Shadowing Practice: How Much Money Do You Need to Start Trading? - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

How much money do you actually need to start day trading?

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How much money do you actually need to start day trading?

Well, it's pretty simple.

If you want to make a million dollars,

then just start trading with 2 million.

Okay, I'm just kidding, but not really.

So you're ready to take this leap and get started in this wild,

wild west called day trading.

And how much money do you actually need to start trading?

I'll give you the short and sweet answer you're looking for today.

And of course, the long answer with all the details you need to know.

coming from a full-time trader of more than 10 years of experience.

The short answer is you need a minimum of $3,000 to $4,000.

This is the amount I recommend for all beginners to start with.

If that's the short answer you're looking for, then there it is.

But if you want to know about all the caveats,

the amount of capital you need for different levels of risk in order to hit the profit goals you want,

then you should stick around to hear the full story.

Because yes, all the details matter.

especially in trading and especially if you're just starting out.

I've been day trading for over 10 years now and let me tell you,

day trading is not as easy as download Robinhood,

deposit $100, click buy and sell buttons a few times a day and just have money start raining from the sky.

To think that you start making $100 a day trading with a $3,000 account right away, that's simply unrealistic.

In this video, you're going to learn daily profit goals,

why that's the reason most beginner traders will fail.

How to trade with a small account of around $3,000 properly so you don't risk losing it all.

The realistic account growth timeline you should expect.

The PDT rule, the restriction for traders with less than $25,000 and how to get around it.

Why bigger isn't always better in trading.

How to properly start trading with a big account of more

and ten thousand dollars i'll give you the cold hard truth

not just about how much money you need to start stay trading

but how much money you need in order to learn this side hustle

or business and then gradually scale up your trading so you can become a consistently profitable trader

trading is definitely not all rainbows and sunshine

and money won't just magically land on your keyboard so

if you're ready for the cold hard truth then please remember to hit the like button down below

and let's get started daily profit goals

and why this mindset will make you a losing trader many

of you watching this video might be thinking okay i saw a couple of youtube videos

and everyone's saying i can start generating two to five percent a day

if my goal is a hundred dollars a day then i

can easily start with two thousand to five thousand dollars yeah

no way that's happening i hate to break it to you if you're brand new just starting to learn trading

that goal is simply unrealistic in fact the mindset of setting

a daily profit goal of making a hundred dollars a day

as a beginner is exactly the reason you'll most likely lose a hundred dollars a day instead i'm not saying

that to be mean i'm just being realistic with you

because that's exactly what happened to me i was a losing

trader for pretty much the first two years before i start seeing any consistent green days

and one of the biggest reason is that i was so focused on on starting out and making money right away.

I bought into the dream of that day trader lifestyle,

how you can quit your job,

be your own boss, and start trading from anywhere in the world and make money on your own terms.

But because I was so focused on making money,

I did not have the patience to really observe the charts,

learn technical analysis, track my strategies and performance,

apply risk management, and so much more.

Basically, I was so focused on hitting my daily profit goals

that I did not put in the time to learn the skills and experience you need for day trading.

It wasn't that I had lost almost $20,000 that I realized,

I really need to take this seriously.

I need to treat trading as a business going forward,

as going back to school and learn the proper foundation in order to survive,

learn the experience and scale up much later on.

So that's why nowadays when traders ask me,

how much money do I need to make $100 a day?

That's the wrong question.

Instead, you should be asking how much money am I willing to pay as a market tuition to learn the skill?

