Skip to main content

How Much Money You Need To Make $100: 6 Trading Sessions For Inspiration

When I transitioned to full-time trading, my goal became to be self-sufficient and grow any account in any market condition with discipline, consistency, and psychological control. I knew that becoming the trader I envisioned would require my complete dedication. 


How Much Money You Need To Make $100: 6 Trading Sessions For Inspiration

For four years, I immersed myself in studying the markets. I analyzed charts, spent countless hours observing them, and absorbed every information available. 

Although I learned much, becoming a successful trader demanded emotional mastery, self-reflection, and unwavering focus.

Whether I believed it or not, I was entirely in control of my actions. If a trade ended up losing or winning, I was the ONLY one who clicked the button. When things didn't go as planned, I followed my usual strategy of learning more about the markets. 

This increased my awareness of opportunities in the stock market. However, despite the numerous opportunities, it wasn't enough to achieve the consistency and profitability I sought as a trader.

Learning more about the markets couldn't help me assess the risk profiles needed as a trader, understand how my natural tendencies affected trading performance, identify the impact of emotions on trading performance, or define the type of trader I needed to be.

I realized I needed to turn inward to find the answers.

I understood that the money I traded with, the number of trades I made, the stocks I monitored, or the patterns/strategies I knew didn't matter.

Opportunities were everywhere; I needed to focus on one specific area.

I explored different strategies and financial instruments but finally settled on options trading as my primary focus. 

I've found that trading options offer a different way to profit from the daily movements of indexes or specific companies. 


How Much Money You Need To Make $100: 6 Trading Sessions For Inspiration

Within the options realm, I concentrate solely on SPY ($SPY), an exchange-traded fund (ETF) tracking the S&P 500. SPY options are highly liquid and offer ample trading opportunities.

I've realized that focusing on the PROCESS is the key to improving and advancing an account.

My goal is to document and share my process of how to trade consistently. 

MY TRADES

These are all the trades I took consecutively to achieve the goal of making $100. Making $100 in the stock market may seem insignificant, as others can make this amount quickly with a significant position size. 

However, this blog post concerns making $100 over time with the lowest starting capital within my system. 

I am showcasing a system that consistently generates $100 over time. 

The most challenging aspect of trading consistently is retaining profits and having a consistent system that does so over time. 

Here are my exact trades, as documented on my X profile. I share my trading session recap with the wins/losses, general thoughts, setups, and next steps. In the last trading session, I also included a video explaining how I approach pre-market.

Options Trading SPY 8/1/24

Options Trading SPY 8/2/24

Options Trading SPY 8/5/24

Options Trading SPY 8/6/24

Options Trading SPY 8/7/24

Options Trading SPY 8/8/24

Options Trading SPY 8/8/24 + pre-market process

How Much Money You Need To Make $100: 6 Trading Sessions For Inspiration
Net Profit from 8/1/24 to 8/8/24

It took six trading days to earn $100, utilizing an average capital of $361 per trade on the days I traded. I used only ONE contract for each position size. I am still adjusting and experimenting, but this documents my growth process at baseline. This may have taken less time if I focused on one setup day in and day out, but my natural tendency is to experiment.

NEXT STEPS

I hope you found this overview of my process helpful. I will continue to push my trading to the next level, and I invite you to join me as I explore, develop, and share my vision of day trading.

Comments

Popular Posts

Day Trader Behavior Cycles: The Foundations of Change

As I stepped into the realm of trading full-time, I quickly realized how psychology and specific behaviors can positively or negatively affect trader performance. Beginning trading full-time in one of the most hyper-inflated markets and one of the best bull markets in history, I witnessed very volatile and drastic moves.  Having been learning about the market on and off for a couple of years before full-time immersion, I approached it cautiously. However, due to the current market's highly bullish nature, my cautious approach continued to hinder me. As I started participating in the market, I slowly fell into a false sense of security. I knew this wouldn't last forever, but the opportunity was too great to not push and be a part of the crowd. People made lots of money regardless of what or when they bought. Those who held and hoped were rewarded handsomely. As the days, weeks, and months went on, I slowly started to let go of my cautious approach and was making more money and c...

Options Trading SPY [-19% +2% +33%] 11/15/24

SPY 1-minute chart 11/15/24. Day Metrics { 2 } Wins { 1 } Loss Day Rating:  EFFECTIVE Overview At 8:30 AM ET, the U.S. Retail Sales for October were released. They showed a modest increase of 0.4% from the previous month, aligning with market expectations. However, core retail sales, which exclude autos, were up by only 0.1% against an expected 0.3%. SPY's price did not move in reaction to the news. However, we gapped down from the previous day and are in a downtrend. Trades [1]   RZ Bounce Entry:  Since we already had a significant gap down and started to push up from a pre-market low, I wanted to re-test the reaction zone and enter calls for a bounce. Exit:  I anticipated too early and gave it too much time before cutting losses. The bounce area was lower than I was willing to hold. [2]   (-) TL Reject Entry:   SPY's price bounced decently, so   I waited for the test of the (-) TL. Exit:  I was rewarded with a firm rejection in my favor. I locke...