Thanks for the replies, kind or not kind. This is NOT a troll. What do I gain by faking some painful experience like this ?
I posted because some other people may learn some lessons, and some people with more experiences would tell me something I didn't know.
Yes, I have a very supportive spouse, who is more valuable to me than all the money in the world combined.
Yes, I traded for 8 years.
Yes, I do have a system that doesn't just have one trick, it's adaptive, machine learning, data mining, pattern recognition etc. etc., I tried them all, nothing will do magic. The true insight was gained by the experiences and knowledge, and testing.
Yes, I join this forum 8 years too late. But even if I had joined 8 years ago, I would still probably have done the same thing.
But for the time being, I'll put my system aside. After several weeks relentless working in a trial period, I am hired by a start up to solve a seemingly impossible problem. I signed NDA and can't disclose what they do, it's not trading, but data related. I'll help them success and they will give me some equities.
A problem that would take an army of PhD's to solve in a few years and worth probably $20 mil, they wanted me to find an approach within several weeks. Can you find a more challenging job ? But I had no choice, being out of the job market for 8 years. So I was writing programs, thinking and reading, and writing more programs. Finally the CEO said, I am pleased ...,
And I can take a break and come here...
Maybe I'll say goodbye to trading, the rest of the software development will require my full attention and energy, but it will be interesting because it's a brand new area.
But I'll keep my eye on the market and come here when I am not so busy.