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"Random Walk Down Wall Street" by Burton Malkiel sheds some light onto the issue.

Maybe there are some who only trade their own money. But among those who are known most definitely trade OPM and failure rate is exactly why. Beauty of this scheme is there is no need for an edge to make a lot of money. :)

That's why top traders trade OPM. :D

At least you can't lose more than you invested. Not so in leveraged futures position caught in a flash crash.

Anything but net long options or no leverage net long in other instruments is riskier than most think.

So your belief is: ability to trade successfully is genetically predefined? Absolutely agree. With one note. People do things differently, because in the first place they know how. Which in the first place has the intention to know how. Coming back to motives in the logical loop. :D Of...

That's a very interesting point. I much agree with you and DB than trading is much more than simply putting a few indicators on charts and making huge money. But this deeper understanding of the game... what exactly drives it? I suspect that winners and losers in trading (as in many other...

Here it gets much more interesting! :) So do many trade to prove something (to themselves or others)?

It has a lot to do with why one wins or loses. Which interests me in scientific sense.

That's an important practical question IMO. Do people mainly trade for the money (the result), for fun (the process) or something else?

Wish to produce and receive some result of that activity most likely.

IMO trading is just another job. No different from management or anything else. There are tactical differences of course, but they are more superficial than truly structural.

Yes, but what is the internal driver to do it? What motivates the person to trade properly?

Yea, but the skill is needed to distinguish a competent manager from the incompetent or even worse, a fraud. :)

If it's emotionless, but not driven by the passion to make money, then what is the motivation?

Agree with you here with one note: often the skill is to see what must be done. Not skilled enough person may simply overlook important details. "The difference which makes the difference" in NLP terms. :)

In my experience, combination of purely logical (money) and emotional (get the game etc.) attitudes towards any business is the most effective. Skewness toward any of the extremes as usually is not optimal.

BTW, Surf touched an interesting matter yesterday: not getting rich cause love for things is stronger than for money. Resonates with compound interest matter.

I think many fail for many reasons, but main is - lack of necessary skills. Mindset is important, but may work both ways.

That's the case with nearly every business. Interesting, can we say that running any business just for the money is a losing position?