As I mentioned in my post Want To Make $200k A Year?, most trading profits come from bread and butter trades rather than stellar winners. Stacking up consistent regular profits can lead to a decent full time income. Tuesday’s trades were all of the bread and butter variety. Let’s start with DERM:
This stock is a bit lower priced than I tend to look at usually, but as we’ll see there were a few of these cheaper ones making moves. The entry was a regular setup (and a lovely ascending triangle too, if you like those), and the exit was when momentum dropped off a cliff.
Next up, here’s another cheapie — MIK:
This was even more bog standard. $500 profit for a ten minute trade is certainly not to be sneezed at, but neither is it going to set the world alight.
Finally here’s a old friend core stock, MU:
Standard setup, and if I’m honest, I was a bit late on the exit here. Could have squeezed a bit more out of it had I got out at the obvious target, but there we go, sometimes you’re looking at the wrong thing at the wrong time.
My point though, is not about my shoddy exits. It’s about the fact that these three trades, bread and butter stuff, as simple as it gets, add up to a profit of $1,420 on the day. Well, on the morning, because I was all done by lunchtime, naturally.
If you traded for four mornings a week, 48 weeks a year, and made consisent profits like that, you’d be making about $272k a year. Not taking into account the bigger winners that inevitably come along as well.
I don’t post this to boast or brag, but because I know a lot of people who read this blog are struggling with the discipline necessary to suceed at trading. I was there too, once. It can be hard to keep going, especially when “star traders” are posting four-figure profit trades day after day (yes, I’m guilty of posting those too, sometimes). But you don’t need to make those kind of trades to make good money. Consistency is the key. Take a little out of the market day after day, and it all adds up. Hopefully this post provides a little motivation.