Are the majority of great traders systemetic or discretionary?

davidcohenphd said:
Definitely discretionary even though I am more of a systematic trader, but the best I have seen have been discretionary. One I know and benefited from his trading tools a bit is truly phenomenal. Very sharp guy too, a physics Ph.D., probably at least 150 IQ points. You gotta be sharp to be a good discretionary trader. It's not really about having a Ph.D. (may not hurt, though), but being sharp.
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Trading tools, as in indicators? I heard the best and thus smartest discretionary traders just study price action and perhaps volume on multiple indexes.
 
tonysoprano said:
This is for all the people out there who know or have made the acquaintance of really great , bad ass traders. I'm not talking about the George Soros's and Jim Simon's of the world. I'm talking about the traders very few people have heard about that are low profile but have amazing returns year in and year out.

Has it been your experience that the majority of them are a) systematic, i.e. they have a set of 100% objective trading rules they apply and never deviate from or b) discretionary in that they use their intuition to ferret out trades they take. I.e. not 100% objective.

In my experience it's been discretionary though I don't personally know many 100% systematic traders.
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I've been saying this for many years, if you're not automated...you're discretionary.

Also, most retail traders lose regardless if they're discretionary, automated, algorithm (new deveolping group), position trading, swing trading, day trading or scalping.

You hear stories about retail discretionary traders making it big out of Europe and Asia (e.g. CIS) but I haven't heard of any out of the U.S. doing anything close to such while remaining low profile, anonymous or beneath the radar sort'uv speak to qualify as a "really great, bad ass" (your words).

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-panicked-japanese-day-trader-made-34-million

http://www.businessinsider.com/japanese-trader-claims-he-made-millions-on-monday-2015-8

https://twitter.com/cissan_9984?lang=en

Also, less traders doing such in today's markets in comparison to markets 20 years ago...lots of named retail traders that had bad ass returns in those days (e.g. Paul Rotter). The markets back then was suitable for making traders famous and millionaires in comparison to markets today...very difficult to do something similar in today's markets unless you catch a market at the right time like the anonymous CIS guy did.

In contrast, I have heard of profitable traders in today's markets making 10k to 50k consistently per year for the past several years. I've also personally met a few and watched them trade with my own two eyes. Unfortunately, most of you guys looking to identify rich traders or wealthy traders would dismiss these guys because many of them are not full-time or have another source of income. Simply, they are not great bad ass traders. :)

There's other famous retail traders but they are dismissed too because they are well capitalized or former institutional traders or former hedge fund manager...traders that quit their jobs or fired and then decided to trade their own capital.

P.S. Former professional traders (e.g. institutional traders) that decide to go retail and trade their own capital from home or office...they do not call themselves retail trader. Instead, they use the phrase "private trader"...some people just don't like working for others even if the pay is better.

P.S.S. Once in awhile, someone would illegally post the trading records of a brokerage firm at this forum to show that most traders are losing traders...something we already know. Yet, the poster does not acknowledge the other obvious fact in those records...some traders are consistently profitable but not rich.

P.S.S.S. Discretionary traders today use less intuition and more objective rules although not enough to be able to be automated. I believe the decline in intuition trading is due to the rise in automation trading among retail traders.
 
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Based on my own experience on myself, I would say that discretionary method works better than mechanical. The market is dynamic, hence having rigid rules will minimise the profit.
 
wrbtrader said:
Former professional traders (e.g. institutional traders) that decide to go retail and trade their own capital from home or office...they do not call themselves retail trader.

Instead, they use the phrase "private trader"
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Yes - none of those I know would ever call themselves a "retail trader". I've heard them say "an independent trader" or just "an independent".

There are a lot of these people about, too, and that fact perhaps gives rise to the myth that "most institutional traders burn out by the age of 30". I think what's really happening, quite often, is that by the time they're about 30, they've saved up enough end-of-year bonuses to be able to trade their own fund independently, on a self-employed basis.


wrbtrader said:
Discretionary traders today use less intuition and more objective rules although not enough to be able to be automated.
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This is very much my impression, too.
 
Xela said:
Yes - none of those I know would ever call themselves a "retail trader". I've heard them say "an independent trader" or just "an independent".

There are a lot of these people about, too, and that fact perhaps gives rise to the myth that "most institutional traders burn out by the age of 30". I think what's really happening, quite often, is that by the time they're about 30, they've saved up enough end-of-year bonuses to be able to trade their own fund independently, on a self-employed basis.





This is very much my impression, too.
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Thank you for reminding me..one of Al Brooks' subtle suggestions that he is perhaps a master trader, he seems to write from experience in the books saying that once you trade enough contracts you are more or less an institutional trader. I know many naive followers on his forum, before it became obvious after years of his producing unsuccessful students, thought that he traded in institutional size with consistent profitability, which would suggest mastery.
 
I have rules, I TRY to trade within which keep me generally on the right track, but no exact rules, market is never clear enough for exact rules imho to work long term.
 
wrbtrader said:
In contrast, I have heard of profitable traders in today's markets making 10k to 50k consistently per year for the past several years.
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Hi wrbtrader,

what about those traders who have won the various trading competitions? How profitable do you think they are?
 
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