Quote from cap'ncod:
RCG. I'm afraid your're preaching to the coverted. Converted, that is, from the heresy of the Myth about leveraged retail derivatives trading and the fact that a snowball in hell has a greater chance of survival and to the light of acknowledgement and acceptence. Of course I now honestly believe that in the long run, be it two, five or ten years, when the sucker goes from pillar to post, having his balls kicked and head thumped innumerable time along the way that he will be worse off. Not only financially (in my case $30,000 and six years of my precious life) but also emotionally, psychologically and spiritually). I have been part of the Myth and even perpetuated it through false claims and lies. Why? Because like any other human being in our benighted culture (I'm a Brit but we share the same 'values' in the whole of western culture) I'm petrified of not being a 'success'. We delude ourselves and misinform others as we fear the truth. So the Myth goes on and to misquote, evil flourishes when good men do nothing. I'm not religious nor sentimental but I think this industry comes close to 'evil' in the harm it does to individuals and poorer societies generally. It is a very deep and wide issue and I honestly believe that no retail trader on this forum will 'succeed'. Institutional and smart money will flourish under certain conditions of course, for obvious reasons and I also now believe that much of the propaganda and myth is maintained by individuals working in the industry who proclaim to be small retail. We can never know, as the whole industry operates under strict secrecy (I know for a fact that employees have to sign non-disclosure agreements and we all know people are petfrifieid of litigation-another racket). As the late Christopher Hitchen's said, what does not have any substantiated evidence for existence (blind faith) can be similarly refuted without evidence. I have seen, like everybody else, absolutely no evidence to suggest even 5% of us suckers can make it pay in the long run. It's a myth and followed with blind faith, a true narcotic of insatiable desire.