this is all tracked in real-time in your trading account/software). As long as your positions are closed before the closing bell, no need to worry about settlement too much. BUT AGAIN…check with your broker so you are in full compliance with any day trading rules they may specifically have (some brokers impose additional restrictions, etc). Overall, it shouldn’t be an issue.

Is it possible to have an experienced day trader create a platform, to simply trade with someone else’s money, and that someone pays a percentage of profit.

Yes, there are several sites and platforms, and even brokers, that suport this type of functionality. In forex they are typically called PAMM accounts.

Then there is the more traditional hedge fund structure.

I am in the UK and looking for a platform for a begunner for for ex market and eventually will use the same platform from a demo version to real version after some months. Maybe investing 10k gdp.

Can you please advise what platform I should use in the UK ?

Many thank’s again.

On your example of the $2750/month return on futures trading, is this amount taxable? if so, what’s the tax rate on average?

Taxes and tax rates will depend on where you live, and if trading is your primary income (how often you trade). It’s recommended you look at ‘taxes and day trading’ articles related to your specific circumstance.

Hi, I was wondering why you do not mention day trading options. less expensive than stocks and lot of leverage.

Options are a great market. I just don’t day trade options (will swing trade them though). I prefer the mentioned markets for day trading.

What is the max amount of contracts you can trade at one time on the futures market?

FOR DAY TRADING: You would likely experience problems before these limits though. Your broker may impose a day trading limit on your positions, and if they don’t, you will experience liquidity issues the larger your positions get. In the S&P 500 Emini you can easily trade 10 to 30 contracts at a time. As you start getting bigger (and even in the 10 to 30 contract range) you will start to get partially filled on your winning trades but always receive all the contracts on a losing trade. So how many contracts you trade without negatively impacting your own performance will depend on the strategy, the futures market you are a trading, whether you add or remove liquidity and whether you accumulate/dispose of positions at multiple levels or just one. But in a liquid contract like the S&P 500 Emini you can easily trade 10 to 20 contracts. 30, you are becoming a bigger player and will likely notice performance degradation (again, will depend on the variables mentioned prior). Above 40/50 contracts, how you manage your positions (getting into and out of them) is as much a factor as the strategy you use…position management becomes a strategy in itself.

SWING TRADING: positions size is less of a factor when holding your trades for multiple days because you have more time to accumulate and unload positions. Here, it is your capital that will cap your position size.

I want to start trading but not not got a trading account yet, but my question is when I do set a trading account up what is the lease amount of money I can put in my trading account where I can start making a good amount of money. obrigado.

Its takes a long time to “make good money.” Expect to put in a year or more of research and practice before you can make ANY amount of money consistently each month (see this article: vantagepointtrading/archives/13591)

How much capital you need varies by market, and whether you want to day trade or swing trade. Since this is a day trading article, I will assume you are interested in day trading. For how much money you need to day trade, see: vantagepointtrading/archives/5901.

Open a real account only after you have proven to yourself that you can profitable in a demo account for several months in a row.

is it possible to eventually make a living with starting capital of $5000? or have most full time traders started with much more? I don’t need a time frame I’m just curious to know if it’s even possible.

You can eventually make a living off that. If you live in a cheaper country, you can even make a living off just the $5000. If you make 20% a month (less than described above), you either make $1000/month, or you can continue to grow your capital until you reach an income level you are comfortable with. This does take time though—expect to practice for at least 6 months to a year before you start to see profitable returns in a demo account. Then another few months to acclimatize yourself to trading with real money. And most trades fail…more than 95% of those who attempt it. So it is possible, but not common.

I have a $5000 account to start with. Is it possible to one day make a living from trading or does this only happen when people start with 20, 30, 40k+ since they can make more?

Good write up. I haven’t been able to replicate these results in my own trading, but I can see how these figures are possible once a person finds consistency and develops a solid plan for catching fluctuations.

btw, the reason why I suggest in stocks one can make more when daytrading is because of more abundant opportunities with news driven and/or momentum events, no? For example, this guy averages 2%+ / day on a small account because he can get on the right side of momentum. twitter/madaznfootballr This is different than pattern and momentum trading on FX or futures, which seems less predictable (more computer algo dominated) and less opportunistic to me.

I prefer boring any day. I trade the trends that occur, and step aside for news events (only entering after into normal trend trades). My bread and butter is being able to trade everyday boring moves. That’s just me. For some people, there may be more opportunity in some markets than others, but for me, I do the exact same thing no matter what market I trade, so the results are pretty much exactly the same. I do trade big momentum moves as they occur in forex, stocks and futures. Some days are bigger, but that is just what the market provides, and not a function of the market I am trading. All markets provide ample opportunity (way more than any trader can take advantage of).

Of course, each person trades in their own way, so if they have a strategy that works on stock-based news events, but nothing else, then they should trade stocks. But I can only speak for me. I focus on boring everyday trends, which makes how I trade fairly universal across markets, and not much changes when I switch from one market to another…except that stocks require a lot more capital for the same return I get elsewhere.

Don’t dismiss a market just because you don’t know how to trade it, or haven’t met someone who trades it (called availability bias). Your objections are hearsay, from people who haven’t mastered that market. I should also point out that I could care less if I am trading against all algos. That is a journalist-created demon, which really doesn’t affect a solid and adaptable trader in the least. It’s all just buy and selling…just like it always has been.

If you talked to forex traders, they will say that trading forex is great. If you talk to futures traders they will say trading futures is great. All these markets exist because people succeed at trading them (while the mast majority lose). Whether you trade stocks, forex or futures, your odds or success are the same (low!), but that doesn’t change the fact that there are loads of traders in each that make money consistently.

By all means trade stocks if you like them. But forex and futures are also viable options. Put 6 months to a year of hard work into any market, and your odds of success are the same, and your income likely will be as well. Have traded all three markets, profitably, for multiple years, I can say that without question. The only difference is the capital you need to trade them (and a few details like trading hours, etc). I mostly focus on forex because it is the easiest market to get into for the everyday person who doesn’t have a lot of capital to work with. But that said, trade what interests you most.

Once again, genius remark. Obrigado. I wasn’t fully aware of my bias until now.

Very good points made here. Obrigado.

I agree that the good traders stay silent. Thanks for your knowledgeable response. I just still disagree with your analysis of returns possible in FX and futures. No way anyone can consistently pull out 15-20%+ per month. If they could, they would be managing a successful, small hedge fund and the world would know about it. The only place anyone can consistently pull out those returns with reasonable R/R is with small accounts in small to midcap equities. Or MAYBE a combo of FX, futures, and equities, but primarily in equities. I just think you should be steering newer traders away from FX and futures if possible since it is way harder to find trades with context and tempting to overtrade. Technical trading alone in FX and futures can still lead to big drawdowns. And how could any new trader expect to compete with algos anyway?

Agreed, returns like this are limited to smaller accounts…typically under $100,000 for futures and forex which are highly leveraged markets (at least in my case). I discuss this in Why Day Traders Make Big Returns But Aren’t Millionaires: vantagepointtrading/archives/17125. In my case, since I mostly focus on forex (and occasionally futures) I actually don’t have much use for more than $70,000 when day trading (but I use more because I am swing trading/investing etc.). Day trading with more than that and my % profits stay the same or start to drop as more capital is added. So you are correct, as soon as large sums of money (hedge fund) are involved, the returns drop because it becomes harder to find liquidity and great trades with more capital …but my focus here is the individual trader, who CAN make seemingly high returns.

Day trading most of these markets since 2005, the forex market has by far been the most lucrative for me (in terms of % returns). There is so much money passing back and forth that based on my strategies it seems to be the easiest to day trade. Stocks I also like, but the lack of leverage can SOMETIMES make ideal position sizing impossible (as I always risk 1% of my capital per trade). Futures are also good, and another market I really like because of the inherent leverage in them.

But I disagree on steering traders away from futures and FX. If you know what you are looking for, these are more lucrative markets, because much less capital can be utilized effectively. Having traded all these markets–and I only day trade for 2 hours a day, in the US morning–I typically find the same number of trades in each, and the reward/risk on the trades are typically the same. So with pretty much everything being equal, I choose forex or futures because they are more accessible to the person starting out with a smaller bankroll.

The Small or midcap equities doesn’t matter…if you are risking 1% and using a similar risk/reward parameter on your trade, it doesn’t matter if you trade a penny stock or a $500 stock. YOu lose 1% or make 1.5% or 3% either way.

I don’t really understand the drawdown argument. Every trade is capped at a 1% risk (slippage has never been an issue in 11 years of trading because I don’t trade during news or against momentum), and daily risk is capped at 3% (not discussed in this article but discussed in Daily Stop Loss: vantagepointtrading/archives/10685). So you need to be losing all trades and not winning any to see any significant drawdown…and since our winners are bigger than losers it takes less winners to make back the loss. So with a good strategy drawdowns are minimal, and in a worst case scenario it is a VERY slow capital drain, but if this is happening the trader can hopefully work on finding the issue that is causing the drain in capital before it becomes significant. Once a trader has practiced a strategy thoroughly and is implementing it well, a more than 10% drawdown should VERY rare given the protocol discussed in this article.

This stuff is not fantasy…it just works with enough practice.

Cory, thank you again for your diligent response. You are clearly passionate about this industry and about helping others. It is evident in your patient thought and articulate delivery. Less successful traders than you who would have quickly dismissed my first question and then arrogantly summarized my commitment and character.

As I am sure you can sometimes gauge, your skeptics include aspiring traders who have become disenchanted by “educators” promising quick, easy profits. Some of these traders worked very hard and still failed. Although they must realize it requires 10K+ hours.

I wish I would have engaged some good mentors early on. Most of my trading knowledge was built by observing and reading about every good trader I could find. Then, after about 6 years (I was with a full-time job), I implemented a strategy to generate consistent income from equities (80% winning days). Almost doubled my money until I got burnt out and lost control of my emotions. A bad trade w/ no stop started me on tilt, and in two weeks, I had managed to lose all profits. From that experience, I learned that good health is just as important as any trading strategy. I know it sounds wacky, but I believe in adrenal fatigue, and I think adrenaline does often flow during trading. But there are ways to effectively manage it.

I did this while working a full-time job. It was always interesting trying to speak intelligently on an incoming call while managing an erratic position. Fortunately, I made that first hour of the day up to my boss 😉

Anyway, my family kind of lost faith in trading as income after that, or whether it was even healthy. Every good trader knows this is just another final step in the process to success (assuming you’ve learned how to effectively manage emotions). After that experience, I even designed a strategy, position management and risk management application for IB API. $8K in programming expenses later, I couldn’t use it as little money for an account. ha.

But given that a vet like you says there are opportunities in every market, I believe it. I have recently taken an interest in futures. I’ve found a few trustworthy mentors. I know you mentioned Daytrading Academy. My only concern with them is that I have not seen the lead traders offer any live trading statements (to tradingschoolsorg for example). Probably because they’re so busy teaching!

Look forward to transferring some of my skills in equities to futures using a gentle approach that starts in demo!

Here is an article that discusses what you are talking about…adrenaline fatigue…although this article refers to it as self-control fatigue. A very real, physical/mental obstacle.

As for The Day Trading Academy…I have taken their course (I had already been a trader for 8 or 9 years, but knew some traders with the DTA and wanted to see what they were learning). I thought it was a great program. Although they trade in a similar fashion to me, so I liked that.

Hi my name’s Mark and I did trading, I had to send identification, such as my Driving Licence and a utility bill, and once I sent them in I could start trading I payed £250 to start it up but my trading adviser left me to it, and never helped me, I contacted him a few time to asked for help on some aspects of how to trade but he never got back to me so I took a chance and went alone but I lost all my money I put in which now as made me very weary of starting it back up. I think it was Forex I was trading with. So my question is how do I trade if I want to start trading again and to earn an income all so how much can I earn per month, or does it go off how much I put in my my trading account thanks and kind regards Mark Wheatley.

It takes time to learn how to trade. It is not something where you can deposit some money and hope to make a consistent profit. Also, the advice of a broker will likely never make you money. They are brokers/sales people, not traders (at least the people you would be talking to). I would also recommend starting with more than 250. Start with at least 1000 (assuming it is forex, for other markets–stocks, futures–you need way more) and keep risk on each trade low…only risk 1% or less of capital on each trade.

IF you don’t know what market you were trading, then more research should have been done prior to trading. Spend at least 3+ months in a free demo account, learning about the market you want to trade and refining a strategy. The demo trading should reflect as accurately as possibly how you will trade in the real money account. Your demo account should be showing a profit each month, for several months in a row, before you open another account with real money. Your income potential will vary. Expect to lose money the first few months once you open the live account (after months of demo trading). Trading real money is psychologically tougher than trading a demo account, so it can take some time to adjust. After that, your income is up to you. It could be tiny, negative, or could be 10%, 20%…. per month. Income is totally dependant on the amount of work, and the QUALITY of our practice, that we put into our trading.

There are lots of free tutorials on the site, under the trading tutorials menu. There is also the Forex Strategies Guide which provides a more thorough overview of forex trading.

Hi Cory. Your dedication to trading is admirable. That said, I have to call BS on your numbers of what’s possible. They are grossly exaggerated. Please show us brokerages of any trader that can consistently generate even 20%+ / mo over a 2 year period. They mislead anyone who wants to be in the profession.

Also, the potential in futures and forex is way lower due to the talent of those competing. Also more volatility opportunities in stocks.

Don’t take the stats out of context. This is what you can make, not what you will make. Maybe 1% to 4% of traders (who are really dedicated for more than a year. This stat doesn’t include the thousands of people who decide to day trade on a whim) will make it to this level. Most people who attempt trading are never even profitable…that is clearly stated with several links provided in the article to actual stats.

This level is reserved for those who dedicate themselves not only to understanding the market, but understanding how to practice and how to control their personal tendencies. I have multiple articles on the site stating your chances at day trading success are slim based solely on the numbers. But if you are one of the ones who relentlessly dedicates themselves to honing their craft, then the math above simply works. This article is what you are striving for. It is possible, but it is reserved for those few put in the most work. The other 96%+ will always doubt.

I have published statements and provided proof in the past on this site. No one cares, because seeing isn’t doing. The doubters still doubted and bitched in the comments, and those who know it can be done or are successful traders themselves just nod, but know it is a useless fight trying to convince someone who doesn’t believe. There is no upside in taking on that fight, so I no longer publish stats [the exception is my paid investment newsletter (not day trading) which is up 39% YTD, plus a 5.75% dividend yield]. Even if you decided it was possible, you would still need to put in the thousands of hours it takes to reach the level discussed in the article. And very few people that have determination. The people who work their asses off get there, and the other 96% don’t.

The few percent who do make it don’t listen to the opinions of those who say it can’t be done. Those who say it can’t be done never reached that level, and aren’t exactly credible sources on what it takes to make great returns. Although their opinions may be useful for what not to do.

I feel it is important to tell people what is possible, otherwise the bar stays low. And in the financial industry it has been set VERY low. It has convinced people that a 5%-10% per year is a good return on their hard earned money. That is just not good enough for me, and so I found ways to improve on that. Of course not everyone can make high returns…high returns are always limited the those who work the hardest (so if don’t want to do much work, then 5%-10%/year is what you should/will get). This goes for professional traders as well.

All markets are good day trading markets. One isn’t better than another. I personally prefer the forex market, but futures and stocks are also great. Volatility is nice, but doesn’t matter. I like volatility and enjoy trading in it more, but ultimately position size is the equalizer; in quieter markets a larger position can create the same risk/reward scenarios as a more volatile market.

Realistic scenario, is that you will make no money for the first year or two. I say this because you should not be even using real money for the first few years. The real issue is you need a mentor and coach. Finding that is uber difficult. Most teachers make their money from teaching because they failed at trading. Any trader worth his weight in salt would not need a dime from a student. A good trader can pull money out of the market at will. A certain elite group. The rest are schmucks. Don’t look for them on twitter or any web site, we do not advertise. we do not need it or want it. The proof is always in the pudding. screencast/t/xH8IBTnCt, thats one week work. Mind you I have been trading for 10 years. 4 with a teacher.

THE ANSWER IS 0.

I cringe every time someone tells me that because they can make, say, a 100% return a year from day trading and therefore, they’ll be able to increase their wealth 1000 times in a decade, by, as you say, “perpetually compounding” at those insanely high returns. It only works until they blow up on a single trade or forget to set their stop loss one fateful day, especially when trading futures or forex on leverage.

I’d recommend parking some of that day trading profit in a buy and hold portfolio or some real estate while dedicating a fixed % of one’s net worth in the day trading account (that amount determined by one’s risk tolerance.)

I cringe every time someone says “buy and hold”. I cringe when someone doesnt stay 100% cash by the end of the day in volatile markets.100% a year is very conservative for small accounts.

Thanks alot for this eye opening information on forex trading. please review the below conditions of my broker (Alpari Nigeria). Is it ok;

This account gives you ECN technology without the add-on commission. Instead, commission is worked into the spread, which should make it easier to keep track of your trading performance.

Trading Platform: MetaTrader 4.

Minimum Deposit: 300 USD / 300 EUR / 15,000 RUR / 300 GLD.

Spreads: From 0.1 pips.

I am interested in the swing trading.

For swing trading a bit bigger spread (and no commission) is fine. You want to look at the “conditions” for each pair though (on the “conditions” page of your broker’s website). The EURUSD spread should ideally be about 1 pip or smaller. EURJPY should be about 3 pips or smaller. EURCAD 4 pips or smaller. If you are looking to swing trade, the smaller the spread the better, but that should give you a good idea. If the broker is offering those types of spreads, it should be fine for swing trading. A tiny bit bigger is also ok, but if they are charging a much higher spread than those discussed above, you may want to consider another broker.

If you do decide to day trade, you’ll want that EURUSD spread below 0.5 pips.

