OK, I have to admit that I read this thread with great pleasure. It is absolutely delightful to watch some of the bigger names in this industry throwing muds at each other. I figure it is about time that I add my two cents.
I don't care how you did in 1999/2000, I don't care what kind of track record you had during the entire bull run or a super volatile year in 2000, for a trader, the past mean absolutely nothing, what matters are next year, next month, next week, next day, and next trade. If you made $200-$300 a day in 2001, you are a $200-$300 a day trader, as simple as that. BTW, who the hell came up with this $200-$300 crap? That's a huge range (50K and 75K a year is a 50% difference), I can tell you that I averaged exactly $295 a day this year, you either AVERAGE $200 a day or you average $300 a day. If you are serious about this game, you know where your average is. Don't even try to blow it up, one of my best friends at work had two 10K day's this year and quite a few mid-high four digit days, and she AVERAGED a little less than $500 a day for the year.
No one, and I mean no one can convince me that a super star trader can trade and run a chat room at same time. It is a huge distraction that you don't want in your trading. People who claim they don't trade themselve like Jea Yu (who I actually defended on Amazon before I started at Worldco) are absolutely shameless. I have zero respect for college professors who talk about the stock market without playing in it, I have zero respect for people who talk about trading but do not trade.
Ok, I do realize that some of you claim that you are actually trading when you make those calls. Now, if your chat room is free like Harris's on Yahoo, I give you utmost respect and blessings. When you charge people $200-$300 a month when you average what is that again, $200-$300 a day, or when you were coached by one of the market wizards and have to rely on a commercial chat room for income, I don't know what to say.
Nobody can tell me that their trading is not affected when they have to trade and type chat room messages at same time. What hell, I yell out stuff to my team every now and then and I don't see how you can share calls through a chat room. I don't care how liquid the stock is, there is only so much size at the ASK before they start to spread it, and even a 10-20 cents spread hurt when you have to ride the wiggles.
You are trying to make calls so everyone can ride your coat tail to profitable trading? Talk about false advertisement, I am sorry folks, it can't be done, half of the people will have to be bag holders. Oh, your chat room is educational and you do it for the love of the game? Get off the high horse, just tell me what % of your income is actual trading profit, and what % is from subscription fees.
I run a trading team at Worldco myself, and my goal is to eventually put together an all star team through aggressive recruiting and refined coaching. And yes, the percentage of commissions coming out of firm's pocket (NOT MY TRADER's), while small, is a serious incentive for doing so. I don't understand why would people in my position even try to deny this, it is like 1+1=2, me-want-additional-income-stream-so-me-put-in-additional-time, yes I love the game for what it is but no I don't call out every position I take during the day because it WILL have a negative effect in my own trading. Anyone denying that is lying to you.
That said, anyone who ever e-mailed me or talked to me on the phone know that I don't ever waste anyone's time with blown-up stats. I tell them what my YTD numbers are (73600), how much experience do I have (14 months), how consistent I am (86% positive before commissions this year, 73% after), how many super size performers I have on my team (at this time 0). When they do come in for the interview, I show them my account statement and my P&L for the day. There were two guys who sat behind me and watched me losing half a point first trade into the game, and struggled to finish the day up $200 lousy dollars, I was sweating bullet until I finally got myself back in black, but hey, if I sucked that day I will let you know about it. It was a very choppy Friday, but I told them I was shaken out on an energy move in the morning and didn't make the shots I should have made.
On any given day, I would be perfectly willing to have anyone on my team to look at my blotter. I will tell them exactly what I did, what my mistakes were. When I take a bad trade I don't call it "a set-up that usually works" and write it off. Usually when I lose money in a trade I misjudged something and I let them know what my mistakes were (for example, today I loaded up the truck too much on that 10AM futures pop, and did not concentrate on energy stocks like I planned to, also missed a very hot credit service sector).
On any given day, I make mistakes. If you read my journals from March, you will see that on my best day ever, I mentioned that I played a horrendous open (made just 1K on a super intense sell-off when you could have bulleted anything) and got lucky on a huge afternoon rally. I recognize the difference between me playing well and market giving me gifts.
Why can't a chat room vendor admit that they made a mistake instead of writing it off as a good trade turned sour because of some unexpected market event? And I totally agree with Duffy the vendor slayer, if you are running a commercial chat room, why shouldn't you audit your account statement? I said it in my own journal that for a trading desk manager, my current record is lackluster, but I still gathered a lot of interviews, simply because people know I am trustworthy, that I play no games, that I am who I claim to be, that they can have their faith in me when we trade together, learn together, grow together, make money together, get smoked together and laugh about it together.
I believe to be the best of the best, you must be true to yourself, and anyone in this business who is not true to themselve will never be a legit opponent of mine. Yes, they may be ahead now, but the only way they can still be ahead of me, ten years from now, is me defeating myself. I am dead serious in that regard, for anyone who is not a friend is an opponent in this business, and I never ever underestimate my opponent.
If your heart is not pure, your trading will never be pure because you will never recognize your weaknesses, and you will never play the game the way it is meant to be played.
A suggestion, if you really believe you are the hot stuff, e-mail a copy of your 2001 account statement to Don Bright. If you read my posts regarding Don Bright, you know that I am not a fan of him, but I still have a lot more respect for him than most others on this thread.
If you really are as good as advertised, I will be the first one to make an apology, I will subscribe to your service so my traders can have an additional source of information.
P.S. Turok, was that you (Neo-on-Geo)?
