I believe many of us have a dream of one day being able to trade for a living. I am one of the many, since years ago. Even this was my goal, set during the Pattern of Excellence workshop in Singapore back in 2017. I recall that the price set for Malaysians was reasonable, probably because our currency is weaker than the SGD. Besides this, there was also an additional discount for Wealth Academy Investor graduates.
Last Sunday, I began seriously evaluating and planning how to trade for a living. It is really helpful with ChatGPT, where we can chat, ask questions, and also provide feedback with data so ChatGPT can give more accurate answer. I can’t imagine how much research I would have to do online without generative AI. I got some ideas from Beyond Insights, such as tracking trading expectancy and total wins and losses.
I cannot just resign from my day job due to monthly commitments and also the need to put food on the table. That’s why I need to plan, and with my high certainty needs, without proper planning and backup, I will get stressed out.
Trading Statistics – My Own Report Card
So I look back at my paper trading stats from March 2025 till now, I am still getting -ve trading expectancy of -$2.88. This means that, from statistically context every trade I am losing $2.88. This is already a sign that I am not ready for live trading. By chatting with ChatGPT, I knew I also need to calculate trading expectancy in term of R value. As this value is then use to calculate how many trades per months that I need in order to achieve certain amount per month, aka my monthly income. By the way, if you are curious why I am committed to paper trading, you can read my sharing on The Real Why I Paper Trade.
If you noticed that my trading expectancy in value is -ve but in R it is positive. After analyze with ChatGPT, it was due to either 1) Risk per trade is inconsistent due to margin constraints 2) average R-multiple is positive, but those wins are on smaller sizes and losses on bigger size. In my case, I have few trades that I went in with lesser quantity from the plan due to margin requirement and also a lot of smaller winning trades.
I also noticed I did not track the actual R in my trades, so I added few columns like the actual risk amount, and with existing column of profit/loss, then I can calculate the actual R result (Profit/loss Amount / Actual Risk Amount). Then from the R result, I will use it to calculate the trading expectancy. Below is the formulae given by ChatGPT.
Trading Expectancy (R) Formulae
Example with the below stats:
- Total Trades: 46
- Winning Trades: 19 (41.30%)
- Losing Trades: 27 (58.70%)
- Average Profit per Trade (R): 1.21
- Average Loss per Trade (R): -0.78
Step 1: Calculate Win Rate & Loss Rate
- Win Rate: 19 / 46 ≈ 0.413 (41.3%)
- Loss Rate: 27 / 46 ≈ 0.587 (58.7%)
Step 2: Plug Into Expectancy Formula
Expectancy (R) = (Win Rate x Avg Win in R) − (Loss Rate x Avg Loss in R)
Expectancy (R) = (0.413 x 1.21) − (0.587 x 0.78) = 0.49973 – 0.45786 = 0.04187
My Plan Towards Trade for Living
September to November 2025
- I will continue my pursuit of 100 paper trades, with a focus on honing my process and controlling my emotions.
- Put aside saving for an emergency fund to be used once I am full-time in trading.
December 2025
- Review my trading stats whether to continue paper trading or ready for live trading depends on the trading expectancy.
- If live trading, risk only 0.2% per trade and aim for 100 trades before evaluate.
January to April 2026
- Continue 100 live trade with 0.2% risk
- End of April, to review the trading stats. If positive expectancy, then will increase risk to 0.5% per trade
May to August 2026
- Start 100 live trades with 0.5% risk
- 31st July: if achieve good positive trading expectancy, and sufficient capital then will tender resignation
- August: also start swing/trend trading for capital building
September 2026
- Continue live trades with 0.5% risk while serving resignation notice
- Start fulltime live trading once no longer work for day job
- Emergency fund will acts as buffer for monthly expenses
Final Thoughts
Good things are not always easy at first; as long as I persevere with a strong “why” and my dream board, I know I can do it. If others can, I can too. If I think I can, therefore I can!
Easy is after hard!
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