For comparison, my spread in the EURUSD is 0 to 0.4 pips, EURJPY is about 0.5 to 1 pip and my EURCAD spread is 0.5 to 1.5 pips typically (I do pay a commission though…about $2.5 per $100,000 traded).

hi, when you say leverage, do you mean cfds and margin trading? What if you dont trade using leverage, is there enough profit to become a day trader?

You can still make money day trading without leverage, but you’ll need more capital to make a decent income, or you’ll settle for a lower dollar return. Leverage isn’t required, but it helps.

The best way to find out is to practice in a demo and see and what your actual returns are like. Do this for at least a few months; trading the same way and the same amount you would trade in a real account. That will give you best idea of what your expected income could be from day trading. Many people struggle with day trading, so practicing and gaining consistency in a demo account before using real money is a worthwhile process anyway.

Thank you, Cory. You’ve been *most* helpful.

Thanks for the excellent advice, Cory. I also realize that volatility these days is low compared to what it was a few years ago. But even making profits half as large as you say above would be absolutely *fabulous* for me. As I said, I can afford to put as much as $50,000 into my trading account. So I am really looking forward to reading your upcoming book and trying out a few of your recommended strategies – first in a practice account and then in a real money account. (I use OANDA as my broker, and with OANDA I can trade even individual units, and am not restricted to mini lots or micro lots. And just FYI, I trade the EURUSD pair exclusively.)

PS: Is there any indicator that gives a precise idea of how much daily volatility there has been in the past week, month or year? I am just using my naked eyes and *estimating* the volatility, but if there were an indicator that gives actual figures I would very much like to use it.

Ardeshir, you can get a load of information, such as average daily volatility, average volatility by hour of day, average volatility by day of week, and historic volatility comparisons on the Forex Daily Stats page: vantagepointtrading/daily-forex-stats. Some other stats as well (correlations aren’t currently working; I’m working on that).

You could also add an Average True Range (ATR) indicator to your chart. Set it to 14, and when looking at a daily chart, that will give you the average price movement per day over the last 14 days.

Thank you, Cory. Yes, I understand now.

To put it another way, with $5,000 in my account and 30:1 leverage, I’d have $150,000 to trade with, and so I could easily set a trade worth 5 mini lots (equal to 5,000 units of the base currency – in the case of EUR/USD, that would be 5,000EUR). The TRADE itself would be even larger than my entire account, but the RISK I would be taking taking if I were to lose any single trade should be only $50. Right?

If I am right, could I please ask you another question? You wrote:

“Assume your strategy limits risk to 10 pips, and you attempt to make 17 pips. You find on average though at the end of the month that losses are actually 12 pips and winning trades are 16 pips.”

“A good trading system will win 60% of the time. You averaged 5 trades per day, so if you have 20 trading days in a month, you made 100 trades.”

My question is, where can I find such a strategy / trading system? I should very much like to try it, since it looks so very promising. I can easily afford to put $5,000 into an account. In fact, I could afford ten times that much. I have been trading for over a year and half now, and although I am successful, I am less than one-twentieth as successful as you are saying I COULD be.

Correct. Except 5 mini lots would be 50,000, not 5,000. A mini is 10,000, a micro lot is 1,000. Either way, you’re getting the idea. If you deposit $5000 you only risk 1% of it per trade, even though cost of the trade may actually be larger than what is in the account. See Position Sizing in Forex: vantagepointtrading/archives/2031.

As for your other question: Finding 5 trades a day, equivalent to the above, is tough in our current environment (becoming less so, and there is always the option to trade multiple pairs or pair which just have a lot more volatility). While volatility is creeping back up, it is still below what it was back in 2012 and parts of 2013 for pairs like the GBPUSD and EURUSD. So when volatility is higher, consistently over 120 pips per day then the above scenario becomes more realistic. A lot of days we are only seeing 70-90 pip movement in these pairs, so finding 5 trades to make 17 pips on isn’t as easy. Basically, when you look at 1 minute chart, you want to be able to see the price making runs of at least 20 pips before seeing a pullback, with some regularity (either direction).

So right now, it’s more like 1 to 3 trades per day (assuming only trading during the most volatile 3 or 4 hours of the day). But this changes over time. Back in 2009 when pairs where moving 400 or 500 pips some days potential was higher than what I have laid out here. So expectations MUST change with volatility. When a pair is moving 150 pips a day there is theoretically twice the potential as when it is moving 75 pips per day (currently, we are more toward the latter case). We can’t force money out of the market, we can only take what it provides…sometimes that is more and other times less. I will add a tidbit about that into the article.

All this–adapting to volatility, only trading during certain hours, which pairs to trade, how much money to trade with, and the strategies to use–are all coming out in my new book. Should be available in the next few weeks on the website. vantagepointtrading/forex-day-trading-and-swing-trading-strategy-guide.

In your bit about “How Much Money Can I Make Day Trading Forex?” you do not mention the amount of leverage that would be needed to make the kinds of returns you are talking about, so I calculated the leverage myself. It turns out to be 1:1000 ! Isn’t that mad dangerous, and possibly not even available?

“Each pip with a mini lot (10,000 in currency) is worth $1”

“With 10 pips of risk you can trade 4 or 5 mini lots–which equals $40 to $50 to respectively.”

So 4 or 5 mini lots equals 40,000 or 50,000 in currency, and as a result, to trade 40,000 in currency with $40, or 50,000 in currency with $50, you need 1:1000 leverage, right?

Or am I wrong here?

It may seem that way, but actually no. How much a trade costs to put on, and how much is made are two different things. In fact typically a trader won’t need more than 50:1 leverage: How Much Forex Leverage?: vantagepointtrading/archives/7654.

I can buy a mini lot (10,000 in currency) and make $50 by making 50 pips, and that is the same no matter if I put up the entire 10,000 (no leverage) or put up only 500 (20:1).

Where leverage matters is in your percentage return, not your absolute dollar return. If you have a $5000 account with no leverage you can’t even trade a mini lot. But if you have a 30:1 leverage account that gives you 150,000 in “buying power”. So you can buy multiple mini lots (for 10,000) each. If you buy one mini lot you still only make $50 on 50 pips…as would someone with 5:1 leverage or 1000:1 leverage. The leverage level just determines how much capital you need in your account to trade a certain position size.

Does that make sense? Basically leverage determines how much you need in your account to take a trade…and is a separate issue from the actual dollar amount return of a trade.

Hope that helps 🙂

I am a college student and i want to learn Forex .. what would you recommend to(course) learn for beginner..

which will a good online broker for beginner Forex?

I have written an ebook which covers the basics of forex trading and provides multiple day trading and swing trading strategies: vantagepointtrading/forex-day-trading-and-swing-trading-strategy-guide.

Other than that, you can go through the Trading Tutorials page and read individual articles. While this approach is fine, articles don’t provide the full picture like the book would.

As for brokers, it will depend on where you are located and your trading style (if you want the option of scalping then FXOpen is recommended), but here are a few to check out:

TD Ameritrade Thinkorswim.

I used different account amounts to show that you can generally start trading forex and futures with less capital than would be required for day trading stocks.

Also, I used slightly different strategy examples for each market. Based on the different variables used in the calculations, the article isn’t meant to showcase which market is better or more profitable, rather simply to show making a living in any of these markets is possible.

To answer your question though, yes I believe there is more profit potential in the forex and futures markets than in the stock market. This is largely attributed to the use of leverage in the forex and futures markets which can magnify returns (and losses). Forex and futures markets can also be traded 24-hours a day, which in my opinion allows risk to be controlled more precisely–especially if you do decide to hold positions overnight–because (unlike stocks) there aren’t any gaps in the price from one day to the next (except on weekends, but that can’t be avoided in any of these markets).

Hi I love your explanations I just have two questions: First, When you compared how much money you can make a month in different markets, you started stocks with $30,000 and Forex with $5,000…. proportionally this should have Forex most profitable because if you started a Forex account you could possibly make $11,520 a month.(1920×6). Therefore my first question is, is the forex market the most profitable if I plan eventually invest large sums of money? I am a college student and as I career search I find myself especially attracted to investing so I want to know what market I should plan to invest in as an occupation for the rest of my life.

ETFs are great. If you aren’t a day trader but looking to trade ETFs you may want to consider Thinkorswim then. The reason being that there are a number of ETFs you can trade commission free with Thinkorswim. There is a full list of commission free ETFs (with select brokers) available here: etfdb/type/commission-free/all/#expenses. As you’ll see there are few other brokers who also offer commission free trading select ETFs.

And the platform is pretty good for most traders purposes. You can try out Thinkorswim for free using a “papermoney” account: thinkorswim/tos/displayPage. tos? webpage=paperMoney.

Depends on where you located and how you plan to trade. Interactive brokers is a very popular choice. So is thinkorswim (TD Ameritrade), but Interactive Brokers is likely the better choice…especially if day trading when costs need to be kept low. There are other brokers of course. To see what lots of people are saying about their brokers and how they rate them, a good source is: elitetrader/br/index. cfm.

Thanks for the feedback I heard of them before and I currently trade forex as a trend follower I’m not into day trading however I am looking to diversify my trading by trading etfs as well what are your thoughts on that?

Hello Nice Website, I am a forex trader and I am looking to explore trading stocks, what are your reccomendations on what broker to use?

hello my name is hira.

i am a beginner at forex can i personally interact with you through email chat!

Please ask your questions here. That way everyone who reads the article can benefit. Obrigado.

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£1349 Last Month on eToro, Working Just 4h!

This week I have prepared something very special for you – let’s put aside eBay, wholesale and eCommerce for awhile and take a look at one specific way of making money online I have been practising with great success for the last few months. Yes, I’ll share with you exact strategy that generated me £1349 in ONE MONTH alone, and yes – I worked on this just 4 hours in total (1 hour every week)!

Question: How to get extremely wealthy? As wealthy as Warren Buffett for example?

Answer: by using Money to Make More Money!

In some way it relates to eCommerce World as well – we buy stock for wholesale prices and sell for retail prices to make a profit. But Warren Buffett didn’t open a B&M shop or a fast food restaurant chain, no – he used money to invest in financial instruments, such as stocks and shares. I have always been interested in such financial markers, stock trading and generally, in “using money to make more money” concept. Years ago I was heavily involved in Betfair trading, which is actually quite similar to stock market day trading. But already back then I realized that day trading is not for me:

It was a very boring way of spending your day, glued to PC; It was very stressful; Potential earnings were some way limited, at least for my trading techniques.

But still to this day, from time to time, I was looking for opportunities to invest money to make more money. With increased profits from my info products business and eCommerce stuff, I wanted to find a way I could invest my profits into some sort of financial instruments to let my money make more money, hands free way!

Problem is that with most traditional financial investment instruments, such as stocks, mutual funds, savings accounts etc. your potential ROI is very small. Risks vary from one instrument to other but in general, in my opinion, reward for taking those risks is way too small! Invest in dividend paying stocks for 5% yearly ROI? 5% per year? I would better use that money to buy a pallet of un-branded Tablets, made in China and sell off in 3 months time for 20-30% ROI on eBay. Yes, selling physical products involve way more work than financial investments but again, 5%-10% yearly returns doesn’t sound appealing to me either!

And then it happened – six months ago or so, when I was searching for some creative ways to invest money, I found a concept that totally blew my mind away! Same concept that few months later made me £1349 net profit in one month alone. And today, I’ll share with you exactly how I did it…

Welcome to the World’s Largest Financial Marketplace – Currency Trading!

What is Currency Trading in first place? To put it simply, it’s the World’s largest financial Marketplace with estimated turnover of more than $4 trillion each day. Currency Trading (further in text simply “Online Trading”) is a market where anyone (individuals, banks, investment firms etc.), anywhere in the World can conduct foreign exchange transactions (hence sometimes it’s called “currency exchange”). Basically, it’s all about the PRICE for currencies being traded – will it go up or down (based on all kinds of political, economical, market etc. factors), much like with STOCK MARKETS . So you try to buy “low” and sell “high” to make profit.

What makes Online Trading so unique?

Huge trading volume representing the largest asset class in the world leading to high liquidity; Geographical dispersion; Continuous operation: 24 hours a day except weekends, i. e. trading from 20:15 GMT on Sunday until 22:00 GMT Friday.

If you’re looking for more detailed explanation on what Online Trading is all about, please take a look at Wikipedia page here. It may take some time for you to fully grasp how it works, especially if you know nothing about stock markets etc. but essentially, it’s not that difficult concept to understand. When I try to explain to other people what Online Trading is all about, I just say that it’s very similar to buying and selling STOCKS, with the difference that with Online Trading you buy currencies and not stocks, bonds or other financial instruments.(which are also available as we’ll discover later on)

Another interesting nuance with Online Trading is that you’re actually buying/selling currency pairs and not individual currencies. Why’s that? Because it’s is a currency exchange marketplace and to buy one currency, actually means EXCHANGING it with another one.

It looks something like this:

EUR/USD is the MOST popular currency exchange pair. But you can trade on more currency pairs plus most Online Trading platforms offer trading Gold, Silver & Oil as well as World’s leading stock exchange indexes, like SPX500, NSDQ100, DJ30, FTSE UK 100 and others.

For now, you just have to understand what Online Trading is and how you can make money from it. It’s simple, right? Buy “low” and sell “high” to make a guaranteed profit! Much like with stock markets, right? Then why 99% people lose money with this in long term? Why so many people are losing their life savings when stock markets collapse? Because the tricky part with Online Trading and stock markets is to know WHEN to get it and WHEN to get out. That’s the simplified key to success with financial trading – to know exactly WHEN to buy and to know exactly WHEN to sell!

And this is where SKILLS & EXPERIENCE plays the biggest role. Currency prices, stock prices, oil/gold prices changes based on all kinds of factors, like political/economical situation, decisions, credit ratings, storms around the World, terror acts, inflation etc. etc. A Trader (person who trades) have to learn how all these factors affect currency exchange rates to predict when prices will go up or down, to make profitable trades. Now, these skills can’t be learned by reading few books or by watching some YouTube videos. You would have to spend years upon years on practising these skills and even then, there are no guarantees that you’ll succeed. Plus it’s a well known fact that it takes a lot of nerves and gray hair to become a TOP Trader – be it Currencies, Stock markets or Betfair – principles stay the same for all Marketplaces.

At this point you should say – so, what’s the point in doing all this? EXACTLY! Chances are very slim that you could become a professional Online Trader BUT here’s the good news – you DON’T HAVE TO!

The day when I found eToro really changed the way I look at Online Trading!

eToro is a social investment network . It acts as a middleman between traders by creating special online platform and software so that whole trading process is straightforward. These days, anyone, with as little as £100 can open an account and start trading on eToro. The currency buying/selling process is so simple and visually appealing that a child could perform a trade! Just take a look at eToro’s screen shot below:

As you can see, it takes just one click to buy or sell EUR/USD currency pair. The simplicity of these Trading platforms is the number one reason why online trading is so popular these days. Tens of millions of “normal” people are trading online nowadays, from the comfort of their homes. There are dozens upon dozens of different websites and eToro alone attracts more than 5 million users. But that’s not all, eToro is the World’s first social investment network offering a brand new, UNBELIEVABLE feature called the “eToro Copy Trader”!

And this is the reason why I actually started looking into online trading! I knew about opportunities to buy and sell currencies online years ago but always stayed away as essentially, it was the same day trading concept I went through with Betfair trading. eToro has changed this and basically merged Facebook concept with online trading concept to create ultimate, social trading platform. Click on the video below to see how exactly it works:

When I saw this first time, I thought – WOW (. ), this is such a good idea! I knew that chances of becoming a profitable trader for me are very slim and it would take long years, wasted down the drain if it didn’t work out at the end of the day!

Why spend years on learning this stuff when you can simply copy what BEST OF THE BEST are doing?

Would you spend years trying to learn how programming works to create a shopping cart? Or simply buy Open Cart, 3D Cart or any other pre-made shopping cart systems? And eToro offers just that – opportunity to copy exact trades best traders are carrying out. And this is the core concept for my system: Copy Best Traders on eToro to Make Profit WITHOUT actually doing any trading on my part!

The idea has a very simple and straightforward reasoning – to follow absolutely BEST traders and earn money from their experience and trading skills. If these top traders couldn’t make me profit in long term, there’s no chance I could do it on my own, right? Exactly!

So with this strategy, absolutely anyone, anywhere in the World, even without any experience with Currency Trading should be able to show a long term profit. Of course, there are some important questions that need to be addressed, like: which traders should I follow? How to minimize risks? How to manage investment portfolio? I’ll try to cover most important elements in this blog post to help you get up and running ASAP without wasting months learning how to best utilize eToro’s trading platform.

Currently, eToro allows us to copy up to five traders and I believe the best way is to maximize it to full potential and divide your money equally to 10 traders you’re following (10% goes to each bank). Obviously, the more diversified your portfolio is, the less chance of big loses when trader’s performance goes down. My general rule of thumb is to absolutely minimize potential loses, even if that means lower profit in long term. By this I mean – I only follow/copy traders with low to medium risk portfolios, with proven and positive record of at least 6 months. eToro makes this process extremely easy as you can analyse each trader’s trading style, past performance etc.

I have created a 5 filter system I use each time when looking for new traders to copy:

This is the most important one as shows how well any particular trader performed over the last 6 months. You can also change data range to last week, last month, last year but I have found that it’s best to stick with last 6 months as this gives the most objective information.

What you’re looking for are traders with steady, increasing graphs without big jumps or long losing periods. Por quê? because we’re looking for professional traders who know what they’re doing, not gamblers or lucky newbies making few good trades and then losing it altogether! A perfect example of what kind of trader you want to follow:

As you can clearly see, MarianoPardo (trader’s nick name) has a proven track record of profitable trades making more than 30% yield over last 12 months.

