17 Days In: Small Account Day Trading Challenge Update: +102%
After taking a week off, we resumed trading our small account on Tuesday. Today, we’re excited to report that, after accounting for commissions and regulatory fees, our balance has grown to $4,045 — a 102% increase. We’ve doubled the account by sticking to a disciplined approach: exercising patience and following our carefully crafted playbooks.
For context, over the same period, $2,000 fully invested in the Nasdaq would have declined by 11%, while the S&P 500 would have dropped by 8%. Some might argue that doubling a small account can happen in a single trade, but we’re not here to gamble. Our focus is on steady, repeatable growth — driven by probability, not luck.
Transparency is key for us. We’re among the few who share our entire process live on YouTube every morning from 7:30 AM to 9:30 AM PT, completely free — no shortcuts, no hidden moves.
Here’s a snapshot of our stats:
(Note: Tradezella, our journaling tool, calculates gross profit growth before subtracting commissions to arrive at a Net P&L of +$2,267. However, it doesn’t factor in regulatory fees, which is why our final balance is $4,045, reflecting a true net profit of +$2,045. To date, we’ve paid $222 in regulatory fees.)
It’s still early for a detailed analysis or to unpack all the data we track, but there’s enough here to highlight some key insights. Let’s dive in:
- Win Rate: We’re averaging 2 winning trades out of every 3, a solid accuracy level.
- Trade Performance: Our average win is $122 per trade, while our average loss is $188. This is an improvement from prior weeks, but risk management remains a work in progress. To address this, we’ve shifted to trading micro futures contracts, allowing us to scale positions up or down more flexibly (previously, our limited purchasing power restricted us to a single contract).
- Trade Frequency: We’ve significantly reduced the number of trades per day. This discipline — avoiding forced trades — may make our YouTube Live sessions less thrilling to watch, but it’s the right approach.
- Daily Results: So far, we’ve had 13 green days and 4 red days — a strong ratio. However, our worst red day (-$511) outpaces our best green day (+$449). We aim to refine this by better identifying when to sit out (e.g., choppy or sideways market conditions).
- This Week: Performance was modest in absolute terms (+$663 in profit), but it still represents a +20% gain on the week’s starting balance in a largely flat market.
How did your trading week go? Let us know in the comments — we’d love to hear from you.
See you next Friday! 👋
👉 Follow us on our other platforms: https://linktr.ee/beymanncapital