And like I mentioned to you earlier,

three to four thousand dollars

that money should be treated as market tuition not as income capital just like going to school

or college you're paying up front to learn a skill

that may pay you back many years later but not immediately

and just like tuition you should expect to spend a good portion of

that capital between commissions data fees locate fees and small trading mistakes here

and there it's reasonable to assume you may spend 30 to 50 percent of

that capital during the learning phase

which is around six months 12 months of your trading journey

and that's totally normal that's part of the market tuition as

i always tell traders you cannot control how much money you make in trading

but you can control how much money you lose

so let's talk about it right now how you should trade

properly with a small account of three to four thousand dollars

okay as you can see on the screen over here i

had this beautiful account size risk calculator spreadsheet here to demonstrate how you should trade with a small account

and what your risk per day and risk per trade should be

so this is hypothetically speaking let's say we're starting out with a four thousand dollar account

and in terms of risk we should be risking anywhere from

one to three percent of your account size per trade especially

when you're just starting out so we have right here four thousand dollar account size

if i'm risking one percent of the account

that means per trade i'm risking forty dollars now take a look at this number over here

if that's way too much then

that means you should reduce it even more to let's say 0.5

but for most people i recommend anywhere from one to three percent three will be considered aggressive

and one percent will be considered conservative so let's stay with one for now

so that's one way to calculate your risk for your small account

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or you can take a look at risk per day

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so assuming that you're okay with three percent risk per day

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which is 120 that's your max risk for the day

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and assume assuming you take three trades per day

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that means your max risk per trade is 40

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and you can play around with this let's say you're you

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have five thousand dollars this is what the numbers look like

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if you have a little bit less three thousand that's what the max risk looks like

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so there's a few things you should do with this max risk per trade number now

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that you have it this number you should consider this number

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to be your market tuition the max risk you're allowed to pay as market tuition per day

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or per trade

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and once you hit a number you're done trading with your live account by doing this calculation

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and knowing that max risk number for your own account size this allows you to start practicing discipline

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and know when to stop trading this is a very important trait

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that you need if you want to become a profitable trader one day

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and number two once you hit the daily max risk

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that you can see on screen you should stop trading

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but your learning shouldn't stop there you can switch to a paper trading account

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and continue practicing your strategies we'll just sit and watch

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and continue watching

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and observing the charts as you can see i don't call

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these max risk portrayed as a max loss per day i

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call it as paying market tuition to learn once again it's totally normal for most traders to experience

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that drawdown and pay this market tuition during your first year into trading there's no shame in

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that and

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if you want to calculate your own account's risk based on your capital you can get this spreadsheet for free

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if you sign up to my weekly watch list down below

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now that you know your max risk per day

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or per trade you can work forward in order to simulate your small account's profit

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and loss growth all based on your risk so what does

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that look like exactly now let's go to the fun part this page is a trading outcome simulation

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and I'll show why risk management and trading within your own accounts risk is

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so important now

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so you're looking at our trading p l outcome simulation now

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that's based on your account capital here the risk reward

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and your percentage risk according to account size

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so let's say we are trading with a one percent risk

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with a let's just call it a four thousand dollars account in the first six months it's very likely

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that a new trader's win rate will be anywhere from 20

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to 30 percent that's total again that's totally normal for me it was more like 20

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when i first started

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so that's what it will look like your account size will be four thousand dollars

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but if you keep your risk really really manageable and within

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that one percent risk even with a terrible win rate

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and the risk award of only one to one this is

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what your simulation will look like for the first six months

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so essentially for every 10 trades you only make money during

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that three trades and you are making the same amount as

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if you're losing so that's what we call one to one risk award now after six months

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if you go to this middle column here hopefully things are

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getting better you're getting better risk award instead a one-to-one you're not doing one to two

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so what does that mean that means for every trade

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that you lose forty dollars according to your one percent risk

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to your capital you're making around anywhere from 70 to 80 dollars per trade

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so that's what we call risk reward is one to two

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and you're still risking one percent risk

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and your win rate hopefully it's a little bit better now

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you can see by having a win rate of only 40

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percent you are now starting to see some green pnls

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and again this is if you keep risking one percent

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if you decide to risk two percent this is what

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that number looks like again um you know it's pretty good

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you're seeing some green pnls you're still not making big money

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but you're definitely seeing progress now let's talk about what happens

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after a year let's say you've been extremely disciplined with your trading you follow your small account risk tolerance

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and you are now improving your risk reward now to three

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so instead of one to two now it's one to three

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so that means for every forty dollars that you're risking

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when you lose money you lose forty dollars but when you make money you make around 120 to 130 dollars

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now this is the interesting part you can have a win rate of 50 percent

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and this is what your profit expectancy will look like for every 10 trades now

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if you steadily increase the risk to two percent risk this

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is what that'll look like you're not risking a hundred dollars

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but

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when you make money you're making anywhere from 250 to 300

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not bad at all now this will still work even

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if you still have a low win rate of 40 you can see

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because you are really paying attention to your risk award

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and your risk per trade you're still making money even though your win rate is only 40 Now,

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what happens if we increase that risk to 3%?

