Respecting Risk

A friend of mine send me a question yesterday, "hey, curious question. how much was the a great day / swing/ scalp trader looking to make per day prior to Bitcoin?"

This was my answer yesterday:


That's an invalid question to ask a real trader. A trader takes what the market gives them. One may go days, weeks, perhaps a month without a signal that fits their rules that they have tested to be successful. A big part of being a trader is patience and staying true to their system that they have confidence in.

A lot of "trading education" advertises "Make $XXX per day" but I'd be very wary of them. That's marketing I think in many cases to draw people in because it's something their customers can understand and desire.

The reality is that a real trader goes through ups and downs and you just have to take a month-by-month or even year-by-year approach. I have had a great year. But I had a crappy October. I lost money in October straight up. But it's ok because this month I'm recovering. That's just the way it goes.


Another reason I don't particularly like that way of looking at it is because I think you have to look at gains in % terms. Someone making $100/day on a $100,000 account is very different from someone making $100/day on a $1,000 account. The first is making 0.1% and the other is making 10%. To make 10% the trader has to take on much bigger risk relative to their account size. More risk = bigger losses when they inevitably occur. It's more important to focus on having good risk adjusted returns rather than dollar amount because if you build the skills to have good risk management all you have to do then is grow steadily.

I get a little verbose when I'm asked simple questions about trading because it's my thing and I want to make sure to dump all I know on folks so that they can know the TRUTH. My friend followed up today with a revision to his question which I answered and made this annotated demonstration above.


Thanks, you’re right, I should’ve framed the question better.

Would your answer be different if I framed the same question as a percentage return regardless of principle investment?


That is a much better way to frame it but then that still opens the question of risk. You simply must take on more risk (of loss) to get more return (of gain). There's really no way around that.

The billion dollar hedge funds are like the pro athletes of trading. If they make over 10%/year rich people and retirement funds will invest millions with them. That is considered really good returns at that level of the game. Basically if you beat the "6-7% average yearly return of just investing in the stock market" you're winning. What the S&P500 does that year is called the Benchmark. So beating the benchmark means you're better than what everyone else is doing. If you fail to beat the benchmark then you've failed that year. That's sort of how the NBA of trading goes.

Being a smaller trader on a smaller account you actually have advantages they don't. You can be faster, more agile, take on more risk, not be restricted by size and not kept down by regulations. So you can do better than 10% for sure.

But I think a lot of people want to double their account in a year. This is possible to a seasoned trader for sure but it's dangerous. I usually say to that "something that can double your account one way can cut it in half the other way". That's the nature of risk in trading.

There is also the factor of what you're trading and when you're trading. Trading crypto this year someone could have definitely doubled their account just going long anything. But what about if you'd started in January and been trading the big down move. We all know that there are down moves and that's what I mean by risk. You will take hits and the bigger your position the bigger the gains... but the bigger the hits. The only way to stay in the game is to stay tight with the risk and that means giving up some of the big YOLO potential.

There is no easy answer is what I'm getting at. It's a game.


That is a much better way to frame it but then that still opens the question of risk. You simply must take on more risk (of loss) to get more return (of gain). There's really no way around that.

The billion dollar hedge funds are like the pro athletes of trading. If they make over 10%/year rich people and retirement funds will invest millions with them. That is considered really good returns at that level of the game. Basically if you beat the "6-7% average yearly return of just investing in the stock market" you're winning. What the S&P500 does that year is called the Benchmark. So beating the benchmark means you're better than what everyone else is doing. If you fail to beat the benchmark then you've failed that year. That's sort of how the NBA of trading goes.

Being a smaller trader on a smaller account you actually have advantages they don't. You can be faster, more agile, take on more risk, not be restricted by size and not kept down by regulations. So you can do better than 10% for sure.

But I think a lot of people want to double their account in a year. This is possible to a seasoned trader for sure but it's dangerous. I usually say to that "something that can double your account one way can cut it in half the other way". That's the nature of risk in trading.

There is also the factor of what you're trading and when you're trading. Trading crypto this year someone could have definitely doubled their account just going long anything. But what about if you'd started in January and been trading the big down move. We all know that there are down moves and that's what I mean by risk. You will take hits and the bigger your position the bigger the gains... but the bigger the hits. The only way to stay in the game is to stay tight with the risk and that means giving up some of the big YOLO potential.

There is no easy answer is what I'm getting at. It's a game.

Let me illustrate this for you. So let's say you bought Bitcoin on January 1, 2020 with 3 different "risk profiles".

You could have just bought 1 Bitcoin, with cash, for 7170, and held.

Or you could have taken 2x Leverage meaning you only put down $3585

Or you could have done 3x which means you put down $2390.

If you'd held those positions you would have done as the chart shows above. 3x would have blown your account... you wouldnt have been in the position to make gains by the end because you got margin called. 2x You'd be sitting on 4x your money... but at one point you'd been looking at an 88% loss. 1x and you'd taken a hit but by the end you're doing pretty good.

Believe it or not... I've been trading so long and taken so many hits... that I don't even do 1x. I do something like 0.5x most of the time. I just have a strong respect for risk AND I'm trying to put myself on that level of the NBA players of Hedge funds and how they do things.