Anyone calculated their actual returns?
I have been keeping my monthly return on capital for the last couple years on a monthly basis since doing this full time as a proprietary day trader and it is really instructive - it makes for interesting reading (well for me, anyway
).
February seems to be my second worst month (relatively speaking) with the worst spread around (August 2010 holiday, June 2011, January 2012) so far. Average (simple) trading costs are 6.57% of profit - highest month is 9.6% and lowest is 2.05%.
2010 ROC was reduced by an absolute 58.5%, 2011 by 94%, and to August 2012 by 68.53%. Note this is an absolute figure not a percentage of the total profit which as I said above is an average of 6.57%.
Big months tend to have lower costs and this seems to point to the big chunky trades being a lot more profitable than some of the larger profit generating smaller trades where the costs mount up. I have on the odd occasion had profitable trades land up being breakeven or small losses as the exit trades were always small little odd lots (yes even large caps sometimes trade in annoyingly small amounts as the increasing use of algorithms promotes this).
The lowest monthly return (admittedly I was on holiday for two weeks
) is a 33.33% of my average and my highest is 221%. In terms of consistency, 30% of my monthly returns are 75% or below my average and 30% are 25% or above my average which, on the face of it, makes sense being a simple average.
However, this disguises the fact that one goes on holiday, public holidays, is ill or has things to do that can eliminate a day. For example, I hate going to an appointment after 07h30 of before 16h30 because, (at 11h00 for example
) this means not trading before that time as you may not have exited by appointment time and of course the time of the appointment, driving back to your desk and actually finding something afterwards). So the fact that ONLY(!) 30% are 25% below the average shows some consistency which I am happy about bearing in mind each day lost is 4.5% of a month (1/22)
I was wondering if the rest of you keep records and have an understanding of your actual ROC, costs, monthly vagaries etc that have thrown up any interesting nuggets?
Noughtboy
) I am asking if the day traders are doing it and keeping a watch on it and what, if any, pearls they have found out about their trading style or pattern? For example, some people land up overtrading trying to chase a penny here or there and don't cover the costs etc despite making a "profit". Or a more specific one like I have often been on the wrong side of SAB Miller - I have mostly made money on it but also made my largest loss on it. This means that I now usually take any SAB profits off the table too quickly because I am wary of a sudden turn putting me over a barrel 