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This is what that figure will look like.

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Now, if you are doing really well with a risk reward and your win rate is now more than 50%,

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this is what that PML will look like.

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And if it's at 60%,

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this is what that will look like.

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So this is what I mean by you don't need a big account to make a lot of money.

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All you need is, first of all,

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good discipline to follow that max risk per trade

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or per day paying attention to risk reward

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and be disciplined enough to keep practicing your strategies

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and give yourself time again i wouldn't expect this kind of

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progress until after one year later the scenario here in the

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middle is what I would expect after six months again the growth is slow

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and steady

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and after one year this is the kind of results I

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would expect all trading within a small account for me personally my win rate is still quite low,

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only at around 55%.

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But now my risk award on my trades on average is a lot higher than 1 to 3.

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It's averaging about 5 to 10 because of a lot of the swing trades I take.

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But again, this is built up after 10 years of experience.

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And obviously, I'm not trading with a $4,000 account anymore.

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If you want to get a trading journal to track your strategies,

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win rates, risk word, and the risk calculator you just saw,

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you can get them all for free if you sign up to my weekly watchlist email down below.

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Next, let's talk about the PDT rule.

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I don't know about you,

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but when I first started day trading over 10 years ago,

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I did not have $25,000 lying under my couch to start trading.

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Trust me, I checked.

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And that was probably a blessing in disguise.

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I suspect most of you watching this video are in a similar situation

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if you're starting out with less than $25,000 then you should

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be aware of the patent day trader rule it's a regulations pending removal by the SEC

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so this restriction may be gone very soon under this current rule

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if you are using a U.S based broker

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and trading with under $25,000 then you're subject to the PDT rule

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this rule will limit you to only three day trades within a rolling five day period

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and once you hit

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that limit you're effectively locked out of any more day trades meaning you can no longer buy

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and sell on the same day until the next five day

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rolling period this is a huge restriction for beginner traders

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and something many traders don't fully realize until it's too late however this rule does not apply

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if you're trading from outside the united states maybe you're in

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canada singapore europe there's no pdt restriction as long as you're not using a us-based broker even

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if your account is under 25 000 however

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if you are in the us

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and don't have 25 000 to start with that's totally fine i'll go over some tips for how to start

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and learn day trading even

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if you're under the pdt rule the first option is to

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trade with a cash account the pdt rule applies to margin accounts in the us

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so if you open a cash account instead

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that rule won't apply to you the second option is to open multiple margin accounts at different brokers

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so if you have less than 25 000

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but you have enough to open that say two brokers so that means you have three day trades times two brokers

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there'll be six day trades a week now

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if you have more than 25 000 to start with that's

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amazing here's the most important rule do not start trading with

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your entire account size this is where many well-funded beginners blow up just

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because you have the money

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and no pdt restriction doesn't mean you're ready to size up

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are you comfortable with potentially losing a thousand dollars per trade

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if the answer is no then you should definitely size down it's fine to keep

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that fifty thousand dollars in your account but i recommend trading as

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if you only have less than five thousand in fact beginner

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traders with a larger account size should be even more conservative risking fifty dollars

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or a hundred dollars per trade

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while learning is far better than losing thousands of dollars just

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as you're starting out the market really doesn't care how much money you have risk management will still apply

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and maybe even more so if you have a larger capital to trade with now

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that you know how much money you should start day trading

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then you should learn a couple of my proven strategies next check out my free playlist over here

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Shadowing Practice: How Much Money Do You Need to Start Trading? - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

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