I’m all for high returns on my investment BUT usually they come at a price. Yes, there are traders who make 10% a day by Trading on eToro BUT they’re usually involved in high risk, high leverage trades. This is something I always try to avoid as I’m not looking for a quick million here – it’s all about steady, positive ROI in long term. That’s why you want to check out trader’s portfolio allocation graphic:

You want to copy ONLY real traders, not people who follow & copy other traders! That’s why you want to check if trader copies anyone or all trades are made by himself:

As you can see, this Trader has only 0.47% of ALL trades coming from Copying Other people, this means that he is making his own trades in 99%+ cases.

Next thing you can check on trader is Open Trades. Open Trades show all trades that are currently opened by trader. What we’re looking for? Avoid traders with negative Open Trades that are opened weeks or months ago.

For example, a trader opened a trade 3 months ago, price went to the wrong direction but instead of taking loses, trader left that trade opened in hope that in future price will go back. This is what I call GAMBLING and you definitely don’t want to copy gamblers!

Lastly, check trader’s history to see results for most recent trades. Pay close attention to number of trades executed per month – I wouldn’t choose a trader with less than 10 trades as I’m always looking for active traders that are trading each and every day.

Don’t be afraid of sellers with lots of negative trades! Even more – I would rather see some negative trades in trader’s Trading History as that would show that trader sets proper stop loss points and takes adequate loses when market goes the wrong way. You’ll see many traders on eToro with 100% positive trading history but when you check their Open Trades you’ll see why – they’ll have large, negative Open Trades left for months, so that they don’t have to close them and face loses.

Ok, so these are my TOP 5 filters to find good traders to copy on eToro! With experience, comes ability to spot good traders almost instantly so don’t be afraid if this all looks too complicated in the beginning. Once you find your first few traders to copy, next time you’ll look at all this data with more knowledge and power to separate good traders from bad ones. There are some other things you can check like Trader’s comments, 12 month trading history and others but for beginning, these 5 filters should be enough to find good, profitable traders to follow.

How to Get Started.

There’s no cost involved to use eToro. There are no sign up or monthly subscription fees involved. You could ask – what’s the point for traders to share their strategies with other people by allowing them to copy trades? That’s the best part of this – these traders get commissions from trades carried out by their followers/copiers! This means that those traders get paid based on their performance – the better they perform, the more money they earn! It’s an absolute win-win business model and I really think it’s groundbreaking feature in whole Online Trading industry.

eToro accepts credit/debit cards, PayPal , wire transfer and some other payment methods. You can start with as little as $50 but I recommend depositing at least £200 – £300.

1. With smaller amount you won’t be able to copy 10 traders as then you would have only £5 for each. Most trades are being made with very small % of the bank and with £5 you may actually not get all trades as some will be below 1p. If you absolutely must go with minimum $50 deposit, copy just one trader in the beginning (not best from risk management point of view).

2. eToro offers credits on first time deposits! The more you deposit, the more credit points you receive. And this credit applies only to first time deposits, make sure you use this promotion and get most out of your initial deposit.

3) Find 3-5 traders to follow.

Once you have opened account and deposited some money, it’s time to find traders you want to copy! Stick with my 5 filter system explained in this article and find 5-10 traders. I always stick with 10 traders as that gives me managed risk when one trader starts to perform badly. When you have 10 different portfolios, risk of losing large amounts of money is minimized.

4) Evaluate traders each week (1 hour)

This is your actual, on-going work! Spend at least 30 minutes to one hour each week to analyse how your traders are performing. If you see that trader’s performance goes down, un-copy it and look for a new trader to copy. I do this by re-evaluating last month trading history graph for each trader, each month.

Don’t be a gambler and know when to quit, even if it means taking small loses in short term! It’s crucial to monitor how your traders are performing and if you spot a negative trend, un-copy that trader, even if it means closing down some un-profitable/negative trades. It’s all about long term profits – you have to be prepared to take some loses when trader goes down, that’s part of the plan.

The Effect of Compounding.

So here it is, my exact strategy that made me £1349 in one month copying other Traders! Surely, you won’t make that much from a bank of £200 BUT it’s essential to understand how compounding effect works with financial investments like these. Do you know how much could you have in one year by starting with £200 and making steady 10% ROI each month? £627.69 What about 2 years? £ 1,969.95 And 3 Years? £ 6,182.54.

The problem is that most people are impatient and simply switch from one idea to another every month! That’s not how you’ll achieve long term profits with Online Trading. This game is for people who are ready to wait and be patient. Good thing is that with eToro and this simple system, it’s not like you have to work very hard on this. Anyone, with a full time job can invest few hundred pounds and try this out for at least few months. Maximum you’ll spend 30-60 minutes each week mostly to check profitable trades!

Another great strategy to boost the effect of compounding with Online Trading is by keeping investing small amount of money each month. For example, you have £200 spare income each month – you start trading on eToro with £200 and seeing that your strategy works and you’re making a steady profit, keep adding £200 to your bank each month. At least for first three years. What effect this causes? MASSIVE increase in overall bank value!

For example, if you start trading with £200 and get steady 10% each month BUT do not add any more money to your bank , at the end of five year term your bank will be £60,896.33. On the other hand, if you keep investing additional £200 for next five years and still make 10% monthly gain, your bank after five years will be £728,555.93. That’s a massive difference and reason why I recommend you to keep investing, even small amounts of money, each month to help compounding effect do it’s work at maximum rate!

To sum it up – the longer you leave money “in system” and let compounding do the work, the greater profits you’ll face. Think about all the large investment companies, same Warren Buffett – they also invest money in long term and they perfectly know that it’s all about constant strategy and patience – be it a economic boom or recession.

My personal goal is to achieve 20% – 30% yearly yield with as minimum risk as possible. Because I know how those 20% – 30% each year accumulate over longer period of time! And this is all passive income, don’t forget about that.

Yes, eToro also offers trading with Gold, Silver, Oil and this is actually something I’m looking into on my own, apart from copying currency traders on eToro . I really believe that there’s a huge potential in Oil and Silver (gold is over-priced in my opinion, this is not the best time to purchase it). Particularly OIL is what interests me most as I’m confident that oil price will increase significantly over next 5-10 years. What I’m looking forward is buying oil using eToro’s platform as a long term investment and make huge ROI when price rises in few years time.

Here’s another interesting feature for eToro – LEVERAGE ! Leverage means that you can trade with more money than you actually have in your account. It’s hard to explain in one paragraph but for example, with a bank of £200 you can purchase OIL worth £1000. This means 5 x more profit when price goes up and you decide to sell. If you’re interested more about how Leverage function works, check it out in your eToro account .

I wanted to share this with you just to show what’s out there apart from eBay, online shops and Amazon Marketplace. I do not plan on investing all my money in this and quit doing everything else, at least not for now. Obviously, risks are still involved with this kind of investment but potential profits are huge! If you copy good, long term traders and do not make any stupid mistakes, it would be really difficult to lose your initial investment.

Yes, risks are involved so DO NOT invest all the money you have or do similar stupid stuff! You should only invest money you can afford to loose, no matter what happens. You can start with few hundred pounds and trade for 3-4 months. If you’re getting steady profit, then you can invest more. But in no way I can guarantee you that you’ll make money.

I really hope this rather lengthy article is somehow valuable to you! I know that it’s a not a Bible on how to make money on eToro but I have tried covering at least all the basic stuff and shared you my detailed experience. Any questions, feel free to leave a comment below this post and I’ll try to give you more detailed advice.

I have a NEW – 2016 UPDATE for eToro Trading. Click on the Link BELOW:

All trading involves risk. Only risk capital you’re prepared to lose. O desempenho passado não garante resultados futuros. Este post é para fins educacionais e não deve ser considerado como um conselho de investimento.

232 Comments.

What traders have you been following ?

Please read the article carefully, I explain this in detail.

Hi Andrew, very interesting comments about etoro. I have just started copying and investing quite heavily. I notice a comment about withdrawal limits. If I have deposited all my funds via debit card, how in the future can I withdraw my potential profits. Will it simply be a case of setting up my direct bank account details with etoro for large withdrawals. Thanks in advance to comment.

Obrigado por seu comentário.

Yes, I personally use bank account and have no problems or limits with any withdrawals.

The account is active now but not buy order are not getting executed. Raised a ticket with the customer services looks like they will take 4 days to reply. Please advise if there are any videos available to learn. Obrigado!

I have submitted all the documents to eToro and my application is pending verification since 3 days now. I have also transferred some funds in to it. The account shows available funds and allowing me to place the buy order which I have done. The crypto price went further below my buy order price but I’m not able to see anywhere the executed order or number of cryptos I have purchases. Can you please let me know how to check the executed order.

Also please let me know how to modify the pending orders here.

Thanks a lot for your valuable comments.

With questions like these you really should contact eToro support – they will be able to help you and answer these questions.

I was looking out for lot of information about eToro but most of them I found it on your article. Thanks for that it made my work much easier.

Could you please give me some knowledge on what does overnight charges (per 10000 units) means. If I buy a Bitcoin and sell it after a month how will these charges are going to be calculated….

Please look at fees help page on eToro, it explains over-night fees for Bitcoin, other currencies and everything else.

Basically the overnight fee is charged every day on open positions you have, but not in all cases (Buy positions are charged but SELL positions are not charged).

I am leaving in Toronto, when I open account, the regulation said not accept Toronto of Canada, but some certain city is accepted, also ask some ID for verification, when I give my current address , the verification still shows pending, I v been waiting for few weeks already , because my address. So , while I am waiting I did play virtual account and made some money too, in this case , do you think it is ok to deposit my real money if my account verification will be pending forever. Thank you Andrew.

I don’t know really how this works in Canada, sorry…

You should probably get your account verified first before you start investing with real money.

Any plans on being a copy trader yourself? I know you put some work in it every other day you might not want to share for free, but I’m pretty sure there are some upsides for you as well (I’ve read something about lower spreads for example).

Or are your copied trades ignored when you would be copied?

I won’t do it – I have explained my reasoning before – I don’t want to take extra stress on this when I know that other people will follow me.

Besides, I’m not a full time trader and there are many people who can do a better job, lol, as you can see on eToro! 🙂

How exactly are you taking your profit every month (or so)? Do you just stop copying a trader (or all of them) and invest again right away with less money?

No, no. I take out money usually once or twice a year.

You don’t want to do it too frequently as P&L will fluctuate quite a lot during the year.

Thanks for the fast reply. But you do close the positions and start them again, or are there other ways (like removing funds) you use?

yes, need to close positions and re-open.

Usually I just withdraw money when I stop copying someone – then I have money on the balance.

If I buy “stocks” on etoro, would they pay me dividends like the real stocks?

No, as you’re not effectively buying “real” stocks.

So, if I copy a trader I don’t have to do anything except analyse the person’s investment and see myself if I want to close and copy someone else? I could effectively leave it there for years?

Yes, that’s exactly how Copy Trader works 🙂

Hi Grace, thanks in part to Andrew, I’ve been learning the ropes on etoro for several years…it’s been a roller-coaster, but I think I’ve nailed it now. My name on etoro is ‘themoneymagnet’…thanks Andrew, you’ve helped completely change my investment strategy and financial freedom looks more achievable than ever!

Great to hear that Steve, awesome! 🙂

I see a lot of ppl around that they have withdrawal problem!

Have you ever tried to withdraw? If yes, how many days did it take?

Thank you in advance,

Ok I just saw the same question right after mine!

So how many days it took for the withdrawal?

I withdraw money almost every month, directly to my bank account.

It takes 2-3 business days usually for money to arrive, sometimes just 1-2 days.

Thanks so much Andrew my only concern is ive heard so many people using online trading having issues with withdrawing how can you guarantee etoro pays out?

I know you say it does and you just need to give your proof of identity etc but how do I know it will pay put unlike many others that people still struggle to withdraw on some scams.

I’m not saying etoro is a scam but others are and this is where I need to know they genuinely pay out .

Obrigado por seu comentário.

I personally can’t guarantee you anything as I’m not the owner of eToro.

But I have never had any problems withdrawing money from them. Plus – they have millions of members – imagine how quickly bad news would spread if they don’t allow withdrawals. Those horror stories you see/read online – it’s a super small fraction of the actual eToro user base and usually are associated with user fraud – using different identities, ID scams, not willing to send proof of ID etc.

Lastly – eToro is a financial institution that is regulated in the UK by the FCA, just like regular banks. So if eToro would theoretically refuse you to withdraw your money, you could seek help at FCA and get it sorted out.

Thanks a lot about this great data, I have a simple question about that all…Can i make real income monthly only by “Copy people” ?

yes, that’s exactly what I do!

How difficult is to withdraw money from eToro? There are a few scam brokers and I had bad experience with one recently where they simply refuse your withdrawal requests any number of times you put in, so I am a bit cautious. Have you been able to withdraw funds from eToro without any issues?

I have never had any problems withdrawing money from eToro.

First time you do it, they ask to verify your identity and that’s it. After that first time, it’s a very easy and straightforward process.

I have heard that etoro allow to withdraw only maximum amount of what we have deposit. Is that correct? Suppose I have made 300$ deposit via credit card, and I can only withdraw from with the amount of 300$? If we have made a good trading and earn more that what we deposit, could we withdraw?

No, I think that rule applied applied only to one specific payment method – can’t remember which one, I think it was credit card, but not sure.

There are no such limits on bak account withdrawals.

I have a question about Etoro, if you could help me.

can I start with 50$ , and try to buy stocks by myself! (” because the minimum price to buy a stock is 10$ “), then when I earn 100$ , start copy a traders ?

No, you can’t, as minimum deposit is $200.

[…] in 2012, I wrote an article on this blog about how I had made £1349, working just 4 hours, using eToro – a revolutionary new concept of social […]

In order to copy a trader, you will need a minimum of 100 or 200 dollar; euro or Pounds. In this story you told us that you have just invested £200, and you copied 5 people. In order to copy 5 people you will need at least 500 or 750. This “story” has some reasoning, you can follow 10 traders and you can place buy or sell order (whenever they act) in a mt4 platform and clicking on their portfolio and then to open trades copy the stop loss and take profit position. Else with £200 it is impossible to copy 5 or 10 traders on etoro!

Obrigado por seu comentário.

When I published this guide, the rules were different.

Please check my updated guide here:

[…] £1349 Last Month on eToro, Working Just 4h! […]

I am wondering what happens if your PayPal account gets blocked or suspended as it happens often with PayPal and sometimes without any decent reason as you know. So how about withdrawal after investing loads of money to Etoro platform via PayPal after your account gets suspended for example?

How would you take those money out if it has to be the same source as you have invested money from.

P. S. Can not wait for your eToro update! 🙂

not sure on what happens in situations like these.

You should ask this on eToro Live Support chat to get direct answer from them.

P. S. My eToro update will be published on Thursday! 🙂

Hi Andrew. I found out about eToro today, and naturally went out to research and found you blog. Thing is now eToro allows for 20 traders at any time. What are you thoughts on this, the more the merrier? Of course you will have to spend more time evaluating their performance. If so I assume it would be rational to multiply your initial investment?

Yes, 20 traders but min. you can invest in each is now $100. So you need at least $2000 to invest in all 20.

I usually copy 10-15, depending on what’s available.

Good article – need to really print it out and read it carefully, but it seems a robust method of choosing people to copy. My only small comment I would have regards the info you put above it your statement that you pay 0% tax in the UK on gambling winnings. The official line from the HMRC is that if you do not have any other regular taxable income other than gambling you will probably be classified as a professional gambler (your trade) and may loose your BIM22017 exemption and as such will have to pay tax – the easiest (legal) way around this is to have a taxable income and trade at the same time – even if you make more on the trading, you will be OK. As a side note anyone with “day trader” or such on their passport or facebook / linkedin etc as their profession will have a harder time convincing HMRC not to make a case against them.

Thanks Peter for your comment!

Hey this was really awesome. Thanks alot. Im 22 and planning to invest some. money into this. I have a small question. Is there a way to add money to etoro using a debit card and can i receive funds in another way, as in a direct transfer to my savings account, etc.

No, you have to withdraw money to same source you funded your account with.

I see, thanks andrew.

What I find a little difficult is that i read many reviews saying that its difficult to withdraw money from etoro and all that. I am having second thoughts. Is this true and have you had any similar problem?

Yes, they ask you to verify your identity but if you’re not hiding your real ID, it’s not a problem. PayPal also verifies identity in a similar way and that is something all financial institutions must do by law.

Hi Andrew, I like your site and the articles are really well structured, thanks.

I have invested with Etoro a similar amount and adopted the strategy you have suggested currently spread across 7 traders.

Its progressing well but I am also nervous about many people having withdrawal issues. You mentioned you were looking to withdraw the orig 10k investment …did you do that?

Also really looking forward to the 2014 review – when will that be released, thanks, Gareth.

Obrigado por seu comentário.

Yes, I did take out my original investment. Not sure really what people brag about – all they ask is to verify identity and use same payment method for withdrawal that you used for uploading money into account. It’s all basic, anti money laundering stuff and doesn’t cost you anything extra.

I think people who complain about this, use fake identities, fake address etc. and then can’t verify their identity.

My eToro update article should finally go live next week!

That’s excellent, thanks for your very quick reply Andrew…:)

no worries Gareth, you’re welcome! 🙂

I found your article very informative and very helpful, I’m new myself to looking into this kind of thing copying other trades, It as you say sure and steady is a good angle.

There is one thing I read which alarmed me that you were looking to invest in oil for the long term as you were convinced it could only increase in value – I hope it hasn’t been a bad one for you.

Obrigado por seu comentário.

Ha-ha, yes – that’s a good one – on the oil! 🙂 Luckily I got out already on 2013 with my oil investment as you can see here:

Seeing today’s price, I’m glad I did so 🙂

Great post. i started up with etoro deposited £200 ($300) and did some good research following your steps but on most decent traders etoro will only let you copy them with a minimum of $100 so im copying 3 traders right now or can I follow them for less and spread my portfolio to guard against big losses? Am i doing something wrong. I’m going to invest £200 every month in this – saving for my dream house! haha so is just a case of copying each trader for $100?

