How to Day Trade for a Living – A Systematic Approach

“Is it really possible to make a living as a day trader?”

This question is asked over and over and over again by normal, ordinary people. The answer is simple: “Yes, it is DEFINITELY possible! And, better yet, you yourself can do it!” Sometimes people don’t believe me when I say that they can become successful, full-time day traders, but it’s true. And I’m going to prove it to you right now.

Before we get started, I need you to ask yourself one very important question: “How much is ‘a living?’” Many people want to be ‘rich,’ but they fail to quantify what ‘rich’ means to them. Are you ‘rich’ if you have one million dollars? Maybe so, but if you told Donald Trump that he had one million dollars in his bank account, he’d wonder what had happened to the rest of it! One million dollars to Donald Trump equals broke!

How to Make $150,000 Per Year Since I don’t want to get into a deep discussion about “how much money is a decent living for you,” let’s just assume that you would be pretty happy if you were making $150,000 per year, and let’s say that you are making this money with your trading. Does that sound reasonable?

Let’s break it down: $150,000 per year would be $12,500 per month, or, if you prefer, $3,000 per week. This is assuming that you are taking two weeks of vacation per year.

So, would you like me to tell you how you can make that imaginary figure of $3,000 per week – that $150,000 per year – into a reality? Because I can. All it takes is smarts and strategies.

Start Small – Set a Weekly Goal for Only ONE Contract When day trading futures, options, or forex, you can use leverage and trade multiple contracts on a rather small account. If you are thinking about trading the futures market, then you can easily find a broker who will enable you to trade one contract of almost any futures instrument that is our there – such as e-mini S&P, e-mini Russell, currency futures, interest rates, commodities, etc. – on a $2,000 account.

I teach my students to set a weekly goal of $300 per contract. So, if you want to make $3,000 per week, then you need to trade ten contracts. It’s possible that your broker might agree to let you trade ten contracts with $20,000 in your trading account, but if he won’t – or if you don’t have $20,000 in your account at the moment – don’t worry. Just stick with me, and I’ll show you how to get there.

How to Achieve Your Weekly Goal The key element to trading success is having a sound trading strategy, and it must be one that works effectively in a variety of markets. You will dramatically increase your chances of success in trading if you’re able to trade in multiple markets. Now, understand that when I say “multiple markets,” I do NOT mean different types of currencies! This is a common misconception. What I’m talking about is TRUE diversification, which means watching the two U.S. Stock Index markets, one or two currency markets, commodities like the grains, interest rates, and/or a foreign index market, all at the same time. Here at Rockwell Trading Inc., we teach our students to watch six different markets every single day.