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What's a realistic % monthly gain? Day trading
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Let's say...
you have a small account of $50k, risk management in place, good mental and you follow strategy that simply works with discipline.
What is a realistic % monthly gain for an account? What kind of goal is healthy to have?
I heard all kinds of crazy stuff like 80% gain every month but I don' trust them gurus.. HIGHLY doubt that's even realistic.
Is 10% - 15% doable?
Thanks for any answer :) I tried to google reddit for this question but I couldn't find this one.
Top Comment: Anything above 0% is a success.
Do caravan leaders gain skill in trade?
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I'm trying to mould one of my clansmen into a half decent trader and I figured I'd ask.
Top Comment: Yes
Trading stocks and capital gain tax : UKPersonalFinance
Main Post: Trading stocks and capital gain tax : UKPersonalFinance
70k gain thanks to the Trump Trade no one talked about : wallstreetbets
Main Post: 70k gain thanks to the Trump Trade no one talked about : wallstreetbets
How to gain trade power without gaining provinces
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For one of my early missions as the Netherlands, I need 30% trade power in the Lübeck trade node. I could stomp over to Denmark and take their toys, but that would make my borders look less pretty.
Is there a way to get to 33% power in that node without owning any of the provinces of that node? Or am I gonna have to conquer?
Top Comment:
I don't even think you have to conquer. Im pretty sure occupying provinces gives you their trade power.
Also, developing provinces improves trade power, focus on the provinces with centers of trade if you have them, upgrading cot also gives you more trade power. having a merchant in the node collecting/sending forward trade gives you tp, protecting trade with light ships, mercantalism,
Can you choose not to gain trade goods through abilities?
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I’m mentak and my neighbor is Saar and is just refusing to take tradegoods from his scavenge ability so I don’t get any trade goods, can you choose not to gain trade goods?
Top Comment:
Scavenge reads:
After you gain control of a planet, gain 1 trade good.
The gain 1 trade good clause is missing "you may...", which is essential text for the ability to be optional.
Saar must Scavenge.
Trade and how to use it to make as much money as possible
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I have seen many many posts about various things in recent times, and not sure if it is a influx of new players or simply me paying more attention to this subreddit recently. But one thing seems like a constant, no matter what a post is about, I seem to see someone explaining trade to either the OP or someone in the comments, since a mistake is being made that ends up cutting the players trade income in half, or sometimes worse. So this will be a tutorial/wall of text of how to trade and make money off trade.
First we need to identify the items in the trade map mode.
The regions we see are called trade nodes. They are groupings of provinces that are entirely used to determine the two main numbers when it comes to trade. These groupings are FIXED, they do not change. Obviously the provinces themselves will change hands over the course of the game, but they will never move trade nodes.
These nodes interact with each other in a way that is also fixed. They do this as shown by the arrows that lead to each corresponding trade center of each node. These arrows show which way the trade (value) gets steered. These arrows are also fixed (aside from random new world, but old world arrows will always remain).
With that being said, this leads to 3 types of node being created. End nodes, Start nodes, and Middle nodes.
End Nodes are the most important to control and only exist in 3 places. Genoa, Venice, and The English Channel. These nodes are unique in that they only have trade steered towards them, not away. Hence the name end node, and therefore, as a property of this, should be where you should seek to transfer trade to one of these nodes once you have a good portion of trade (power) in one of these nodes.
Transfer nodes This category can be used to describe both Start nodes and Middle Nodes. These nodes transfer to other nodes downstream. The only difference ends up being that middles nodes have other nodes upstream from them, and start nodes do not. This means basically 1 things for certain, NEVER EVER, collect in start nodes unless it is literally the only node you have access to. (Think Rwandan kingdom, or oceanic tribe), there is also a subcategory of 2 types of middle nodes, Land and Sea. The differences will be explained in greater depth in the trade power section. The difference is simply, land nodes don't have a province with a port in them.
Nodes summarized Trade (value) moves in a fixed direction though nodes (when transferred), always downstream. Meaning ideally you want to move your trade capital to the node as far downstream as you can and transfer there. (This will be explained later)
Trade Centers and Estuaries These show up on certain provinces when you open the trade map mode, along with other province modifiers that modify trade power, trade value, or goods produced, temporary or otherwise. These end up being somewhat meaningless aside from identifying provinces that are more valuable than the average province.
