98% of Traders Fail? Says Who...?

Quote from spike500:

That is exactly why to me these statistics are ridiculous. They pick a guy randomly and apply his chances on you, while you are surely not identical to that randomly chosen guy and you may have completely different abilities than the random guy.

The only correct way to get an idea about your chances is to compare the necessary skills needed for trading with your abilities. Depending on who you are and how far your profile matches the needed skills, your chances will vary between 0 and 100%.


At least 50% of the wannabe's do not have the minimal required skills to even start trying. But they all think they do.
More...

1st. they dont pick a random guy; a random guy picks it...so some interest must initially be there, maybe not for the right reasons though.

2nd. If it was only about abilities more people would make it. Unfornately there are more things to factor in....which is not taken into consideration when intially jumping in...
 
Quote from spike500:



At least 50% of the wannabe's do not have the minimal required skills to even start trying. But they all think they do.
More...


This is exactly what statistics indicates.
What's then so ridiculous about those stats ?!


Trading is not only about abilities , trading is so difficult because human nature behaves in the exact opposite way of "cut your losses short, let profits run" (the "fear&greed thing")

As a beginner, the most difficult was taking a fu...... loss , I have learned this in the mean time, I put in a stoploss every time and leave it there.
 
In a twenty year stretch at the MGEX, I saw at least 200+ guys try their hand at being a local. I'd say that only 5 guys made a career of it. Being a commercial market like the MGEX makes it hard to be a local, but there are still good trading opportunities. Most ended up there with pie in the sky dreams, and most of the newbies presented great fade opportunities.

Jeff
 
So, what is your point? Why do you bother? Do you rank yourself around the 90% level and therefore try to push it down to 85%? I never heard of someone who wants to succeed by any means that such person look at those who did not make it, its a waste of time. If you have a proven methodology and apply it consistantly then you make money, most cant do it because they let their emotions come into play. Thats my take of this whole story. Why wont you just try to learn from those who made it and understand what it took them to push through then you dont need to spend another second worrying about those do did not make it.

Cheers.


Quote from BullsEye:

Many people are fond of quoting the statistic that 98% of traders fail. Googling "% of traders fail" yields 4950 pages (interestingly, "% of traders succeed" yields only about 15 pages!).

A quick scan of the search results shows that the quoted percentages range from 80% to 99%. :confused:

Where do these statistics actually come from? Does anyone know of a reliable, verifiable source of this information, please?

And while we're on the subject, what exactly defines "failure"? Is it losing *all* of your money, all your *trading* money only, *some* of your money, breaking even, making less than 5%, quitting after 3 months, losing more money than you have (i.e. getting into debt), or what?

Thx!
BullsEye
More...
 
At the university roughly half of those who started, finished there studies succesfully. They had to prove their abilities before going to the university.
Succesfully daytrading is far more difficult than getting a degree at the university. There are far more people who succeed at the university as there are succesful daytraders.

In daytrading all you need is a few bucks, open an acount and trade.
Wether you are an idiot or a genius doesn't matter. And believe me there are quite a few idiots that started trading. This explains why the failure rate is so high and not a good indication for the wannabe traders that prepared themselves well before starting to trade. That's why i find the statistics ridiculous. Because there are no minimal requirements as of knowledge, intellect, analytical skills, emotional control.....
This leads to a population that is statistically not representative for reliable statistics. The population has no minimal requirements to be admitted in the statistical analysis.
It is like a statement about swimmers, where even people who cannot swim are taken in consideration. This can lead to a stat that states that 75% of the people aren't able to swim 100 meters in a swimmingpool. It is just a matter of putting enough people in it who cannot swim to state that it is even impossible.
 
Quote from nokomisjeff:

Most ended up there with pie in the sky dreams, and most of the newbies presented great fade opportunities.

Jeff
More...

I enjoyed studying spam stocks some years ago. Figured out how to fade stocks based on the amount of spam emailed out about that stock. The scale didn't work, since brokers require huge margins to short penny stocks. If they didn't...
 
I was really hoping to establish the origin and method of this much-quoted statistic first and perhaps discuss its usefulness later. We can't do much more than postulate about usefulness, until the source and method are known.

If anyone can post such a source, that would be great, thanks!

Oh, okay ... I'll go there if you insist: One possible use that comes to mind right away is as a baseline reference for one's own performance.

Regards
BullsEye
 
Aha! - Here is a page I just found, which has some interesting looking information. I have not read the entire page yet, but I will post more comments when I read & digest the whole thing.

In one case, it even provides a link to the original study(!), but doesn't seem to link to any of the other sources. It refers to the following studies/reports:

- Hieronymous' Study of Futures Traders
- The Johnson Report on Day Traders
- Odean's study of stock traders (with link)
- Dalbar, Inc Study of Mutual Fund Investors

http://www.travismorien.com/FAQ/trading/futradersuccess.htm

I think you will find it interesting.

How did I find it? I Googled: trading success statistics. More digging through those search results may yield even better info ... :)

Happy Trading...!
BullsEye
 
Hmm, while the link I posted above is excellent and fascinating reading, it doesn't quite answer my original question. The search continues ...

BullsEye
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top