Also bought EAB – its really great and will book my hour chat in soon – keep up the great work!

Many Thanks for your EAB purchase! 🙂

Yes, $100 is minimum you can invest in each trader when using Copy Trader function. So you’ll have to wait for a few months until you can invest in maximum allowed – 20 – traders.

I will be doing an eToro 2015 update article in January, so stay tuned!

Simple question - How can I invest in you:)

Excellent site/blog, I,m very interested in etoro, probably your one millionth customer, saying the same thing, lol, but like everyone else, it’s an intimidating world to the uninitiated, so I guess I, m looking for a gentle hug before taking the plunge.

My hard earned pound would seriously like some new buddies, so I intend to begin using your filter system, and hopefully settle in for the long term.

Thank you for the great and common sense advice and will keep you informed of my progress, good or bad.

A Happy and Prosperous New a Year to you.

Thanks very much Stevo!

In January I will publish my eToro 2015 update, so stay tuned.

Are you still doing this and have you published this years results anywhere?

Also is this the best page to follow you on?

Yes, I’m still doing this but haven’t had time to do a post yet. It’s been a very busy time for me but I really hope to get it done soon.

Hi Andrew, is this still working for you? I notice the post talks about profits made almost 3 years ago, do you still trade and do well with this method? Just looking at options that could return more than the paltry bank interest right now!

Enjoy the journey.

Obrigado por seu comentário.

Yes, I’m still doing this and it still works. An update post for 2014 is planned very soon, I just haven’t had time to do it yet.

I wanted to know if you heard about PAMM (Percent allocation management module : en. wikipedia/wiki/Percent_allocation_management_module), and what do you think about it?

sorry, no – I haven’t heard of that.

I’m not a professional trader really and try to stay away from such technical stuff.

Great post once again, Just want to mention etoro is no longer available in the USA.

Thanks for the tips, they’ve been invaluable in navigating this intimidating field as a beginner.

One problem is that there seems to be a crash in the Euro this week (I think :-s) which has caused about 60% of my investors to have drastic and uncharacteristic losses over a short period of time. According to your advice I should drop them, but this doesn’t seem right in light of their solid history and the unforeseeable crash.

Yes, such sudden changes are not un-common. I personally would take a close look @ past performance and if it’s a really good trader, with good/positive history for at least 12 months, then I would probably keep them on and just see how it goes.

You said you started with roughly 10,600 GBP, if you don’t mind me asking, are you still currently doing this strategy and actively watching it? And how much are you at now?

Obrigado por seu comentário.

Yes, I’m still doing this. I’m planning on writing my yearly eToro update post very soon and publish it in May.

So stay tuned for updates on this.

Thank you for responding so swiftly. I\m very excited about starting on etoro. I have thought about it for the past year but this article and your first yearly update are what has got me excited.

Actually I have a couple other questions I forgot to ask. I noticed earlier you said you use your credit card to fund your account and deposit money to etoro. Does that count as a cash advance on your credit card?

Also, if I copy someone who does manual trades and also copies other people, does it only copy their manual trades for me or does it also copy their copied people as well?

1) I’m using PayPal now for all transactions with eToro.

2) Yes, you’ll copy ALL manual trades and trades they copy.

It was a great post. I have some confusion about etoro. I started trading in gold but when the week ended my trading was disabled automatically. Is that according to the rule or I have been missing something? Thank you in advance.

Yes, you want to “click” & # 8211; Carry trades over weekend when investing in Gold to keep your positions over weekends.

Hey Andrew. Found the guide very useful. I’ve been using eToro for a couple months but mostly putting my money on big companies like Google.

It’s been 2 years since you wrote this. Mind telling us if you keep using eToro and if so how are you doing so far?

I have an update for last year here:

Yes, I’m still doing this, and doing good – will publish another update very soon to cover year 2013!

Hi Andrew, there is something that I do not know yet. And that is. When you sell, you can send your money back to paypal if you want?

Thank you, and great article.

Simon, from Argentina.

Yes, at any stage when you “sell” and release money in your account, you can send it back to PayPal/bank account etc.

It’s called Withdrawal.

What is your username on eTorro Andrew? 🙂

thousands of people would like to know that, and that’s exactly why I won’t disclose it.

I couldn’t live with the pressure & stress knowing so many people copy me..

It’s a hobby of mine and I like to keep it that way.

When I usually start copying a new trader, I don’t copy existing trades (in most cases). Mostly because it’s playing games then deciding on which trades to copy, which not as there will always be some good trades in green and some in reds.

As for checking trader’s performance – yes, at least once a week you want to monitor each trader’s performance and make adjustments if needed.

I just started with etoro.. I don’t have enough funds to start big so I put 50$ and found one guy to copy (with LOW risk), should I wait a month now, invest another 50$ and diversify? ..should I find a second person to copy?

What would you do if you had as little as 50$ at the very begining?

Thanks in advance.

Thanks for stopping by.

If you’re just starting with $50, I would recommend it splitting into two parts and invest in 2 traders. Next month add another $50 to cover another 2 investors. Continue doing this until you have at least 10 traders copied.

many thanks for your reply.

I don’t think it is possible. I added 50$ and tried to copy more than one trader but it seems that 50$ is the minimum amount I can operate with.

yes, just checked and minimum is now $50 (it was $20 before).

Well, then you should save up another $50 top copy two traders or simply start with one (best) and add more traders as time goes and you can invest further $50 in each.

It’s hard to find a proper trader…

I’m having trouble finding advance filters, only popular searches are available now?

I have a few additional questions…

I set $50 and I can have a few cents of profit daily… sometimes I can see $0,20 and sometimes -0,20 …

When I copy a trader should I copy all open trades or copy only a few manually?

What is a sign that I should change a trader to copy?

Should I copy a trade and check it just once a week or more frequent?

Thanks in advance.

Piotr, that user is a terrible choice to copy… look at her 6 month graph.

can i make money on etoro than ebay & ecommerce ??

Thanks for your question.

If you wanted to ask “can I make MORE money on eToro than eBay & eCommerce”?, then answer is – no one can tell you that.

It’s like asking how long is a piece of string?

If you put one Million pounds into eToro system and manage 5% monthly return, that’s 50k in profit per month.

If you put 1k in eToro and manage same 5% monthly return, that’s only 50 quid per month profit.

And you can do 5% on eToro and you can do MINUS 10%.

Same applies to eBay really – some people manage to make 20% ROI per month on capital while others are losing money.

So there’s no answer to your question really.

First of all..thanks so much for your blog..you sem like a very reliable person. Thanks indeed for your information.

Based on the above example…a person has one million in the ETORO system…and manages a 5% monthly return…equals 50K…But, does that mean he would have to prepare his trade for high risk. Let’s say that person who has one million invested/deposited…if he/she adjusts his trades for a 95%low risk…can he still make the 50K.

I don’t know if I was clear…

Thank you anyway in advance 🙂

The amount of money you invest, really doesn’t make a difference.

Besides that if you invest one million pounds in eToro, you’ll most likely become a VIP client with personal consultant and other perks.

Congratulations with this fantastic blog to clarify many questions for beginners in eToro, like myself. I can’t wait to try your strategy on.

I have some questions about eToro. Would you be so kind to answer them for me please?

1) What is the best way of finding traders, the search tool gets very limited and It alwyas ends up showing the same traders.

2) When I copy a trader, I must specify the ammount I want to invest on them, but sometimes I can’t see the same open trades as they have. It is a bit confusing. What does COPY TRADER exactly do?

I guess they more I play around with it, the more I will understand. So far It is a bit confusing.

Thanks for your help.

Thanks for your questions.

1) Advanced filters still is best way to find traders, Make sure you look past first 50 or so traders and also try Sorting results by gain, profit etc. It’s a shame that eToro did take down manual filters as that was my preferred way of finding traders.

2) When you copy a trader, you can select whatever you want to start copying all new trades from now on OR copy already opened trades. So you want to select 2nd option if you want to copy all existing trades.

Hope this helps!

I have been reading this article for the past hour now but I still don’t understand anything. I registered with etoro when they first launched I got a call from 3 of their agents giving me guidance but I didn’t get what they were talking about. one even offered to give me free class when he gets home so that I can trade, and win and also copy him. but I didn’t give in because I was afraid even till now I’m still afraid to invest in forex. Too bad this could be my only way of being successful online but I’m still afraid.

Obrigado por seu comentário.

If after reading this, watching video etc. you still don’t understand, you shouldn’t follow with this idea. While eToro is a very user friendly platform, you still need to have basic understanding and knowledge in finance, mathematics in general and online trading.

I’m sure you’ll find your path somewhere else.

Thank you for sharing your experience. A big hug from Brazil.

My doubt is: If you are copying 10 Traders: one or more of them this with several open orders and checks you that some of these orders that a profit of say 10%, some negative, in which case you will manually closing the orders or you are not positive moves to nothing and leaves everything on behalf of Traders?

Note: Translation by Google.

Thanks for stopping by.

Not sure I correctly understand what you’re asking – do you want to know exactly when to stop copying a trader?

No Andrew, I wonder if you close the orders manually copied. Or if you let it do all the Trader, ie that open and close orders.

EXAMPLE: You are copying karaj51, karaj51 opened many orders, you will note that some are in profit, in this case you close manually or expect the karaj51 close?

I do not manually close trades, no – unless it’s a bad performing trader I want to get rid off.

I STARTED STOCK TRADING IN THE BEGGING OF 2012 AND TILL NOW, I LOST MY HARDLY EARNED MONEY WORTH $800. SO I AM VERY SCARED OF STOCK MARKET.

PLZ SUGGEST ME HOW CAN I RECTIFY THIS?

WILL TRADING IN CURRENCY WILL HELP ME TO GET MY MONEY BACK?

PLZ GIVE ME ADVISE,, WHAT I SHOULD DO….

Thanks for stopping by.

You should never go in this by trying to earn your loses back – it’s gambling!

There are always risks associated with stock trading and social trading – there are no 100% guaranteed ways to make money with this.

But I would recommend you opening a practice account, and trade with play money for at least 6 months or so. If you then manage to show a positive ROI, then consider investing real money.

If you need to earn money fast – get a job or start selling something online.

Please may I ask if you have found any way of seeing who the top copied and rated traders were historically, e. g. from 1, 2 or three years ago. I emailed etoro about this and they basically said to look through all the traders profiles one at a time (there are thousands!)

My worry is that we are being presented with the traders who are doing well over the past six months or a year, but that could just be a lucky streak. There surely is NO certainty that they will continue to do well.

With some serious google research I managed to get the IDs of traders who were well rated a couple of years ago. Many of them have crashed and burned, presumably taking their copiers with them! That includes some who appeared to be careful low-risk traders.

I’m also having trouble finding unbiased review of etoro. Most of the reviews and blogs seem to be by people promoting etoro to get the affiliate marketing fees.

I have set up a virtual funds account, but I’m very reluctant to risk real money until I can get more unbiased information.

Any thoughts on this? Many thanks, Patrick.

No, there’s no such historical data available. I would also like to be able to go further back to 1 year data when filtering traders but unfortunately it’s not possible at this time.

Trading is risky and surely there are many traders who go down on a regular basis, that’s why you want to monitor them at least on a weekly basis and get rid of bad performers as soon as you spot them.

Don’t risk with real money if you’re not comfortable with this – just use your virtual account for a year or so and see how it goes.

P. S. As for eToro itself – it’s a legit as legit a financial company can be. They’re licensed by FCA in the UK and I have not had any problems with money withdrawals and deposits.

You say “EToro allows you to copy up to 5 traders” Then you go on to say you believe it is best to copy 10. How is this possible? Obrigado. Tom.

Sorry about that confusion – in the beginning there was a limit of 5 traders you can max copy (that’s why I have that line there). Now there’s no such limit so you can copy 10 or 20 traders if you want.

Many thanks for your insightful advice.

One question: do you have any links to statistics on what the average gains are for the non-expert copiers on etoro, and what proportions of people are losing money.

Many thanks, Patrick.

Obrigado por seu comentário.

No, I’m afraid there’s no such statistics available….

I did research this several months when started on eToro but apart from some forum posts couldn’t find much info (that was one of the reasons why I put this blog post together).

Yes, I’ve looked too, and could not find much. Presumably eToro would regard that as sensitive information.

Once again thanks for your excllent blog.

Glad I can help! 🙂

Another question if that’s ok.

Have you tried ZuluTrade? It seems to give more control, and to give more information and stats about “Signal Providers” (like etoro Gurus)

They seem similar setups, albeit with some differences.

if we requested withdrawal from Etoro to Paypal,

there is $5 withdrawal fees charged by Etoro, right ?

So any fees charged by Paypal when we use it to receive the money from 3rd party ?

P/S : bro, did u ever make withdrawal from Payapl via Bank Wire Transfer ?

I think Etoro has simply charged too much of the withdrawal fees, still Paypay does charge a small fee when we receive money from Etoro, right ? So 1 time withdrawal, charged by both size ya?

then we could only make huge withdrawal but its not worth to a small amount the profit we hv made.

No, PayPal won’t charge you any extra fees as eToro uses mass pay to send out these payments (they cover PayPal fees for you).

So all you pay is eToro fee.

I enjoyed reading your blog andI am considering sigining up for etoro but I just wanted to ask you about tax. I am from the UK and I noticed that you said profits gained from etoro are tax free. Don’t you have to declare these earnings from etoro on a self assessment to be taxed or did you not have to pay any tax after your first year?

Thanks for your question.

Yes, winnings from eToro are classified in same way as income from gambling – it’s not taxable, so you don’t have to pay any tax on it.

I just join etoro last night and i am finding it difficult to locate real and profitable trader but with your educative lecture i receive today i will try them out, but still if you can give 10 trader that is well tested i wouldn’t mind.

Please you can send them through my email.

Obrigado por seu comentário.

How nice it would be if everything would be served already for us, on a golden plate, ah? 🙂

If you’re not willing to put some work into this, better not start, seriously. You absolutely MUST find traders yourself as otherwise you won’t even know when it’s right time to change them.

If you can’t find all 10 in one go, that’s not a problem! Start with 2 or 3 and allocate 10% of your bank to each. And then you can keep adding new traders as time goes by and you’re getting better at this.

[…] why I’ve invested with eToro as the concept of copying the best traders out there really stood out to me. And I have also […]

How much are you making now after around 2 years. Did it go up or you lost ?

Obrigado por seu comentário.

Check out my latest update on this here:

Thanks Andrew its really helpful and very well written. I will try to learn from your mistakes.

Is it easy to take a withdrawal of the money you earn in e-toro, and is it guaranteed you get your money? And is e-toro a trustable place to keep your profit?

And what is your user name in e-toro?

Thanks for stopping by!

Yes, it is very easy to withdrawal money from eToro – I just did a withdrawal to PayPal 4 days ago. Payment come in after 2 days of withdrawal request (so super quick).

eToro is totally safe to use – it’s FCA regulated in the UK.

P. S. As explained in another comment, I don’t share my eToro username.

Thanks for answer. haha, okay, but what do you lose to share your username? If you copy the best traders it would be easy for us to just copy you?

but another question; If the value I use in my country is not USD, wouldn’t it cost a lot of taxes to change it to my currency when I do a withdrawal?

The question should be – what I gain? Stress! And I have enough of that in my life, lol.

When you do withdrawal, the bank you’re with is the one that determines the exchange rate so you have to check your bank’s exchange from USD to your local currency.

Hmm. okay! Obrigado!

Can you mention some of the traders you copy at least? Do you have some regular traders you always copy, or do you change a lot?

Hi Andrew and thanks for your useful article,

But there is a question for me that i’ll explain mathematically.

I have 10$ and i invest it all on a trader with 50% gain weekly. after a month my ROI is:

a) (10*200)/100+10= 30$

b) (10*50)/100+10= 15$ first week > (15*50)/100+15= 22.5$ second week > (22.5*50)/100+22.5= 33.75$ third week > (33.75*50)/100+33.75= 50.625$ at last.

What’s your question Meisam? 🙂

To calculate potential profits, just use one of many free compounding calculators available online, such as this one:

Great rules for newbies. I have learnt a lot. Thank you.

Great to hear that!

An update for my eToro Trading strategy published here:

[…] have been getting many requests from my blog readers to write this post, so here it is – my overview of trading on eToro over the past 12 months […]

Can’t get access to the post as the link […] is not working.

Which link exactly isn’t working?

Is this something you still consistently do, if so I’d love an update of how its been going for you the last few years regarding EToro. I’ve only just come across this post so I’m really interested to hear what you still think about it and if you feel its still worth getting into. Look forward to you reply!

Please check out my latest update on eToro for 2015:

How much you invested to get 1400 in one month? Sorry if you have already covered in your article.

Please read the post, I have explained it all in detail! 🙂

[…] on the topic of Image Hosting, plus many other shorter posts. Lastly, long awaited update on eToro Trading coming soon too, in […]

I’ve just found this and it sounds great. Would you still recommend it as much as you did in this post?

Yes, of course! Nothing much has changed to be honest – apart from eToro getting even bigger so we have more traders to choose from now. (and more tools too).

I’ll publish an update on my last year trading results very soon. But I can say already know, it’s all green, in profit.

Hello Andy, looking forward to an update on how this is going for you.

I should have an update post ready in March so stay tuned!

Hi I have been following your tactic and it worked very well for me, however it was too slow to make reasonable profit so I have started trading myself.

Investment: 0; (Recommended few friends – and received bonus 🙂 )

Equity: 50$ 🙂 Lost due to NZD/USD – was very new new to eToro 🙂

& # 8230; My secret: I don’t trust traders (well only few).. I have created experimental algorithm which works very well for me opening and closing orders, but let’s wait for results by the end of January 🙂

I, ve been trading for a while now and results seem not too bad, an overall good profit margin and upwards trend, I. ve had a few nightmares early on before employing loss prevention.

