There are definately people on the other end, either by intuition, by heritage/upbringing, by focus and work, by sheer luck, by synchronicity, by friends, by superior intellect, by shaping the future, etc. What one can do oneself is work for it, as there doesn't seem to be any guarantees or recipes for success. The work is mostly invisible to everyone around. So even for spouse, success may seem like magic. Truly successful people see failure as it is and manage to overcome.
Anti-Midas touch
- Thread starter pinetboltz
- Start date
There are definately people on the other end, either by intuition, by heritage/upbringing, by focus and work, by sheer luck, by synchronicity, by friends, by superior intellect, by shaping the future, etc. What one can do oneself is work for it, as there doesn't seem to be any guarantees or recipes for success. The work is mostly invisible to everyone around. So even for spouse, success may seem like magic. Truly successful people see failure as it is and manage to overcome.
We are coming back to same things on different threads. I respect and agree with what you are saying. My problem is this - if you do not have a stop loss defined, you are not trading ... You are buy and hold. If you are telling me you can consistently pick the exact tops and bottoms without experiencing draw downs, then I am skeptical. So the question to you is - what do you do if you are a too early? As we know, the markets can stay irrational ...
What does he do for a leaving? Just think about it rationally ... People who have the gift for trading/investing tend to be friends with others in the industry ... They get noticed ... They get offers. I doubt there's a genius out there who is killing it in his retail account but doesn't want to try running larger sums of money. There's a reason why your friend got inquiries from compliance.
well, maybe his friend is, or maybe not..sure, there are some talented traders out there sitting in midtown manhattan with patagonia vests pumping out gold through their standing desk bloombergs, but probably very many who dont have the stereotypical setups of $1 bn+ AUM, CNBC regular appearances, etc with the smooth sales pitches
even warren buffett only became famous in like his mid-40s/50s, after already having decades of high returns...you just have to look at the mediocre results of the vast majority of the street to know they by no means constitute the full set of good traders out there
it's like the miss universe show, by statistical probability alone probably doesnt guarantee the *most* beautiful woman in the universe (c'mon, out of 3.5 billion?), bc of self-selection bias & willingness to jump through the game show hoops
There is no such thing as a negative edge. If someone is consistently wrong on the market AND losing money, just tell him to flip his trades! There is a lot of money to be made on the opposite side.
Unfortunately, that is not going to work (would be cool if it did!). Let's say your stops are too tight ... You go long and get stopped out by noise. But if you went short instead, you would still most likely get stopped out by noise.
While we are on the subject, I remember reading of an interesting exercise. The guy suggested to take an account (paper one) and try to purposely blow it up! You would think it's easy, right? He was insisting that luck and randomness make it as likely for you to double it as to lose it. Maybe I should start a journal trying to do just that!? Sounds like fun!
The style jus depends on the situation. No need to get hung up on some terminology. I actually started trading in 2000 by shorting the Naz bubble. In the past decade or so there were many shifts among asset classes. There is a stop. When I don’t like something I unwind. It may look like buy and hold at the moment. That is because my mental target is SP to 5000. Then why would you even consider selling nowadays.
The guy is my subordinate at work, which is unrelated to the financial market. He has a busy schedule, put in 12 hours at work, driving kids to school, fixing all the rental properties by himself ( including complex work like plumbing and foundation), then this stock trading hobby...
He opened his book to me and I just can't do what he does. I don't have the conviction and courage to pull the trigger as he does.
You just found a goose which bring golden eggs, just listen to your friend and do otherwise LOL You do not realise how much money you are both loosing! On a serious note some people just have bad luck and there is nothing to do with it, but you can advice him just to make opposite decision if he is always mistaken.