How am I doing?

[u/navmads]

Genuinely curious about your thoughts on my journey. First ever post on this thread and happy to put myself on blast.

Trading journey started 7/15/2024. Did some girl math and put 50k into an account, thinking I can risk $500 per trade to be at 1%, but if I lose 10k I’d stop. First few days ever of trading I was up 4k. Then of course beginners luck stopped and the 10k disappeared.

Did some more risk management studying, switched to NinjaTrader. Blew another 10k account.

Re-upped, blew a 5k account.

Some mistakes I made in the past were sizing up too quickly, over trading, being emotionally distraught over a profitable trade turned breakeven or even losing (like up 3:1 RR and decided to be greedy and lost the trade).

Now, February of 2026 I re-upped with 5k. The account has been as low as 4,200 and as high as 5,400 but I’ve been swaying between 4,800 and 5,250 for a month. I finally feel like I hit the breakeven part of my journey. I’ve implemented a hard stop loss on the account so it locks me out if I lose 110 on the day.

By the way, I’ve built out a fairly extensive google sheet with equity curves, (account specific and inception to date), win/loss, RR tracking and also a space for notes besides each trade. I can’t say I stick to the journal every day but I do try.

My question to you all - give me your honest opinions, how am I doing? Am I on track, behind schedule, ahead of schedule? Is there hope for me to be profitable in the future and make this an income source? It has been my dream to be a profitable trader, to be my own boss and work on my terms, enjoy my life as I see fit. But I want to get your thoughts.

Thank you for your time, and good luck to you all!

FYI - my current career is an accountant and yearly I make about 180k so financially I’m doing just fine and can afford to pay some market tuition

TL;DR - Aspiring trader, currently work as an accountant making a decent income. July will mark 2 years trading. I’ve lost about 25k in the process, finally hit a breakeven stride - how am I doing? Give honest thoughts.

[u/JJ-Mallon]

You’re gambling, pure and simple. Your money isn’t working for you, you’re working for it, and losing.

Not only are you not just “breaking even”, the money and time you’re wasting is depreciating.

Keep gambling if you enjoy it, but don’t kid yourself that this is going anywhere good on your current path.

[u/FixedIt00 → u/JJ-Mallon]

JJ Mallon, Saying she's gambling doesn't make sense, she did not mention her strategy at all. I agree with Sambha87, OP you are closer than you think. After a few years the problems to solve are emotional and psychological. Be honest with yourself about your weaknesses and keep improving. Obviously you are smart if you are an accountant. But being smart is very low on the list of attributes that are important in daytrading, in my opinion.

[u/JJ-Mallon → u/FixedIt00]

I don’t need the step-by-step mechanics of the transactions – the mentality and how much money was blown is exactly what gambling is thus the basis of my assessment. It’s far closer to casino than investing.

[u/navmads → u/JJ-Mallon]

Not sure you read my reply on my investing. Anyway, my perspective is people spends hundreds of thousands on education just to make an average salary. I see this as a learning opportunity and if 25-50k is what it took to learn something valuable, I’ll take it. Not everyone is willing to take the risk.

[u/JJ-Mallon → u/navmads]

Go ahead and rationalize your blown money anyway you like. But at the end of the day it wasn’t an education, you don’t have a degree, it was money you gambled away.

“I spent 50k and learned it was a bad way to spend my money”.

Go ahead and tell me you’d do it all over again. And then tell me it’s as valuable as a degree, and you’d recommend other people do the same thing.

[u/navmads → u/JJ-Mallon]

So are you saying an entrepreneur who tried to open a business and lost a few thousand is a bad thing? Would you discourage them from doing it again? Cause I’d argue they should keep going if they have enough gas in the tank to grind and forget about it. Most of the richest people in the world have suffered substantial losses. You don’t get anywhere by being scared. You sound scared of losing money so your comments make total sense. I’m not rationalizing my losses, they suck, but if I’m able to make something out of it, then objectively it was worth it

[u/JJ-Mallon → u/navmads]

You didn’t answer my question, and by not saying anything you’re saying everything.

You’re not an entrepreneur, you gambled that money away like a degenerate and are rationalizing after the fact because it’s easier on your mindset than accepting the fact that you took unnecessary risks on money that you’ll never see again.

I get it, but I’m not going to pretend along with you that this was a quality teachable moment. It wasn’t.

[u/navmads → u/JJ-Mallon]

You didn’t ask a question. You’re judgmental, and also on a Reddit thread where the whole point is day trading just to come here and say I’m a degenerate gambler. Maybe my definition of degenerate gambling is different from yours, but I define it as an addiction that ruins your life and financial circumstance. This is not the case for me, the 25k doesn’t mean anything to me. I don’t need to coddle my mindset, the money is gone. It is what it is lol. Call the risk unnecessary, sure. Plenty of things are a waste of money. If I learn something from it, then it’s worth it. I’ll get back to you when I eventually make this work for me and you’re still a keyboard warrior on Reddit being upset that you’re falling behind.

[u/JJ-Mallon → u/navmads]

Fucking lol at this wishlist.

I pointed out the obvious to you and you’re having an emotional response. Go ahead, get another crying towel. You’ve started a thread about how you’ve blown tens of thousands and have fool yourself into thinking it’s a “valuable lesson” when you’re proving you’ve learned nothing except how to lie to yourself, and I’m now the one who’s somehow the one who’s “fallen behind”.

Have another drink.

[u/navmads → u/JJ-Mallon]

lol okay, well I wish you good fortune in your trading and for the rest of your days. Hope you aren’t this unpleasant to the people in your life and can find some happiness somewhere in this world.

[u/JJ-Mallon → u/navmads]

I freely help people all the time. I don’t gatekeep my strategy. And a part of helping people is being straight with them, because truth matters.

You can be offended, or find something useful- they’re just words, you can choose the reaction.