I would be very interested to see how Mr T algorithm works, but the whole process seems fairly straight forward and can generate some good profit, I have split my funds for short mid and long term, therefore giving an income and also reinvestment of capitial to ensure compounding effect.

A good source of knowledge is babypips worth a good look into learning FX trading.

I also have moved away from copying traders as it’s hard to find good one’s with the right strategies, I just set my own plan and learn as I go, I have a fair few copiers so must be doing something right.

ps I would always advise demo trading to start and use as much bonuses when using real money as possible to build up to a good trading point.

For copying i recommend the ones that are trading channel, preferably the greenland channel. It seems good if your in it for the long run.

Thanks for a great site. Very interested too, to hear about how your etoro experience has been, I just started out, and your site was a big help for me to understand how to copy. One thing i wonder though, is when you look at the chart for a trader, say the 6 months chart, and there is one blue line representing total equity, and one green line representing realized equity. If the green line has a steady yield, and the blue doesn’t, what then? Is that just as good as having a steady yield in the blue?

Best regards Bella.

Was wondering after nearly a year on there now how your balance is looking. Also, on the left handside on etoro do you use filters. If so, what do you enter in?

Thanks for your comments.

Yes, I now use Filters too (at time of writing this post, there was no such a feature).

I’ll update on how things are looking for me on eToro early next year.

Thanks for the reply. What do you enter into the filters to find the traders you need? I have had a look and finding those that match the criteria of the example trader here are impossible! Any tips are appreciated. Look forward to your update in the new year.

Whats your username on Etoro ?

Please read the comments! 🙂

Great article Andrew; good to see someone highlighting the power of cumulative interest 😉

Have you worked out which method of depositing offers more bang for your buck? I used paypal to deposit by taking the $ direct from my card (Sterling). Hopefully my bank card offered a more favorable exchange rate than if paypal made the exchange but I imagine I could do better using my card/bank direct or moneybookers? Do you have any thoughts?

Also are you worrying about currency fluctuations when it comes to withdrawals in the future? I suppose the fact that profits are not tax liable means even with 20%/40% swings returns are still very favorable (hopefully!) 😉

Why are profits not taxable by the way? Do they fall under the same rules as gambling?

Not much we can do about exchange rates (apart from converting inside eToro and keeping some money in different currency but then again, I’m not an expert in this).

I used my credit card to deposit money.

Why not taxable? Because they fall under same rules as gambling, yes.

If I copy someone, is my investment still leveraged like trading in the normal platform? Can I lose more than I deposit in or is it a lot safer copy trading?

No, you can never lose more than you deposited. All the trades you copy will be carried using your available balance and % allocated by you.

I have tried this method on a practice account since I found your site. I am just wondering, what filters on the search engine of etoro do you use? The advanced filters. I’m struggling to find consistent low risk traders. I am actually making profit on my practice account and I almost have enough money that I would like to invest in this. I’m just looking for a way to refine my search a bit more and find some great traders that can give me a good low risk return. Any other tips would be much appreciated. And an update on how you have been progressing too. Interested in your take on the whole oil to increase in the future.

Thank in advance.

Thanks for your comment & question.

As explained in the article – low risk, high trade success rate, established performance without huge spikes in trading history, portfolio allocation and traders they follow are most important things to look for.

To find new traders I use Search & Filters, monitor Top Traders charts on a weekly basis and sometimes find some good picks in eToro’s newsletter too.

To be honest, I haven’t been able to spend much time on this for the last year or so, I take it as a hobby of mine but still, on average I make 5-10% each month with just one loosing month in last year.

Yes, I also have invested in Oil, but that’s a long term investment I hope to make some crazy returns in 5-10 years time.

Haha can I copy you?

I was wondering why don’t you share with us your traders? There would have no effect on your trades or whatever effects on you.

So please why not share your traders with others?

Thanks for your question.

There are 2 reasons behind my decision to not share my traders:

1) I change them on a regular basis, which means I would have to update this post each time I change a trader on eToro.

2) I really don’t want to take any responsibility/pressure on by doing this. As money and some risks are involved, I really don’t want to be responsible for a losing month or something. You should always trade with money you can afford to lose but I know for sure that not all people understands this.

Plus I trade with Gold, Oil and some stocks on my eToro account now too, so it would really mix it all up.

Hope this answers your question Agon.

Thanks Andrew for your fast reply…I was just curious to know why.

Good luck on trading!

As a very happy 60 Day Blue Print customer of yours I thought I would check in and see what you are looking at now. This looks once again a great opportunity, especially coming from such a reliable source, I will be checking it out for sure. Have been seriously burnt in the past by Forex but this does appear to be a much different concept. Thanks again for the steer.

If you follow this concept, it’s almost impossible to lose large amounts of money as you spread the risks among 10 good traders with proven track record.

There are a lot of what seem good traders on E Toro, most of whom seem to have a medium risk strategy, would you entertain using anyone with a slightly higher risk approach than low, in order to provide diversification? Thanks Ian.

Yes, that’s ok as it’s very hard to find 10 good but only low risk traders.

Just make sure these medium risk traders make smallest portion of your portfolio.

good information on here. I have a demo account with etoro and copy trader is great – i was wondering how good is etoro when it comes to withdrawing all those huge profits are they reliable and is your money safe in there hands ?

I have made several withdrawals without any problems – it takes about 5 days for PayPal withdrawals and you have to be ready to submit some documentation for ID verification. Apart from that, there are no problems in getting your money out of eToro.

Just wondering how it’s going ? And if you are still trading. ?

Obrigado por seu comentário.

Yes, I’m still trading on eToro – it’s not like it takes a lot of time so I basically monitor my portfolio once a week or so and make any changes, if needed. Had few slower months in summer but still – overall it’s a healthy profit when you look @ rolling 12 month period.

They’re now launching STOCKS in beta version and you can purchase long term stocks, like Apple, Google, Amazon and other tech companies. Another great way to diversify your portfolio for a long term profit. And it’s so easy to do these transactions!

Hope this helps Helen! 🙂

Could you estimate your monthly (yearly) profit since you started?

how would I copy you on EToro?

You can’t copy me on eToro as I do not share my username.

what minimum deposit require to copy trader someone?

You can Copy a Trader using as little as $20 or up to 20% of your realized equity.

What a great article and great tip! I’d heard of EToro and obviously Forex trading but only ever seen the Biz Opp type brigade promoting it and usually at a cost along with the usual smoke and mirrors. As a client of yours it’s great to hear your real life review on it and I for one will definitely be having a crack at it, it would be silly not too I reckon!

Back of the net again, thanks!

Hey Andrew, I’ve just signed up to eToro and started practice trading with virtual money…. thanks for explaining it all so clearly. I was wondering how things were now going for you, three months on from your original post? Still making money?

It’s still going very strong! Haven’t seen a loosing month yet and on average I reach my 10% monthly profit target. Currently I have a very strong portfolio of 10 traders and only need to change 1 or 2 traders once a month or so.

Hope this helps!

I just wondering how long you wait, till you close negative trade. Thanks in advance.

Usually I do not close negative trades and let trader to decide this. Only time I do close negative trades is when I stop copying a trader as then all the trades are automatically closed.

Seems like a cool strategy. I am a big fan of yours but I think you should emphasise the use of leverage more, as using leverage can also be highly dangerous. You are effectively gambling with money you do not have when using leverage and it can be a downfall for any beginner trader (I’ve heard some horror stories on this subject)! Only gamble with what you can afford to lose! I use the term gamble loosley as IMO trading stocks and shares is nothing more than glorified gambling unless you are actually a market maker or have inside scoop.

I shall give your methods a try :).

Thanks for your comment! 🙂

Using leverage increases your risks yes, but it’s not gambling as essentially you’re doing same trades, just with more money. And you can’t lose more than you actually have in your account, so it’s not like you don’t know what you risk with.

First results are in:

Invested $1026.4 USD and after 10 days I got 1034.28 USD so around 10 USD profit in 10 days = 1% gain in 10 days so roughly 3 % per month which beats the 1.85% rate on yearly basis with saving at banks.

Made some start-up mistakes with not using all the money to copy traders because I wanted to buy currency for myself too instead of copying traders but after these results I’ll rather copy then learn everything about pip’s again (read a lot about forex trading a year ago)

Small tip for checking if the person you’re copying is profitable:

Click on the Login tab, select CopyTrader view.

This way you’ll see if the person is profitable (%gain) and if so how much.

Plus if a guy is only profitable for 1% then you can replace his with someone that could be more profitable.

@Andrew: What gains do you find acceptable and when do you un-copy someone (offcourse when he’s not gaining but do you also drop them with they only make 1%?)

(Maybe it’s nice to include the above tip in the article so that people can see who’s good and who’s bad to copy)

Hey Andrew followed this up from my email.

This looks promising the whole ideo of following and learning as forex can look scary and boring to some of us when learning for the first time.

Great find and i might give this a go sometime soon. Obrigado.

How soon can 1 start seeing a inital profit with let says a investmen of £500.00 .

Also is forex and shares two differnt things ?

You can see profit or loss as soon as you start copying traders and they carry out first trades. If it’s a busy day trader with dozens of trades each day, it will take just few hours time.

Yes, Forex and Stock market trading are different thing, even though on Forex you can buy/sell stock market indexes, same way you can buy/sell oil, silver & gold.

I have, just like many, have always wanted to do online trading whether it be Forex or other sites but have been really intimadated with simply just handing over my hard earned dollar while not knowing what the hell I’m doing.

This seems like a very practical and beneficial way to come into the game at my own pace while utilizing the strengths and experience of others. Leverage! I think I’ll open up a practice account for awhile before making the plunge. So I thank you for one, in sharing another wonderful opportunity where people all over the world can benefit from, and two, being a trust worthy source of information!

Many Thanks Ryan for your kind words!

And you’re right – Open Book and copying traders is a perfect way to LEARN more about Forex trading without risking with your hard earned money that much. I have learned a lot during last few months, especially about oil and gold trading.

Looks to be a positive concept, however i’d like to see more details on how your investment would be spent.

For example if I copied a trader, and allocated for example 20%, is my 20% proportional to his 100%? ie if my 20% is worth $200, and he uses say, 10% of his bank to buy something at a value of $200 but that’s all he does, will my entire $200 also go onto that same deal? or will just 10% of my $200 go on it?

Hopefully that makes sense, and the reason I ask is as a lot of dealers I have found so far do not exactly match your criteria above, I have found 2 so far who generally fit, the rest fit usually 4 out of the 5. There are lots of dealers showing consistent growth, with mostly positive open trades and no obvious long term negative trades, but if I copied one of these people, and they made a single trade of $200 and my $200 was matched, then they continued afterwards and made a lot of other trades, would my entire 20% be potentially locked into that bad trade? Or just a small percentage of my $200 relative to how much of his bank he invested on that trade?

Yes, exactly – your amount will be used proportionally to reflect exact same trades trader makes. In your example, only 10% from your allocated money will be used for that trade.

All trades will be copied based on percentages, and not actual money trader place on each trade.

Hope that makes sense!

Sounds good, my other query was how it works when you stop/start copying a trader. Does it immediately open or close positions based on their current portfolio? Or does it only take effect on new positions?

ie: If they already had trades open when you copy, does it automatically buy up the same position despite the fact the price may have changed? or will it wait and just mirror and new opening on position? Likewise but opposite for when you stop copying, does it immediately sell any positions you currently have open that you copied from that trader, or does it wait for that trader to close the position and then update yours?

Also, if you are copying a trader, they make a bad trade and you want out, I assume you can override that trade and sell as required? You are not stuck in the position until the original trader closes it right?

1) Yes, it only take effect on new positions.

2) Yes, when you stop copying trader, all trades are closed.

3) Yes, you can override any individual trades manually.

So 3 YES from me! 🙂

Looks great but noticed one thing (sceptic in me!) – Is the £1349 profit you have made purely from trading within etoro? It’s just that it looks like the video above is an affilaite link which I guess you get money for?

Thanks for your question.

Yes, that £1349 is purely from trading on eToro – this blog post is first time I’m promoting eToro program.

Please note – everyone who joins eToro can use their refer a friend program to earn $50 for each person who signs up through your link. Friend you refer also gets a $50 bonus. For people with limited budgets it could be a great way to boost your trading bank.

What are potential losses ? Is it limited to your original investment ?

Yes, your potential loses are what you invest/deposit.

But you really have to take high risks to lose ALL of your money, especially if you copy 10 traders.

Thanks so much for this info.

My problem is finding the right traders! The only one that fits all 5 of your targets is the example you used. All the other traders fall short. Which are you following at the moment?

No, that’s not true – there are way more than one trader suitable for this strategy. Don’t just look @ Rankings, there are other ways to find traders via search, friends and followers.

I won’t share my traders as I don’t want to take such responsibility – that’s why I created this blog post and explained how to find and monitor traders. If I would simply publish my own traders, everyone would copy same without much thinking.

By the way, as it turns out you can copy up to 10 traders, make sure you use that to diversify your portfolio!

Hey out of interest how easy is it to withdraw money? have you had any experience with this at all?

I haven’t done any withdrawals yet but it can be easily done from your account. Only thing you have to do is verify your identity by uploading scanned ID/drivers license and a recent utility bill. This is a common practice with all Forex brokers, from what I have seen. Obviously, you can’t withdraw bonus money you received when signing up + there’s a $5 processing fee for each withdrawal.

Hope this helps!

I got a call from an eToro rep just after I signed up, very helpful she was too. She assured me that you can copy up to 10 traders at any one time.

Wow, that’s great news then Steve!

Thanks very much for this info, I’ll be using it for sure as I really want to minimize potential risks as much as possible.

P. S. On eToro website it still says 5 traders, could be that they haven’t simply updated that yet. Open Book is still in Beta testing, that’s why (I think) they have those limits in first place. When they launch final version, maybe we’ll be able to copy un-limited number of traders.

Hey, great review. like others above have mentioned. i would have stopped reading quite quickly on any other persons site but as its you. i will have a look into it!

What currency do you have to hold as your normal cash on account.

Is it in pounds, or does it have to be dollars??

You can deposit in EUR/GBP/AUD but it will still be converted to USD.

All trades on eToro are in USD.

Looks really interesting, I’ve tried it out and am trading virtually at the moment and will be interested to see how that proceeds. How much did you invest to make £1349 in December ?

I started with £10k, which gave me $1k (USD) bonus. So the total starting bank was about £10600.

In beginning of December my bank was around £12k.

Great info Andrew, what about safety of our funds at eToro? and withdrawals?

eToro is a reputable company with more than 1.75 million users, established 5 years ago. Everything can happen in life of course but from information I have gathered, they seem as safe as any other Forex broker out there.

It sounds really interesting this from reading through your article, its something my little brain takes a lot of time to understand and comprehend how stocks and shares work and its something I’ve never really looked much into as I’m not great at figures and graphs etc. But this eToro part does sound certainly something to find out more about. I certainly could do with some extra passive money coming in each month. I just have a couple of questions I hope you’ll be kind enough to answer.

With making £1349 in December, how was November, October, does it change much month to month, ?

How much did you invest orginally and when did you start?

So are you topping up each month already with £200 like you say its best to do or do you work upto this gradually.

Lastly how often have you changed traders since you began, do you change often, I would of thought if you choose the top 5 , won’t they be the best and know there stuff and will know in the future, or isn’t that really how it works.

Just trying to get to grips on how it works.

Thanks for your comment & questions.

It varies from month to month but in general, over last three months it’s about 10% per month. Worst was my first month with +6%, December has been best so far. January started very well but then with EUR price going way down below everyone’s expectations I lost some of the good profits. Still looking for +7 to +9% this month.

I started in October with £10k, which gave me $1k (USD) bonus. So the total starting bank was about £10600.

No, I’m not topping up as my initial investment was already big enough. I’ll trade with this bank for 1-2 years and then decide on a top-up strategy.

I have changed 4 or 5 traders so far. Some initial choices I made were not that good, I didn’t have proper filter system in place. I have changed 2 traders because of bad performance. Monitoring and dropping traders is biggest challenge with this system. Most top traders are performing well for a limited time – for most it’s 1-3 years, for some – even less. That’s why you want to review each trader’s performance on a weekly basis.

Hope this helps!

Are there any filters to show those with low risk only?

Also, I think it is possible to copy more than 5 traders, as I’m currently copying 6, but I think you can have a maximum of only 20% equity in any single trader, unless I have missed something?

You sure you’re “copying” them and not “Following”?

As by eToro FAQ, you can copy MAX 5 traders at any given time.

Thanks for your reply, I’ll probs have to give it a miss for now and maybe join when I have more money I could afford to lose I guess, with £200 investment it would take a while to show much money back for the time spent. I didn’t realize it would be such an amount though of initial investment, your £10k is probably what is best to invest to actually get some money back a month but I sadly don’t have a spare £10k. Certainly be interested to hear though how you progress through the months and what sort of monthly profits you are getting in a year.

I’m also interested in how my bank will look in one year’s time! 🙂 I just hope this isn’t beginners luck and I’m already preparing myself for losing months, as I’m sure they will come.

Great article Andrew, been to a seminar about Forex in the past but been put off by the huge learning curve and risk to capital. This is exactly the type of thing I’ve been looking for, seems like an excellent idea.

Exactly, there’s a HUGE, HUGE learning curve involved if you would want to become a Forex trader. With this, you simply have to master skills of finding & monitoring profitable traders.

Ok this is really confusing!

I am in Practice mode and want to see how it works before i deposit real money in.

How do i check a traders history (Filter #1 – Trading History) ?

Not sure how it is in Practice mode as I have only worked with real money account! 🙂

Should be same, click on Open Book and then >>> Rankings to see top trader list (that’s a good place to start looking for traders).

I am looking into this as we speak.

Will update my results in couple of months time hopefully.

this is really nice and valuable information. Obrigado.

One question i wanted to ask is what was your initial investment from which you made £1349 profit?

