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When most people think of day traders, they have a movie-like view of their day trading income. While this view may be true of some of the upper-tier traders, the reality is that many day traders struggle to turn a profit on a consistent basis.

Over the years, I’ve read many stock blogs where the writer shared his trading profits and losses with his/her readers. And let me tell you this: most of their day trading income wouldn’t even cut it when it came to paying the bills and living comfortably. I’ll share some of these I remember from memory with your right now.

The first day trader I ever came across was a fellow who traded out of a prop firm. He was a scalp trader and was battling with the markets on a daily basis. His usually day trading income on a monthly basis ranged between $3000-$5000 most months. He did have a few months that were below $2000. I’m not sure what happened to him as he quit writing his blog but he did seem frustrated with the way things were going.

Another day trader I followed was a young guy who was in college and was learning trading on the side. His day trading income ranged between a profit of $300 to a loss of $300 most days.  He ended up quitting after a year or so after he couldn’t get into the black consistently.

The third trader I followed traded out of a prop firm. He also posted results from other traders in the office. Now, the trader himself usually made about $5000 a month in profit after all was said and done. The crazy numbers were posted by his office mates. There were a few of them that made 6 figures a month easily. On wild market days, I also saw him post that some traders made $50,000+ in one day. That’s far from the norm, though.

I’d say that the average trader, who knows what he is doing and has a mid-figure account to trader with, should be able to net $5000-$10,000 a month. Starting out, though, your day trading income expectations should be much more tame. If you net a $1000 or $2000 a month in your first year of trading, then you’d be making more than the average day trader starting out.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 6th, 2011 at 12:08 am and is filed under Trading Career. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.