Merchants are placed in trade nodes and are used to do 1 of 2 things. Either transfer trade, or collect from trade. (They also allow you to pick a trade policy that gives various bonuses limited to the trade node with DLC) These two missions affect the trade map mode in very different ways, however understanding the difference first takes understanding the two primary numbers of trade, as well as how to increase them. These numbers are defined by two terms that I have already used above. Trade Power, and Trade Value
Trade Value Is the cash value of the goods being traded, and the number that the game uses to determine income. It is calculated by taking the goods produced in each province and multiplying it by the value of whatever good is being produced. Not to be confused with production income, which takes the number of the trade value and modifies it by production efficiency and province autonomy to give you production income. Trade value instead goes into whatever node that the province in question is a part of and must then be extracted using trade power.
Trade Power Is representative of the amount of power and influence you hold over where the trade value in each node goes. It is gained in various ways. In land nodes the primary way to gain trade power is through provinces and merchants. As (shortly) explained earlier, each province grants the owner a certain amount to trade power in the node that the province is in. The amount of trade power a province grants is determined though multiplying it's base trade power, by the modifiers that apply to that province. Base trade power is 0.2 per dev as well as +5 for a natural harbor or emporium (inland trade center) or level 1 trade center, +10 for an entrepot or market town or level 2 trade center, you also get +10 for estuaries, +25 for world ports or world trade centers or level 3. (If you arent sure what i mean by levels of trade centers you may be missing the DLC to upgrade them, in which case i think all trade centers are equal) If you have the DLC Dharma and still cant figure out what I mean, you can look at the trade center level in the trade map mode, and you can upgrade trade centers with gold, while at peace and as long as the province meets the dev requirements. 10 dev and 200 gold for level 2 , and 25 dev and 1000 gold for level 3 (It should be noted that you may only have as many level 3 trade centers as you have merchants). The other 2 ways you gain base trade power to a province are specific to trade companies, which I will ignore in this guide.
Your base trade power is then modified by all of your provincial trade power modifiers, local and otherwise. There are a few different sources of provincial trade power, but the largest by par will almost always be mercantilism. Converting at a rate of +2% per 1 mercantilism that you have. So 50 will become +100% Province trade power. These values of trade power in each province will get added up and sent to the respective node to produce the final provincial trade power number. This number will get further modified, but lets go over the other 2 ways of getting trade power.
The other 2 are trade ships and merchants. Trade ships obviously provide increasing trade power as you upgrade them, there are also, ship trade power modifiers, however, aside from the naval doctrine (also DLC) these are usually few and far between. The easiest to acquire being a +5% modifier for each maneuver pip that the admiral in charge of a trade fleet
Merchants will also provide a +2 to the trade power in a node, as well as up to +50 trade power in inland nodes (Caravan power)
Finally, all of this trade power is then modified to produce your total trade power. This is where Global trade power modifiers are applied, the two most common of these modifiers are from power projection and prestige.
So now that we know how we get trade power in a node, what do we do with it.
As stated earlier, merchants have two possible jobs when assigned to a trade node. Either Transfer Trade power, or Collect from Trade (power)
Transfer Trade Power is somewhat confusing, as you aren't actually transferring the trade power, instead your share of trade power in the node is calculated and sent to whichever node downstream you choose. You chose this node by clicking the little boxes on the arrow just next to the larger box that opens the trade node when in the trade map mode. Though generally the auto assign will send the trade in the right direction as it attempts to determine the route where the least value is lost on the way to wherever you might be collecting from trade. This value is then modified by a final hidden value that is strange and buggy, when you transfer trade value to a node, it gains a certain amount of value based on some unknown number and modified by other unknown modifiers (it is a paradox game after all). Though for example, in my ottomans game, I have 39.5 ducats coming from Aleppo to Constantinople, however when I hover over the "Incoming" column of trade value, it shows there is 4.29 "added value" how that number is reached is unknown, but it is usually around 10%. This also applies to all nodes upstream, but only applies when a merchant is actively transferring trade, so if there is no merchant in a node (any nation's) that is transferring trade, any power that is not used to collect from trade simply splits whatever value it claims evenly among the options to transfer downstream, without adding any value. This is why you should almost always have a merchant transferring trade in Cape in colonial games, even though the trade can only leave in one direction.
This brings us to another minor concept. The Default mode of all nodes is to transfer, and since you will always have power in more nodes than you have merchants, you will have to identify where you have the most or can gain the most and place them there.