I started with £10k, which gave me $1k (USD) bonus. So the total starting bank was about £10600.

Coming from anyone other than you Andrew, I would have dismissed this idea as the usual ‘Internet making money rubbish’

However, I will look at this more closely as it does sound very exciting!

Forex trading, eToro is totally genuine opportunity. The problem is that so called “Internet Gurus” have built portrait that Forex is about trading robots (you should buy of course, lol), people making millions each month (Clickbank e-books) etc. etc. In a word, it’s very difficult to find down to earth, un-biased information.

This is a great opportunity, I agree with you! And that’s why I actually started trialing this concept, as I always tried to stay away from Forex. Idea behind Copy Trader feature is what got my attention as I have no intentions of becoming a day trader myself.

Ohh, and opportunity to buy Oil with a leverage, that’s also very powerful concept in my opinion.

Great stuff andrew ! Thankyou for advice ! I try this one !

Thanks Rolands, glad I can help out! 🙂

Great article. Just a quick question regarding e toro and online trading, do you have any books you can recommend me? I would like to learn more information about online trading.

Not really Haffy, no.

I have learned this all by myself, I haven’t found any good books/resources related to social trading (yet).

Great article, have been trading before on Plus500 but eToro also looks good, going to check it out for sure!

Thanks Max! Any questions about eToro, just let me know.

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Trading System Rules.

There are not a whole lot of different ways that trend following can be done. The minor tweaks may have positive results but the effect is usually very minor. If you spend too much time looking at minor variations of entry rules you risk missing the important parts. The truth is that most trend following system rules do the same thing. They show highly similar results simply because they attempt to achieve the same thing. By all means, play around with the detailed rules. Just make sure you do that after you have tried the basic strategy. Understand where the value come from first and you’ll realize just how little the entry rules really mean.

The value in professional trend following strategies come from the diversification. The rules presented here are good enough to achieve results on par with the large trend following futures hedge funds. Making the rules more complex does not aid your performance. The most common amateur mistake is to spend all the time tweaking entry and exit rules and not enough analyzing position sizing and investment universe.

The simple rules presented here are good enough to replicate the performance of many large name trend following hedge funds with high precision and correlation. In my book I detail several ways this can be further enhanced and improved upon. Make no mistake though. The trading system rules is the least important component of your trend following trading strategy.

Some markets are inherently more volatile than others. To give each position an equal chance to impact the bottom line, positions must be larger for less volatile markets. This can be achieved many different ways. My core strategy uses Average True Range (ATR) for this purpose. ATR measures the average daily price movement of a market. This can serve as a proxy for volatility. Set a target desired daily impact per position. Then calculate how many contracts you need to trade to achieve that based on the ATR. This naturally assumes that volatility remains roughly the same. This is not always the case of course. It’s an approximation and as such it does the job.

For the core strategy on this website I use a desired daily impact of 20 basis points.

Long positions are only allowed to be opened if the 50 day moving average is above the 100 day moving average and vice versa. This is to ensure that we don’t put on trades counter to the dominant trend. It reduces the number of trades and lessens the risk of getting caught in whipsaw markets.

Enter long positions on a new 50 day high. Vice versa for shorts. Go with the breakout and ride the trend. Nothing else. Signals are generated on daily closing data and the trade taken on the open the following day. Slippage is accounted for of course as well as trading costs.

Exit on three average true range moves against the position from its peak reading. Thereby we have a theoretical loss of 60 basis points. No intraday stops are used, so a close beyond three ATR units are needed for a stop to be triggered the following day.

Trading a trend following system on a single market or only a few different markets is suicidal. There may be long periods, even years, where there simply are no trends in any given market or asset class. The key idea is to trade many markets covering all asset classes at the same time. If you fail to do so, this strategy will simply not work.

The investment universe you chose will have a much greater impact than tweaking buy and sell rules, so choose wisely. You should chose a broad set of markets and avoid too high concentration in any single sector. In the long run, a healthy balance between all major market sectors yields the best results.

You can study a broad range of markets on the Trends of the World page, which is updated daily with charts and analytics.

27 comments.

Thank you for sharing.

I guess you’re using a 100-day period for an ATR as you described in your book, aren’t you? I haven’t found the exact ATR settings in this article. I like the concept of a longer period for an ATR, it gives a smoother results than a shorter ATR like a 14-day one or a 21-day one. Thank you in advance for the clarification. PK.

I think I used 100 day, exponential smoothing. It doesn’t matter that much though.

You might also want to look at regular position rebalacing logic. That’s a key important point that I left out of the book to avoid the added complexity.

I would like to know what trading platform/software you are using. I tried a large number of platforms and I haven’t found a professional solution. What platform would you recommend for guys like you? You could also mention a decent brokerage that you are using.

Thank you in advance for any idea!

I find RightEdge to be one of the very best platforms. The fact that it’s dirty cheap doesn’t hurt either, but that’s not my main reason. followingthetrend/2014/05/why-i-prefer-rightedge-for-strategy-modeling/

We’re using a few of the larger investment bank’s prime brokerage platforms. I’ve tried the usual suspects, GS, JPM, NE etc. Not a whole lot of difference between them, though I wasn’t too happy with the two Swiss investment banks. Choice of broker depends very much on who you are and what you want to do. Obviously, stay away from all the thousands of thousands of con artists operating ‘introducing brokerage’ business. There are lots of them targeting retail market, in particular in the FX space. Use a real broker, with an actual banking license in a trusted country.

In the more accessible segment, I like Saxo Switzerland.

The book doesn’t discuss scaling in/out because you said you view it as a separate strategy. Have you written anywhere about the core strategy with scaling in/out, or increasing the risk factor on winning positions, or increasing position size while maintaining the risk factor?

In brief, I find most of these scaling methods to be based on a gambling mindset and a lack of understanding of mathematics. It doesn’t make any sense to change your risk based on your recent success or failure. The probabilities of a crude oil rising next week isn’t dependent on whether or not you have an open profit on it.

Most of us in the business target a certain vola and rebalance regularly to stay close to it.

Pyramiding and such things are strictly amateur.

Thanks Andrew. I understand your sentiments on pyramiding, although I see scaling in a different light, a way of reducing/managing risk instead of increasing it. If prices are non-random and if markets tend to trend, then adding in the direction of the trend seems like a reasonable way to reduce losses, manage whipsaw, and improve the size of profits on winning trades. Dennis and Eckhardt scaled into their positions while still targeting volatility, and I would have assumed that many of their contemporaries and offshoots are/were doing the same. That’s why I was surprised it wasn’t covered in the book. Have I got that wrong?

There’s a reason why I deliberately didn’t mention Dennis, Eckhardt or turtles in my book. I find the whole hero worship culture to be highly irrational and outright dangerous.

Imitating people just serves to reduce critical thinking. It’s great that these people, and many others, made it. Copying strategies developed with pen and paper in the 70s and deploying today is however a very bad idea.

Arguments like ‘Method X must be good because wealthy Trader Y uses it’ isn’t valid. That’s the wrong way to approach a problem. What if Trader Y spends half an hour yodeling in the morning? Perhaps that’s the key to his success?

The original turtle rules have become some sort of weird religion. They have very little in common with the modern CTA industry. Research is moving forward and the business is changing. Also remember that the visible people aren’t always the best. Some of the very best CTA hedge fund managers I know, with billions under management, had never heard of the turtles before I brought the subject up over beer…

The whole culture of worshiping certain traders is very much a retail thing. It’s great for those who sell get-rich-quick dreams, but it won’t help you much if you’re trying to improve your research.

Model the turtle strategy. It’s easy. Curtis released the rules a long time ago and you can download them for free. followingthetrend/mdocs-posts/original-turtle-rules/

Run a backtest on this model for the past few decades. Check how many times over you would have lost all your money. It’s an interesting concept to model and learn from, not the least to learn about how and why it failed.

It’s great that these guys brought research forward in the 70s and 80s. That was a long time ago though and now research has come much further.

My advise is that you listen to ideas from all kinds of sources, but trust none. That includes mine. Then you do your own research. Model the ideas you’ve heard. Test them. Figure out what works and what doesn’t.

Btw, Dennis and Eckhardt wasn’t doing any sort of vola targeting in the old days. Sizing positions based on instrument vola isn’t vola targeting. The latter is about targeting a yearly std. dev on a portfolio basis and requires constant comparison of realized vola to target vola, rebalancing very frequently. A whole different matter, one that wasn’t heard of back in those days.

Thanks the the clarification on portfolio volatility targeting, I hadn’t appreciated that nuance. Your omission of Dennis/Eckhardt seems obvious now, I didn’t even notice it at the time. Would you say that scaling into positions as they did was a flaw (i. e. lowered returns or the quality of returns), or was just an obsolete/unnecessary part of the system?

I don’t believe it’s a good idea for anyone to trade the old turtle rules today, but at the same time I want to be careful with my criticism. It’s easy to say today that the Wright brother had a crappy airplane. Clearly they forgot the jet engine.

These guys, and other lesser known people, laid the ground work. Study it and learn from it. But don’t go jumping off a cliff in a Wright Flyer II.

The original turtle system uses extreme risk. It’s a make or break system, where you’ll either make a ton of money really fast, or more likely lose it all even quicker. It was traded at a time when this system worked really well.

Much of the core ideas from those days are used today, but in a very different way. Just as the ideas of the Wright brothers are still incorporated in airplanes. The business has evolved and matured though.

the simulation in the book, and the results, are with (50 & 100) EMA or SMA as trend filter ?

I used EMA, but forgot to mention that in the book. It doesn’t really matter though. Indicators are never important.

The simplified model I showed in the book can be made much more simple. Try a simple X Months Momentum model for instance, where you go long if the price is above X months ago, else short. Amazingly simple, but it captures the bulk of trend following performance.

First of all, thank you. I am very impressed by the materials on your website, I plan to buy your book, and I am very greateful for the information you shared.

I am searching for a mechanical end-of-day trading system that I could follow with confidence and discipline.

I have a few years of discretionary trading experience, but no consistent profits.

I backtested the system you describe here, with Amibroker.

Markets I used: Copper, Gold, Corn, Natgas, Oil, Rice, Soybean, Wheat, AUDUSD, EURUSD, GBPUSD, NZDUSD, USDCAD, USDJPY, S&P500, TNOTES10, Bund.

I tested it from January 2000 to July 2015, with end-of-day historical data for all the markets listed above.

I would like to present the results of my research and I hope you will be willing to answer my three questions.

In short, your system made money.

However, based on the optimization, it seems better parameters for my markets choice were EMA 150 and EMA 350, and entry on 120 days high or low. (instead of 50, 150 and 50 respectively). 3 ATRs remains best.

My “better” parameters did not increase profits, but they cut the drawdown by half!

1. Even with my improvements, the CAR/MDD for my backtest is 0.50.

Compound Annual Return 8%, Max Drawdown 16%.

This is with position size based on volatiliy, target risk $2k per trade on a 100k account.

I estimated a quite conservative spread and comissions.

Is this good enough?

Does it look like acceptable result to you?

What was CAR/MDD measure for this system in your backtest, or with systems you actually trade, if I may ask?

2. The equity curve had a almost 5-year long drawdown period, from 2009 to 2014.

I know this was not the best time for any trend following system, but I anticipate it will be very hard to stick to this system should a new drawdown like this happen.

Do you think this 5 years drawdown is at all acceptable?

Here is the link to my backtesting report with equity curve screenshots. Have a look for EQUITY CURVE charts.

3. Shall I trade all markets using common rules?

I understand I should not curve fit EMAs and channel and ATRs for each market… I know… but maybe it is valid to have separate rules for stock indices and rates and separate for commodities and forex?

This system, per my backtestst, was losing money on S&P, TNOTEs, DAX and Bunds.

So I excluded these markets from portfolio. (To make money on S&P it needs shorter EMAs and wider stops, like 7 ATRs, but then it makes less money in commodities and forex).

Shall I trade it on commodities and forex with my paramaters? (and skip S&P, DAX, TNOTE and BUNDs)

Or should I keep searching for a system that makes money on ALL markets?

Did it make money on ALL markets in your backtest?

I’d be delighted to hear back from you.

Thanks a lot in advance!

PS. I enabled comments on the file I shared abouve, so you can comment it as you review it. Obrigado!

& # 8230; in which he presents the simulated equity curve of this core trend following system, until mid 2015.

and… his equity curve looks very similar to my version (although I used different set of markets (ones I have access to) and different parameters (longer EMAs after optimization). This similarity, I think, has two implications. 1. my backtest was correct, 2. the 5 years of drawdown was real.

Comments? Muito obrigado. I pasted the link also to the document I linked in my comment above. I hope this is insightful for others as well… and I am looking forward to comments.

Sorry for long delay.

I don’t really have the time to do a proper evaluation of your model. Keep in mind that the model I describe is a demo model used to approximate what the CTA industry has been doing for the past few decades. It’s not meant as a recommended super model of any sort. It’s quite easy to improve upon it, but I wanted to keep it simple and middle-of-the-road to make a point. In fact, my only regret is not making the model in the book even simpler. If I had used the good old 12 months momentum model, perhaps that point would have been more clear.

A five year drawdown is not acceptable. But it could still happen. You won’t be able to keep clients if you’ve spent five years under water. It could absolutely kill your business, but it’s near impossible to make a model that guarantees it will never happen.

I would recommend trading all markets with the same rules. That of course doesn’t prevent you from making rules that adapt to term structure, volatility, trends etc. Making a rules that says ‘Trade these parameters for Corn’ is a bad idea. Making rules that adapt to market characteristics could make sense.

Also, you’ll never make money on all markets. But you don’t have to. Any individual market or position is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is the end result. Since you don’t know which markets will perform and which will not, you’ll have to trade them all.

Hope that helps…

Hello Andreas, bought and read both your books, great stuff. I’m however beginning to think I’ve misunderstood something:When you write “desired daily impact of 20 basis points” , are you saying risk 0,2 % of your equity per atr of sl= 0,6% total per position for a 3atr stop? That is what I’ve thought so far but I’m beginning to think thats not the case?

Also, when we’re talking risk per position, do you think it should be based on only the cash amount in the account? I find that I often have rather large open profits while the small losses eat away at the cash, leaving me with smaller and smaller position sizes.

Risk has nothing to do with stop distance. That’s a misunderstanding usually perpetuated in trading books written by people who don’t really understand finance.

The 20 basis points is average daily portfolio attribution. If the instrument in question maintains current volatility (which is a huge assumption), then it will on average have an effect on the overall portfolio of 0.2% each day. Up or down.

Risk absolutely needs to be measured on a portfolio level. The amount of available cash is irrelevant to such calculations.

Thanks a lot, I read Curtis Faiths book (good , by the way) prior to yours and assumed you meant something similar. can you recommend further reading?

I know Curtis. He’s an honest guy. He’s a little odd, but I take an honest odd guy over the usual con men any day. Of course, keep in mind that Curtis stopped working in trading around age 23, over 25 years ago.

The trick is to identify who knows what they’re talking about and who makes it up as he goes along. It can be difficult to see on the book covers, but often it’s given away by the author description. “XX has had a passion for trading for 20 years”, means that he doesn’t have any actual background in the business. “Developed trading systems and managed proprietary capital for 20 years” also means that a person never worked in the field. There are many of these usual ways authors describe themselves to cover the total lack of real background. It always also shows on the terminology that they use. Dead giveaways include how they define risk, which is usually complete guesses of what the word means, such as “how much money will i lose if the price falls down to my stop point”. Try suggesting that at a job interview as a risk analyst and you’ll get a good laugh on the way out the door.

Read books by Meb Faber, Katy Kaminski, Ernie Chan and such people to get the bigger picture. Most retail level trading books just muddle the picture.

Thanks for taking the time. I have 25 years experience in engineering, product development and one thing trading and my profession have in common is: I don’t get away with anything in neither! Whether trying to cut corners or being ignorant, it always catches up to me and maybe that is why I like trading on a very basic level: I can’t bullshit the market, the facts rule and that makes it the most honest environment I’ve ever experienced.

Does these rules / trendfollowing sytem also work on smaller times frames ? A hourly timesframe ?

Hi Andreas. It’s a timepiece of an article. Obrigado.

I’m a newbie and I’ve dedicated a lot of time to learning from my mistakes (cost me 50% of my account, tuition fees I’d say). Over Reliance on indicators and terrible multiple time frame analysis, poor risk management at times. You name it and I’ve made those mistakes.

Now I just watch out for price action and trends using other confluence factors like EMA. It’s simple yet effective.

How do you put tighter stops without getting stopped out, because sometimes I get stopped out with retracements from prevailing trends. I want to improve my risk to reward ratio which is now usually between 1:1 and 1;2? Sometimes the previous swing lows on larger time frames are too large and on smaller time frames seem like noise?

Hi Andreas. Do you think this estrategy also work in weekly timeframe? Or trading once a week? Obrigado.

Love that book, I’ve currently coded the strategy in Amibroker using Norgate/Premium Data futures for the data. I’m having some difficulty in getting the position sizing correct for the risk parity weighting in the futures mode, are you able to point me in the right direction of where I can find some help on this?

I have been following your work for awhile. Really good stuff.

May I ask, how do you manage trades that are stopped out by your 3 ATR rule, but rebounded almost immediately and carry on to trend really well in the original direction resulting in a major trend?

Since not missing a major trend is so important to this strategy, would you use a re-entry rule?

35+ Unusual and Easy Jobs that Pay Well.

by Chris on March 1, 2011.

We often dream of working in jobs that will involve minimal work and maximum payouts. Though, that is not possible, as even the best of us have to move a muscle when it comes to earning money. Someone possessing a job that involves negligible hard work, which is interesting and offers a fat paycheck, is probably the luckiest person on this earth because they get to earn money for doing the least of what interests them. Many will consider such a situation where you get paid like this as a dream job. However, hold on to your horses as there is every possibility that you might be able to earn more, while pitching in smallest efforts. Apparently, there are a lot of positions that are available for job seekers, but citing various reasons people don’t opt for such offers.

