Quote from dave4532:
Hi Mike805, what kind of an enginner were you? Why did you decide to leave a high paying field and become a trader?
EE for a period of time. I worked in digital design, primarily video algo's. Mostly video algo RnD in hardware (i.e. MatLab + FPGA's).
I transitioned to finance in grad. school after taking some computational finance courses. The EE paycheck was OK but its certainly not a "high paying field" as an employee. Maybe as a founder but the work life balance is difficult.
The way you've phrased the question is akward. I pursued my intellectual curiosity, i.e. finance, specifically trading. It was never too much about the money as it was the abstraction and creative thinking required in trading that brought me to it. The idea of making money purely by thinking appeals to me and trading allows for income with no glass ceiling.
That said, I run a fund and make a good living trading. My schedule is very flexible and I have full creative freedom to research whatever I want... That's really all I ever wanted, full creative freedom. Markets are deeply intellectually satisfying in that respect.
Quote from dave4532:
There is no such a thing as a statistical edge in trading. You are a dreamer. The longer term expectation from trading activity is negative. I suggest you read this book
http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~lharris/ABSTRACT/Zerosum.htm
Traders lose to long term investors and insiders. You are totally misinformed if you think there are statistical edges for you to discover and become rich.
You're bringing up a paper from 93? This paper is stale... no truth to it and I can prove it.
If your ploy is to get someone to reveal a stat. edge here, its been done... do some better research. If you were (or are) attending any decent finance program and you stated what you stated above, you'd likely get a chuckle out of the professor. As in, they'd laugh at you...
FYI, had you bothered to do some decent research, you would have found that many of the longer term posters here have revealed statistical edges on this site. Stat. edges that will work in perpetutity given that the market structure remains somewhat constant. These edges are certainly not amazing or anything, but, if followed over several years, they will produce profit.
In general, there are a large number of people who share your belief system (the intradaybill handle is defientely one of them) and this belief system will hold you back unless you learn how to be flexible in your thought process, accept new ideas with open arms, and, above all, never get married to any one idea/belief system.