In a 6 months period, this amateur retail tried realtime paper traded a method similar to @volpri's scalping approach. It produced positive expectancy! On a $50K sim account, here is the summary: Platform: TOS Realtime Papertrade Simulator Underlying: TQQQ Time Frame: 1 min Method: @volpri's scalping methodology Results: 1. Total trading days: 95, from May 1st 2024 to Dec 3rd 2024 2. Total # of trades: ~1,000 2. Average profit per day: $66 or 0.13% 3. Cum profit: $6,083, 33% annualized non compounding 4. Average win rate: ~70% 5. Average winning days: ~80% (on average, 4 out of 5 days were profitable) 6. Winning months: 100% (5 out of 5) Conclusion: It is likely a legitimate, profitable approach. There were a few "black swan" days with significant losses. Next step: Go live with a small account and see if the results can be duplicated.
Let's break down these stats to see if they make sense. Breakdown of the Stats Total Trading Days: 95 Total Number of Trades: ~1,000 Average Profit per Day: $66 Cumulative Profit: $6,083 Average Win Rate: ~70% Average Winning Days: ~80% (on average, 4 out of 5 days were profitable) Winning Months: 100% (5 out of 5) Breakdown Total Profit: $\$66 \times 95 = \$6,270$ (This should be close to the cumulative profit, though there's a small discrepancy with the given $6,083.) Average Profit per Trade: Given 1,000 trades, the average profit per trade = $\frac{6,270}{1,000} = \$6.27$. Detailed Scenario Win Rate: 70% implies 700 winning trades and 300 losing trades. Daily Average Profit: $66. So the overall numbers seem plausible when considering the average profit per trade ($6.27) and the average profit per day ($66). Question is does that include commissions and slippage?
It is no pleasure to have to report that the last time I looked in detail at the TOS fill engine for paper trading it was filling buy orders on the bid and sell orders on the ask. This is what market makers enjoy, and this is why they make so much money. Sadly, retail traders' buy orders are nearly always filled on the ask, and sell orders are nearly always filled on the bid. This is why Retail traders trying to scalp or day trade for small profits lose money, and why you can easily make money when paper trading on that platform but lose when you go live. Years ago I wrote Thinkorswim about this problem with their paper trade fill engine, but received no reply. If you want to use the TOS paper trade facility, then for each round trip paper trade profit, reduce the profit by twice the bid ask spread; for each round trip loss, increase the loss by twice the bid-ask spread. If you still have a net profit, you may be "sitting on a gold mine".
Good points, both of you. QQQ is commission free. This is @volpri's methodology, if it works, the credit goes to him. I don't know how real the TOS paper trade sim is and the only way to find out is going live.
Hello ironchef, Starting with $50K and producing $6K in 6 months? That is not good enough man. Please try to click 6.5 to 23 hours a day like me. There are people in the ES futures market making well over a $1million a month starting with a $50K bankroll, easily!!!! Come over the ES Futures Market and be an ES Market Master like me. Lets make some big money man. And lets make the big money really really really fast.
Good point. I consider it just a start. In the past 6 months, SPY returned 14.5% whereas this day trading returned 12%, it is OK but not earth shaking returns. I am better off put the money in SPY and go fishing instead of staring at the screen. Consider this is a "proof of principle" trial, not really a winning method yet without further adjustments. Back to the drawing board.
OK, so you can make $1M a month with $50K trading ES futures? But I tried your staring at the screen, click, click and click methodology, didn't work for me. At least @volpri's scalping produced a positive outcome.