In order to better understand the type of jobs that people can apply for, a little list has been prepared to help them choose the right option, which might assist them in earning a handsome salary while at the same time not working as hard. Though, it is quite possible that you might like the job and be actually committed towards your work. Do keep in mind that you can apply for these jobs easily and that they are viable career options which can provide you with monetary security for the rest of your life.

Before we start by listing the best jobs, you can apply for. Please remember, the jobs that you will read about have a certain stigma attached to them and this article has been written to show you the possibility behind earning money from unconventional jobs that usually lead to scorns from people hearing about these careers. Also, make sure you brush up on your interview skills before you start.

List of unusual Jobs that might interest you.

Crab Fisherman.

Many will be surprised on hearing this, but the vocation of a crab fisherman is a highly paid profession. It is a known fact that the job of a crab fisherman happens to be one of the most hazardous career options in the United States of America. However, despite the risks involved many people passionate about this vocation earn a living out of it. The people involved in this trade have to stay away from home for months at a stretch on times and have to brave the chilling wind blowing over the Alaskan waters. The worst part is you have to dive into the frigid waters to grab hold of the catch. Now, after looking at the risks involved one needs to keep in mind that this is a very lucrative profession and according to estimates, a seasoned crab fisherman can catch crabs worth $50,000 over a period of just eight weeks.

Crop Duster Pilot.

People usually opt for flying lessons to acquire a pilot’s license, which can be for flying airbuses and maybe for fulfilling their lifelong dream of flying on their own. However, in the middle of these flying jobs, there is also an option of choosing a career as a crop duster pilot. A crop duster pilot is a person who sprays insecticides on crops while flying at a low altitude over a field. The job does has a few risks involved, as one has to dodge electric and telephonic lines and building tops to carry out their duties. The best part about a job in this field is that a seasoned crop duster pilots can take home a yearly remuneration of $80,000.

Trash Collector.

Well, this is a career line that many will not like to opt for, and people will usually make a strange face on the mere mention of this profession as a viable career option. However, there is a different aspect about this job, as collecting cans from homes and all over a city can make you quite rich. The job is not a joke as somebody has to keep the city clean and make no jokes about it, but the government does reward trash collectors handsomely. According to Wikianswers, the starting paycheck for a trash collector in New York City is $100,000 a year. Though, the salaries go south as you head south, as Pensacola in Florida offers trash collectors a starting salary of $35,000 a year. One thing to be kept in mind regarding all this is that the job only involves a person emptying trash into a big truck.

A roughneck has to face a lot of hazards at work. Working as one can mean spending 12 hours shifts under a loud oil drilling machine. Apart from that, the job is so excruciating that roughnecks usually talk to each other through signs and not words because there is a lot of noise around. The labor involved is immense as your work can involve anything from picking up the heaviest tools to inhaling a cocktail of the most toxic fumes together. Given the health risks involved in the job of a roughneck, people need to be reminded that these fellows get a serious paycheck for the hazards they face. On an average, a supervisor can take home an annual salary of $100,000 and even more in some cases.

Commissioned Salesperson.

The job of a salesperson is considered to be quite insecure as on a lot of occasions there is no base salary for starters. People in the sales department have to slug it out and ensure that they are able to sell things, which earn them truckloads of money. There are quite a lot of people who have made a lot of money through sales, and maybe the profession actually depends on the person. The job of a salesperson is not for everyone, as one has to be charismatic, convincing, persuasive and enigmatic, all at the same time. According to various estimates, a seasoned salesperson working in an automobile dealership, electronic store and even an investment bank can earn an annual income of more than $100,000.

Crime Scene Cleaner.

People who do not have any qualms with gory scenes and are somewhat happy in cleaning up things will be quite interested in this job. There are a lot of functions that a crime scene cleaner has to perform and they can range from cleaning somebody’s blood to unearthing their bodily fluids from a god forsaken place. You can be working in a cramped space looking for key articles regarding a case and a while later hand out articles for chemical testing in a government laboratory. Though, one thing is for sure that you will never get bored from your job. It does turn out be quite interesting and pays out an average paycheck of $50,000.

Teaching happens to be both a very noble profession while at the same time it is a very rewarding career, as not many people opt for it these days. One round of questioning around your neighborhood and you’ll realize jobs galore for people wanting to provide services as an educator. Apart from providing services as a teacher in school, you can also opt for a job as a private tutor, which happens to be equally lucrative and in some situations, it pays out more money.

Sewer Inspector.

The job description sounds just as disgusting as the profession actually is. People working in this field can expect human excreta, cockroaches, rats and various other things that people dump down their flushes as part of their routine encounters at work. The job basically involves carrying out assessment and repair of clogged pipes and passage ways while enduring the fragrance that flows through the underbelly. Despite the intriguing job profile, sewer inspectors are able to carry home salaries as high as $60,000 a year.

Hazmat Worker.

A hazmat worker usually goes through a lot of hardships. During a day’s work, one can experience toxic liquids, oil breaks, dangerous chemicals and buildings full of asbestos. You will directly report to the federal authorities and will have to work under immense scrutiny while performing your work. It is a dangerous job with a lot of health hazards and comes with an average beginning paycheck of $40,000.

Private Security Contractor in Iraq.

People wanting to get a kick can think of a career as a private security contractor in Iraq. Your job will basically involve providing protection to diplomats and top politicians and it will mean that you will have to shield them from a rain of bullets being fired by berserk extremists. It is definitely a job that means living on the edge and at the same time pays you a decent compensation of $10,000 a month. One thing that needs to be kept in mind before applying for such a job is that attacks usually do turn fatal and health insurance can be forgotten as you might need life insurance before you land on Iraqi soil.

Truck Driver.

A single glimpse of the humongous machine is good enough to spring up the thought that you always wanted to be a big-rig driver. However, there is a twist to the tail as truck driving is not exactly all guns and roses. There happen to be quite a lot of health problems that you gain with aging as a truck driver, well, they do suffer from a lack of sleep and endure a lot of back pain by sitting in the same posture for endless hours of driving. Though, the travelling is exciting in the beginning, staying away from home and loved ones does catch up. The annual pay for a truck driver is somewhere around $43,000, while one with a good track record can earn till $80,000.

Construction Worker.

Construction workers are under the threat of an incident all the time. Their risk of losing a limb or suffering a minor injury when at work is quite real. They wear those helmets to protect themselves and not to look cool. The work is laborious and involves specialization in machinery that is very dangerous, as apart from proving to be risky for yourself, you might prove hazardous to someone else as well. One positive thing about this job is that you happen to receive a healthy remuneration, which on an average ranges around $50,000.

The US Army happens to be the most feared defense and is known for its campaigns all over the world. For someone belonging to a family of patriots, serving the nation has to be the most honorable job. However, despite the honor, glory and love that is showered upon you by your countrymen, working as a soldier is a very tough job. One view of battle conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan can open up your eyes for real. However, there are many other things that make the job very fruitful. Well, apart from an entitlement of a lifetime pension, a US Army volunteer is entitled to a sign-up bonus of $10,000 immediately and following the service, a volunteer is entitled to a payout of $70,000 for college.

Highway Patrol Worker.

Now driving up and down a highway is not exactly the best way to spend sleepless nights or even lazy afternoons. However, that is the duty of a highway patrol worker. The job gets quite monotonous on occasions. Though, there are other times when it gets equally exhilarating. As a highway patrol, you will definitely come across instances when passing by motorists will hurl abuses at you and if you feel that you can withstand the monotony and a few abuses for an average salary above $40,000 a year. Well, you’re looking towards the right direction.

Proctologist.

Not many medical professionals opt for this field of specialization as they feel that it is quite humiliating to examine a person’s anus. Apparently, proctology has got to everything that rhymes with the word ‘rear’. Despite the scorns that one might face from fellow specialists regarding their field, one thing is for sure that the only one laughing back from a bank has to be a proctologist as they end up earning salaries as high as $225,000 a year.

List of Easy Jobs.

Internet Surveys.

Internet is nothing short of a revolution. Apart from bringing together billions of people, it has been a platform for the biggest movements that have taken place all around the world. The World Wide Web has also been a place where businesses amounting to billions of dollars have come up. Among these businesses is a profession where people can participate in opinion polls and get paid for expressing what they think. Surveys are like a God sent prayer for people who like to laze around at home and earn by a few clicks of the mouse.

Secret Shopper.

This job is probably for people who like to shop all the time. Shopaholics will definitely enjoy this career. After all, it does not hurt to get paid for trying new products in shops and criticizing them if you don’t like them. Another job aspect of a secret shopper is to go to a rival chain of stores and find out what is the trick behind the other store outperforming yours. It definitely belongs to the category of one of the easiest jobs out there. Though, it is quite difficult to be hired as a secret shopper.

Toll Booth Collector.

Now, if you don’t mind sitting in a cramped tin room and collecting money from people all day long, this has to be a dream job. All that a toll booth collector has to do is watch people drive away to other beautiful places while you sit around in that stingy room, collecting money from people driving off to better places. The worst part is the night shift, when you know the person paying you the toll is driving to the best party in town while you sit and allow them to pass. Despite the negatives involved, this is a lazy job that pays handsomely for the little work you do and end up earning about $45,000 on an average.

Sports Agent.

One movie that will spring up in anyone’s mind after hearing this job is probably ‘Jerry McGuire’. Though, you don’t have to worry as the job is not even close to what was shown in the Tom Cruise starrer. Apparently, it is a lot tougher, the man responsible for writing the book, ‘License to Deal’, Tomy Tanzer had to struggle a lot to reach the position he is in right now. The man had to travel across America in the beginning of his career in a van that acted as makeshift home. So, if you’re ready to work that hard, well then you might just be negotiating multi-billion dollar deals for superstars later on in life.

If you possess a high school diploma and are willing to do a training course and want to earn more than $30k a year after that, the job of an embalmer is the best suited for you. Though, one thing to remember is that you will have to be very comfortable with dead bodies, after all preserving them will be your job. Embalming is one job that nobody wants to do and will want somebody else to do for them. So, go ahead and embalm some dead people.

Message Board Administrator.

A lot of big websites have sprung up over the internet. There are blogs, forum sites, video streaming sites like YouTube and various other internet portals that are sick of trolls and spammers. One thing about such sites is that they will pay a lot of money to people ready to play the role of an administrator and keep a check on such spammers.

House-Sitting.

If you’d thought that babysitting is simple, well, you will fall in love with house-sitting. Apparently, there are a lot of rich people in this world and they’d like their home to be safe when they’re away and they often leave their home to the responsibility of a house sitter, who ensures that when the home owners are away, they can live in their home like it is their own.

Now this job is for people who think that they’re invincible and no type of abuse can harm them. The label of a lab rat is a little too harsh. But people wanting to act as lab rats can earn an average of $3,000 a month for being a part of lab tests for medicines that might prove to be fatal for you. If you’re ready to take this risk and ready to let your body endure abuse, this is the perfect way to earn money.

Dog walker.

The mere mention of a dog walker as a source of real money will come as a joke to many. But, trust me there are people who do earn a living out of this job. This is best suited for people who are in love with animals and don’t mind walking around all the time. According to estimates, a renowned dog walker can end up earning as much as $50 an hour.

Newspaper Delivery.

Now this is one profession from which you cannot earn a decent living. A person delivering newspapers will need another job. But, make no mistakes, for a few extra dollars this is the perfect job, which will give you a lot of work out as well. The best part is you can wake up early in the morning and deliver newspapers by throwing them while you cycle.

Freelance writing.

Freelance writing is a very tough job to start with. However, this job does pay very handsomely after some struggle. On an average, a freelance writer can be paid anything between $5 and $20 for an article they submit, which is a pretty decent amount if you are efficient enough.

Amusement Park Ride Attendant.

Little children will die for this job. However, adults will think a million times before thinking about working in a theme park, where you have to deal with rowdy children on a lot of occasions these days. If you are children’s person, this is the perfect vocation for you. An average attendant earns around $8-$10/hour.

Greeters are the norm at big departmental stores these days. If you happen to be one of those people who cannot stop smiling, well, the job definitely suits you. The best part about this position is that you get paid for smiling at strangers who might happen to be quite stunning at times. The salary of a greeter may vary between $20, 000 – $30, 000 a year.

Restaurant/Departmental Stores Jobs.

A number of restaurants and departmental stores offer jobs to people. There are quite a huge number of chains that can provide you with the opportunity to grow in the organization and make strides in your career. They offer lucrative salaries and incentives. Apart from allowing employees to pursue higher educational courses as well.

The job of a handyman is perfect for people who are good at repairing things around home. Anyone good with tools and the works is ideal for this profession. Good handymen can rake in serious money after making a name in their field and earning a number of loyal customers with good work.

Internet Jobs.

There are plenty of jobs available over the internet and they range from tutoring someone over the internet to providing technical support to someone else. Apart from that, setting up your own website is a very interesting job as well. Work over the internet is quite limited in the beginning. But, once you’ve got the flow, the limits are endless and the money infinite.

Plumbing is not just about taking care of leaked pipes, repairing showers and faulty drainage system. But, there are quite a lot of other jobs involved in this profession as well. There can be a situation where you might have to take care of a faulty flush or unclog somebody’s toilet. But, the thing about plumbing is that a person can earn quite a lot of money in this field if the work is good. Average salary of a plumber starts at upwards of $40, 000/year.

IT Employee.

Now working as an IT employee might come off as a very clichéd statement. But, the fact is that IT professionals are still paid a lot of money. It might be because of conventionality that people started to show interest in other fields, yet IT workers are still in a lot of demand.

Accountant.

The job of an accountant has been often labeled as one of the most boring professions in the world. If sitting in an office and figuring out numbers is all that you’d like in your life. The job of an accountant suits your bill, after all the payout is quite incredible, as it starts from $40,000 a year and can go up to an astounding excess of $200,000 a year.

Deli Store Worker.

Not many people believe that a person working in a deli store can earn a decent living. However, thanks to a large number of unions, not only deli store clerks earn a lot of money, but are entitled to a number of perks and pay hike every year. Job security is the best thing about such jobs, as unions ensure that even the least productive worker is kept in the fold.

Baby Sitting.

Babysitters job is actually not that easy as it may seem to you. A babysitter is responsible for a child’s meal, entertaining the child, engaging the child in constructive learning activities and to follow the regular bedtime family routine. You cannot be lenient when you are around kids, you have be be always on your toes and keep them in your sight all the time. Kids are very stubborn and you have to be able to convince them to take their meals on time and goto bed on time.

When it comes to babysitting child’s safety is the most important thing. You must know the basic first aid techniques and knowing CPR and infant CPR will be handy in getting the babysitter’s job.

Gardening and Landscaping.

Now this is a very tricky profession as a landscaper has to be someone with exquisite taste. However, it is important for a landscaper to know about the basic intricacies of gardening. Apart from keeping you active, gardening will also allow you to have a lot of workout in the sun, which is good. This profession is basically for people who like to spend more time under the sky rather than the roof, as it will involve various things like mowing, pruning, watering and managing the whole yard.

Looking at the number of job opportunities available for all of us, it is quite funny that we still happen to crib over the lack of employment opportunities. Honestly speaking, it seems that maybe it is us and our mindset that is not ready to let go of the useless stigma that is attached to these jobs, as at the end of the day a majority of them pay handsomely. All the aforementioned jobs are rarest of the rare and can provide you with an opportunity to discover yourself and what you might have wanted to become. None of them are easy, but these jobs are definitely better than living on social security.

Remember, if you take pride in what you do and appreciate how you’re helping the world around you in your current job profile, you will realize that none of these jobs are as useless as you had thought earlier and apart from being a little offbeat. They offer a lot to learn. This article has provided you with information regarding some professions you might not have thought of earlier and that is the reason why you might rethink about your career option after reading this.

For all those who are currently unemployed and are lacking direction, please do ensure that you try and assess your situation at the moment and apply for one of the jobs that have been stated in this article. If you might not want to go for one of these jobs, do try and looking up for one that might not be that glamorous.

Remember, when it comes to earning decent money, these careers suffice the need efficiently. Some jobs might sound boring and might be very simple, but simplicity is the real key to success and these jobs will offer you success, money and a life and an opinion of your own.

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Great list. Some of the jobs are highly rewarding and I didn’t know that these jobs paid so much.

Plumbing is quite an easy job to bag in $40K per year. Damnnnn.

teaching is not an easy job.

@ Laura, Many people would be Cynical about the list presented here but it’s based on the time effort and money involved in it.

It is indeed true that no1 can earn a living sitting idle at home. These are some of the jobs which people overlook at the first place as a profession.

Some of the Jobs on the list can be taken as a part time jobs as well to make an extra income.

But teacher is definitely NOT an easy job no matter what perspective you look at it from. My mom is a teacher and I am telling you that has made me a 100% sure never to become a teacher. So much for that!

…but being a teacher is.

If you’re a LAZY teacher it’s easy, but I would say that the “easiest” job is one where your job is to utilize OTHER peoples time, talent and treasure to earn money for you. In other words, become an investor.

Some of the jobs are quite difficult to come by.

i want this job help pliz.

interested in secret shopper and internet suveys. please give me legit ones no scams. where the pay checks are real and you can really get payed real money for these jobs. thank for your help and have a great day.

ive been using surveysavvy.

A good secret shopper site is second-to-none I know from experience. They send multiple emails of stores in and near your destination. The reimbursement isn’t all that bad either 😉 😉

I just want to work…I am willing and able to do them all except lab rat….

Being a teacher is not an ‘easy’ job by any means. It is a profession that requires qualifications, training and then a job that does not just finish when the children leave. Anyone who thinks it is ‘easy’ obviously has no experience of this sector.

