Are you STILL excited/happy with being a daytrader as the day you first started?

It is very hard to know if you will be bored with trading in the years to come. It's also not a good idea to think about it because it is simply a negative. This is something you will never know until it happens.

Learn this game...Play the game...If you get bored, then quit and start something else. Good luck to you bud, and please remember, if you do fail, take it as a valuable lesson and try again. We all fail at some point in our lives...What measures a man’s integrity is his ability to learn from his failures and capitalize on them.

-Kastro
 
Quote from volkl23:

I am most definitely NOT bored with trading. All I am doing is asking the "what ifs" now in case there is a what if 10 years from now. Atleast I will have some idea of answer before it comes up.
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Ever since moving to full time trading several years ago, I can honestly say, I now look forward to the "work week" with as much enthusiasm as I look forward to the weekends. By always continuing to challenge your horizons, how could you ever experience boredom?

- Spydertrader
 
Look at this question the way you (might) look at the markets.

You initiate a trade and one of three things happens:

1. It immediately turns around and goes against you;

2. It goes a short distance in your direction, THEN turns around and goes against you, hitting your protective stop which you've moved to protect your principal; or

3. It begins to trend in your direction, and your MOC order ends with you up 5, 10 15+ pts on the ES e-minis (or the equivalent in a stock, option, etc.).


So ...

When you initiate your new trading career:

1. You aren't as good as you thought you were, get discouraged and quit

2. You struggle to succeed, but do so, and either do enjoy it or don't (if the later, you quit)

3. It wasn't just luck, you're a talented, intuitive trader who understands things about the market that most people never figure out. You make a mint, and either eventually get tired of being able to pull 000's of $'s out of the markets on a weekly/monthly basis, after which you realize you can pretty much do anything else that you want, or you realize just how rare this situation is and how lucky you are.

Your question reveals your youth, and while it IS working for you in terms of TIME it is also working against you in terms of EXPERIENCE.

Go out and get some, then come back and ask the question.

Jimmy
 
No, my experience is that daytrading gets boring over time. I still get juiced on the occasional volatile day, but other than that, intraday tick movement just leaves me cold now. And this is coming from someone who did it day in day out for years and made a pretty decent chunk of change from it. I've had a similar experience with other high stimulus but limited activities such as poker, motor racing/rallying, sports etc. Ultimately they are just too constrained and one-dimensional for me, and after a few years they become hollow and boring.

Eventually the only reason left to do it is the money, unless you're one of those sad automatons who thinks there's something meaningful and worthwhile in doing a repetitive task competently. Might as well be an accountant in that case.

My solution was to take a break, then try something different, more complex and involving. I think speculating/investing for the medium & longer-term, especially anything involving deep analysis (e.g. global macro, growth/concept investing) is more satisfying intellectually and thus has a greater longeivity.

It's kind of like chasing women. Eventually you get bored of one-night stands and then you seek something with a deeper and longer-lasting vibe. Of course you can get burned with that too, but at least it'll be interesting.
 
it gets old except for when you get a monster gainer but then i put things in perspective of how good it is when i have 2 months of vacation this yr and half of my work days are for only a few hours
 
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