Collect from Trade (power) Though this is not how the game refers to this job, instead simply referring to it as Collect from Trade. This better explains what is happening. You are collecting trade value in a specific node, using the power that is there. There are two ways to do this. First, it happens automatically in your "Main Trading City" also referred to as your Home node, or Capital. (With Wealth of Nations DLC your Main Trading City may move independent of your capital). You can also use a merchant to "Collect from Trade" in any node you have access to (determined by trade range, which is like coring range, and can be mostly ignored) and trade power in. It should be noted that there are two Significant disadvantages to collecting from trade in nodes outside of your home node. First, the merchant gains about a -70% modifier to global trade power in the node. Meaning you might go from 130 trade power in a node while transferring to 60 or less trade power in a node while collecting. The second disadvantage comes in a slightly more hidden way, while all of your merchants are transferring trade (Anywhere, it doesn't even have to be towards your home node) you gain +10% global trade power in your home node for every single active merchant. Which means if you have 450 Trade power in your home node with a global modifier of +50% from 5 merchants, and you chose to collect from trade in another node, you will lose 150 trade power in your home node.
There are situations where collecting in trade in another node is better, and sometimes even better than moving your main city to said node. (eg. Your home node is in Seville and you have 95% of power, while you might have 20% of power in genoa, downstream. Moving the home node to genoa wont be as valuable because you will only end up with about 50-60% trade power once all modifiers and trade ships are moved, but with your 20% in genoa if you collect you might end up with 15% of the power, giving anywhere between 3-10 ducats a month in trade value, and you might only drop to about 88% trade power in Seville from losing trading bonus, so if there's only like 60 ducats in value (mid game colonial game) you will only leak 3.2 additional ducats a month)
Trade efficiency
Trade efficiency is the last modifier applied and is very simple, it modifies the trade value and converts it into income. So lets say you have 40% of the power in your home node of Seville as Portugal, Castille might have 50% and the other 10% is various other states that are all transferring from another hidden value that I wont get into. There is a total of 8 ducats of trade power produced locally in trade value and another 42 ducats incoming a month from your colonies. Since 10% of the power is transferring, you will end up with 45 Ducats a month to be split between the two nations that are collecting from trade. Since 40% of the total 50 Ducats is 20 Ducats, you are collecting 20 Ducats a month is trade value, which is then finally modified by your trade efficiency, so if you have +40% trade efficiency and Castille has +10%, they will end up with a income of 27.5 ducats a month and you will end up with 28 ducats a month.
TLDR: There is no tldr, if youre here to learn the incredibly complex and in interesting game you will at least read the parts you dont understand. But if your here looking for tips, 2 general rules apply for maximizing trade income. Collect as far downstream as you have the lion share of trade power, and never ever, collect outside your home node in a place directly upstream of somewhere you are also collecting from.
Top Comment: This is fantastic, the only thing I'd add is that you can create Pseudo End Nodes in SOME places. The perfect example is that of the Constantinople Node; as it only transfers to one Node, Ragusa. If you 100% control the trade in Ragusa AND in Constantinople, you can set your trade city to within Constantinople and in effect block any trade from leaving if you do not set a merchant to Ragusa. This is because as you control the trade in Both the Upstream AND Downstream Node, you have effectively created a trade bottleneck that starves the downstream Node, meaning that no trade is lost.
Does anyone have any reliable Methods for levelling trade as the ones suggested do nothing, I constantly have 4 caravans running and I’m still level 43 in trade, my character is in his mid 50s and has been doing this since his 20s so I’m lost as to how it works
Main Post: Does anyone have any reliable Methods for levelling trade as the ones suggested do nothing, I constantly have 4 caravans running and I’m still level 43 in trade, my character is in his mid 50s and has been doing this since his 20s so I’m lost as to how it works
Top Comment: This text means that a companion operating a caravan will gain trade skill. Not you. For your main character to gain trade skill you have to.. well.. trade. By yourself. And make a profit. As in actually buy low and sell high(er). Foods, resources, horses, cattle, those sort of things. What also does not work is looting stuff (after a won battle) and then selling these things. Looted stuff is never "bought" and therefore will never gain you a profit in the way the trade skill requires.
Weekly traders: Do you have a profit percentage where you close the trade?
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I just started trading weekly contracts on TLT specifically to generate income. I dont care if I'm assigned and I'm selling CSPs at ~20 delta and then closing out the trades at the end of the week (haven't been assigned yet). I was curious for others who might do this, is there ever a time when you close your contracts early? If so, at what percentage?
As a tangible example, I sold the 99P yesterday and am already up ~60%. I thought about closing that out and opening another position ending this week. How do others approach this? TYIA.
Top Comment: This question is essentially a FAQ. Yes, close early especially when you get a large gain in a relatively short period of time. Search the forum and r/thetagang for this topic. It's been covered thoroughly.
From "Trade lvl 16" to "Trade lvl 334" in 3 clicks
Main Post: From "Trade lvl 16" to "Trade lvl 334" in 3 clicks
Top Comment:
How does this work?