I concur. Moreover, because many teachers have to have a masters degree, their debt to salary ratio is terrible ($100K+ in debt with a starting salary between $35K-$50K is terrible, yet its starting to be the norm these days for everyone who goes to college. Not good.). They end up taking 10-20 years to pay down their college debt.

I am a deli worker for a grocery store chain. I make $11.25 an hour to listen to customers complain that the quarter pound of mayo I put on their sandwich wasn’t “enough mayo” or run around stressing out that I can’t finish all of my work by closing, thus getting punished by my store director. I have been transferred out of my home store to another 30 minutes away because of a deli worker in my current store not working out and I had the lowest seniority in my own store, given minimum union hours, and no compensation for gas or wear and tear on my car. I have put in two transfer requests to be sent back to my store, but they have been ignored by corporate. The union I am a part of says that the company is within their legal rights to keep me there without compensation and they refuse to help me get back home. Deli worker as an EASY and WELL PAYING job….. I can not trust a single career on this list now, because I know for a fact that this “great job” is bunk.

move next to work you probably rent any way, of find another job, stop being such a cry baby!

I was an elementary school teacher for 6 years, and it’s def an easy job. The children want to learn and even help their teachers out at this age. The first year may be the hardest in terms of creating lesson plans, paperwork, and classroom management, but it’s cake after that. In all honesty, the best teachers are born w/ teaching talent(prob about 25% have it). The other 75 % can’t do anything so they choose to teach(mainly just sitting @ their desks all day), even though they have no business running a classroom. If you want to be an effective teacher get up off of your ass!

Thank you sharing your generous views with us. It really means a lot to hear from the horses mouth itself. In a world where most of the jobs are covered by the MNC’s where you have to be always on your toes to meet the deadlines and you hardly get any time for yourself or your family.

Harder it was to compile a list of jobs which are fairly easier than the rest of the jobs but it becomes hard to convince each and every one.

Kirby, you state that you were an elementary teacher and that it was an easy job for you. If this is true, why did you stop teaching? I am currently an elementary school teacher in a hard-to-staff community. There are 10 teachers on my campus who are considering finding other gainful employment, including myself, because the workload we are dealing with and the pressures of our profession are increasing every year with less compensation. In our state, we currently do not even have a contract, had lost Race to the Top funds our DOE had gained, but are still being experimented on as a Zone of Innovation. Working currently with an Employer Imposed “best and final offer,” including a 5% pay cut, I work a minimum of 60 hours a week in my classroom (alone!) and bring home only 50% of my gross salary. My mother, who was a housekeeper at an airport hotel, took home the same amount of pay with similar benefits. In addition, the field of education is changing rapidly as do good teachers. I do nothing the same as I did my first year, nor my second, nor my third, etc. Lee Shulman, Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education and Psychology at Stanford University, and President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching said in his book, The Wisdom of Practice, “…..classroom teaching…. is perhaps the most complex, most challenging, and most demanding, subtle, nuanced, and frightening activity that our species has ever invented….The only time a physician could possibly encounter a situation of comparable complexity would be in the emergency room of a hospital during a natural disaster.” The way you talk about the 75% of teachers, based on your unsupported estimate, is offensive and irresponsible, for you had slighted the demanding position of teaching professionals and of a great number of real teachers everywhere. If you conduct more research, you may find, like Edison, that what you think you know pales sheepishly in comparison to what is actually true.

A lot of these incomes are way off… i don’t know where they got their info.

For some reason the “Lab Rat” job appeals to me, I wouldn’t really be bothered about getting things tested on me, unless they gave me something like cancer, then I’d be worried…

I am a professional dog walker (sounds like an oxymoron) and I average $50.00 an hour. It’s not all fun and games though – you have to be aware on animal medical issue (I’ve made owners aware of everything from acl tears to tumors). I’ve cleaned up some pretty nasty messes as well. However, considering I went to college for business this is much easier and pays a lot better.

Whoever said departmental stores were easy jobs lied. I TOTALLY disagree with that. I’m stuck in a crappy retail job right now, and I want out.

Same goes for restaurants. The only easy job in there are:

1) The lackeys from corporate who drive up every six to eight weeks to make sure the building’s still even standing, or.

2) the ever power-tripping corporate general manager who gets kicked around by life outside of a restaurant and so makes sure that h(is/er) sh– rolls downhill because (s)he needs to forget what a crappy card (s)he pulled from life’s unfair deck.

As for a regular kitchen employee? Hilarious. I’ve been working at the same place four years and still only make $9.25/hr. If you want to call me a special case, I ask that you consider the mechanics of a corporation and ask yourself if it’s really that hard to believe. Thank you for your time.

Can somebody out-there help me out on how I can hold on the jobs enlisted? I am really interesting in working in any part of the world/foreign land.

I’m currently doing teaching, community social development and charity in Mombasa Kenya. I am willing to learn new skills, I am always on time, I am trust worthy, I speak, write, English. I like people.

I believe all the work enlisted is really interesting; always something new to learn, except CRIME SCENE CLEANER, EMBALMER and LAB RAT.

I thank you in advance.

Great list, very helpful!

Teaching– NOT an easy job. I was a middle school teacher for 4 years and ended up resigning after sustaining an injury thanks to a student’s lack of good behavior (he had behavior problems going back to elementary school).

Asa teacher, I worked 60-70 hours a week, couldn’t lesson plan at school because they were always calling me in for this or that meeting. Due to lack of funding, i also had to double as a Case Manager and participate in other activities leaving little time for anything else.

As a parent, i cannot tell you how hard it was to only give my kids about 1-2 hours a night of my time, then it was back to paperwork. My kids HATED my teaching career. When their grades started slipping and demands at work kept increasing finally resulting in an injury, i turned in my resignation papers.

My family was thrilled when i quit teaching.

One more thing, the only teachers that i knew who thought teaching was “easy” and put in barely 40 hours a week, were the slackers who couldn’t teach to save their lives.

Interestingly, some of these “slacker teachers” were also the same ones that got praised and rewarded the most, by our principal, because they knew how to kiss administrator A*SS.

I am glad that i had a chance to experience the reality of teaching in the public school system and got it out of “my system”.

Now i am a business owner making twice as much as what i did in teaching and being treated with a lot more respect. I am even considering going back into the healthcare field eventually (my real passion).

Just for all y’all commenting on teaching isn’t an easy job, well if you people (Jax, laura, j, Flexxx) its maybe because you guys can’t read. TEACHING isn’t under the easy list, it’s under the unusual list that might interest you, maybe you should actually go back to being a student. That career might help you out more.

If you take the hours an OTR Over The Road Truck driver woks and divide that by his sum pay it = $3.31 per hour. OTR mean on the road for 3 weeks with two days off. Mind you two days off doesn’t mean 48 hours. It also means you have just driven 15 hours to get home and are now requiring sleep, not play.

Many drivers now have to load and unload trucks by hand not just drive.

You don’t get paid for the miles you drive. It doesn’t matter what your odometer says, your map says, your laptop says, or even air miles for that matter. However many miles your company says the tip is, that’s the miles you get paid. If they are off by 200 miles that’s $100-$160 you lose every trip.

The truth is the average OTR Driver works 5055 hrs. yr and makes only 16-17K. But there are thousands of embarrassed drivers that will “swear on their mamma’s grave” that the make much, much, more.

The truth is nearly all of them don’t.

You’re an idiot if you think 11.25 an hour isn’t good pay for a job as simple as being a deli worker. There are people who work tirelessly in factories that bring home exponentially less money than that, and people who have to travel a lot longer than half an hour to work, so I wouldn’t be bitching if I were you.

I hear a lot of griping here. Try being unemployed from a job making 58,000 per year as a workers’ comp claims adjuster. I am from Florida and a lot of the companies have folded and downsized. I would love love love an 11.25 an hour job right now!

Obrigado! I needed this! 🙂

Did I just hear a deli worker making over eleven bucks an hour complaining? Seriously? Must be nice to be so privileged and naive.

Wow, so people aren’t allowed to express their thoughts anymore?? I’m sorry some of you get paid less than others or are unemployed, but that doesn’t give you the right to tell someone else they can’t talk about their issues at their jobs. Grow the hell up.

I am a teacher and if I sat in my desk for 1 second I would be fired. I have 42 kindergarteners all day, and 40 are english language learners. I do not have an aide. I spend most of my nights at school until 7:30, and I work all day Saturday preparing for the next week. You must have been a horrible teacher if you think it was easy.

Teaching is an over paid easy job, home before 3, summers off, holidays left and right….It’s one of the only jobs where you can be terrible and still can’t lose your job. Tenure self perpuates all the “those who can’t” into bad lazy teachers who think they’re jobs are hard.

Drew, You are like every other ignorant American who says teaching is easy. Are you a teacher? I’m assuming that you are not or you would not be making such ignorant and generalized comments. If you actually read anything about American education you would know that not all states have tenure. If you added up all of the over time we are not paid for, the time would extend PAST the summer. Most of us haven’t received a raise in years and need to work over the summers just to maintain the increase in COL. I have never worked only 8 hours a day. On the weekends I’m researching ways to help my poor and limited English speaking students and evaluating the data sheets and graphs from the previous week. Every job is difficult in some way. There is no reason why someone who has no experience in education (you) should make such derogatory statements. By the way, you need to work on your grammar - “they’re” is a contraction for “they are.” The correct use of the word would have been “their.” Maybe you are “hating” on teachers because you never paid attention in class…

I want to know where teachers get to leave before 3? I need to apply there! I am a teacher in Texas and have to be at work by 7 and cannot leave before 4, but 4 is the earliest because that’s when all the kids are gone – or are supposed to be if their parents have picked them up. After the kids are gone, hopefully by 4, I can begin preparing for the next day. I am lucky if I can pick up my own children from their school and head home to eat dinner by 545.

Teaching is definitely not in the easy category. If you can honestly say it is, try teaching at a low performing school with nearly 90% of the students coming from single family homes plagued with poverty. You don’t stop thinking about your students, even during the summer.

Tenure contracts are not offered at all schools. If administration walks into my room and my kids are acting crazy, off task, or if I am sitting down, that gets plugged into the Ipad and is data about my teaching. Teaching is stressful and definitely not easy.

Wow, some of these are really weird… But, actually, there are even more bizarre jobs like Ant catcher or dream dealer. 🙂 lowbudgetprosper/2008/03/02/top-10-most-bizarre-professions/

Please check your work, teacher. Your occupation was under the \’Unusual\’ section, not the \’Easiest\’ section. Anyone with children know teaching is definately not easy(as a parent of 4, my wife and I have to inspect their homework, grades, etc). Just doing it with 4 is work, I can’t imagine doing it for 20 or more, all the while being a daycare referee at the same time. My hat is off to those who are committed to their craft and still at it.

My apologies in advance, John, but the commentary about teaching not being an easy job is in reference to another person’s comments about it being easy, such as that by Kirby who wrote that he or she was a teacher of 6 years and the job was “cake” after year 1. Thank you for being courteous however in an environment where people have a tendency to be hateful.

I must admit the one that stood out for me was the crime scene cleaner. Never even given that a second thought before but you have got to be a certian kind of person to do that job. Think it would be to much for me. You would have to be able to totally switch off to what you are doing at times. Not for me.

Thanks again enjoyed the read.

Most of this list is complete horse$h1t. Does anyone really think you can switch from the cubicle world to Private Security? Sure it pays well, but very difficult to get the contract. Numbers are way off too. Anyone who has seen “Deadliest Catch” knows that Crab Fisherman is not all that lucrative. Face it; no easy rides and if you don’t carefully plan your career path out, you can easily end up staring at a list of want-ads you’re not qualified for. Desculpa. Reality sucks.

I agree, this list of easy jobs has a lot of problems with it. Thanks for pointing them out.

I feel sorry for the ones who go to college for so long, in debt and then don’t make much in their jobs, or now after graduating can’t find a job at all. In the retail field I have got to say that there are any that will complain they don’t get paid enough. But I have seen it all, I have moved my way up through a known company I am with all the way from cashier to Manager of store. There are so many complainers out there that work in this field. They complain about not enough hours, too many hours, not enough money, benefits, etc. The ones that work hard and prove themselves will make good money. I am a shining example and making 100K plus now. Not too shabby for a girl that started out at a register. No debt either and lots of money I have saved along the way. The training and moving up in company was my college years, but instead of me paying for it, the company did.

Honestly at the end of the day, what does it really matter anyway. It’s an employer’s world out there. You can go to college and obtain a degree in a specific field, and still beer get a job in that related field. It’s all because they want a degree if you don’t have one or they want experience, disregarding the fact that you just spent 4-7 years studying in school, racking up some serious loan/ credit card debt to get the degree and be unemployed. I hate the hours I work, I hate the job overall. My pay sucks and reimbursement for miles spent is lax at best. Bonus checks suck, even though our profit percentages have never been higher. I don’t understand it. People tell me to get a job on the Internet. Where? What jobs? They also want experience and/or degree. So here I am stuck at my craphole job while people tell me there’s jobs out there. When really I think they’re out there. There is no way in hell or high water I would be a butt hole inspector…

Very surprised that nobody has mentioned wanting to be a toll booth operator, it would be the best job in the world! Sip lemonade and relax in a chair while listening to some headphones. No physical risks or stress involved, just self reflection, tranquility, and bliss!

Does anyone know how to get into this industry?

There is a guy who works at a cemetery in a small building by the front entrance. Pretty much all he does is help people locate graves and some other records. He has the tv on all day. Not sure how much he makes though.

Come and live in Australia, we get paid twice as much as you at least!

And you don’t have to worry about guns and getting blown away.

Well to all out there that are arguing that teaching is not an easy job…

first off, i agree.

second, this list of jobs contains 2 categories.

1. unusual jobs (that pay well)

2. easy jobs (that pay well)

and teaching happens to be in unusual jobs. so if you’re going to argue about it not being easy, don’t. If you want to argue that it doesn’t pay well however, feel free.

I don’t think the author meant “easy to do” when he wrote easy. I believe they meant “easiest jobs to get hired for”.

Great list of jobs, the thing is you have explained the main point of each job which is helpful to understand, any person can understand and can direct his or her career towards that job. However the PAY is really good, a truck driver can earn $80,000 is not bad.

For those who say teaching is not an easy job, look again. Teaching is under UNUSUAL jobs. Quit complaining and be happy with your life.

Looks like being the editor of iretire requires minimal effort. It’s difficult to take this article seriously when there’s at least one grammatical error in each paragraph. How many seconds were put into revision? Do you have a degree? The irony is crushing. Sorry, but your article fails on multiple levels.

This is Chris. When I took over this blog 1 1/2 years ago this article was already written. I agree that the grammar is bad – it was written by a research team in India at the time, and whose primary language was obviously not English. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to go back and edit the hundreds of blog articles.

Thanks for your comment!

Joshua is just an ignorant low income prick who is taking his anger out on you. He is probably working on of these jobs on the easy list and is angry that it is considered easy because it is such a hard and stressful job for him. So he lashes out at you for being more intelligent than he is. People like him try so hard to pretend to be better or more intelligent than others. Everyone has things they are good at. I know some people with very good jobs that require hard work and some of them don’t have perfect grammar. I bet there are people with mental disabilities out there who could out perform Joshua in multiple tasks including using proper grammar. Sorry Joshua but you have failed in life on multiple levels. You most likely found this website by searching for “easy jobs” on google.

This article, while being littered with bad grammar, just sucks balls. I’ve never heard someone just rattle off so many jobs while saying completely nothing. There’s no way you got paid anything for this crappy article.

Once again, another comment saying how bad this post is. I agree the grammar is terrible and it was obviously written by the previous owners of this blog, which were based in India and used English as their second language.

I am willing to post both good and bad comments, but I would appreciate if people could at least try to be constructive. For example, say which positions you think are crap. Or better yet, come up with some easy or unusual jobs that you think should be on the list instead.

Regardless of your opinion, I appreciate your visiting and taking the time to read. Maybe I will start a new list of easy jobs that people can comment on and I will add their ideas to the new list.

Teaching is a terrible job, kids are a nightmare these days with no attention spans. I was going through some personal things this year, was a substitute, and honestly just couldn’t take any of the kids B. S. anymore. I used to do all I could, and the kids still wouldn’t put in any effort. So then I stopped. It just became about showing up up just to get the check. screw it. This is also after working to get hired in a district that I’ve been busting my ass to get full-time, trying to go above and beyond(my earlier years). I didn’t get hired because I didn’t know anyone. It’s all politics with administration, and the school boards, and I don’t play that. If I’m not respected, and just “there to be a body in the classroom” Something a colleague of mine actually said to me…then I’m not going to respect back. Show up in sneakers, bedhead, and sometimes hung over. Whatever. Every teacher I know has hit the proverbial wall and gets burnt out. School sucks.

Are you wasting time and money on a college degree? Everyone I know who went to college works for fast food chains and owes thousands to the government. They are years behind others who never went to college and owe all this money…for what? A job at pizza hut? Personally, I believe a degree is crap, I worked with engineers who were as dumb as dirt. Once an engineer took 3 days to solve a problem, but his solution never worked and it was a joke, I saw the problem and fixed it myself in 15 minutes, its amazing how a piece of paper says you are smart. Frankly, if you can do the job, who cares about the degree? If I were hiring, I’d test the applicants to see who can come up with solutions to various problems, not hiring because a piece of paper presumes your smarter, in reality, thats simply not the case.

To ‘ME’ the last commenter: Good point; you need to test an applicant, not just get their resume. Most people don’t go through & successfully get their degree; if they do they ususally don’t use it. However, my brother works for Boeing Airlines & uses his mechanical engineering degree with success. He’s a fighter; had to fight the system/resistance.. he was persistant to get his job back twice! He’s a genious (an advantage). F. Y.I. this website ‘Thetaplex PC’ is my home-based business, but besides that: I’m looking to hire for an EV company; I need investors too. If interested, I’m sure you’ll call me as the models to be produced go from 500-1,500 miles max range. - Kevin Eidsmore.

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