Cutting through the hype
- Thread starter Cutten
- Start date
CalTrader, are you implying that Threei was untruthful, posting an annual performance of 88%? Are you serious???
This makes me wonder about performance ideas around here. For starters, we (most of us here) are NOT investors. We are traders. It seems like most people don't factor in the labor factor when they look at traing performance, so they assume what looks like a lot (compared to their mortgage rate) also is a lot.
That said, we as traders, have many times more money velocity, many times more leverage, no overnight exposure (as day traders), a lot less time / stop exposure, therefore considerably less relative per-trade risk than i.e. an investor. We can create much smoother, steeper equity curves.
We need more knowledge and tools, but you see that's the same in any job and business. You learn and learn and you pay for learning and tools. You can't expect to perform after 2 months of training, or with crutches as tools in any other job. Why should trading be any different?
So tell me, how come that people look so much at the %age of performance of traders, as if it was on a "ROI" base? And then, if it's a figure like 88%, they think it's unrealistic?
Any halfway decent futures trader can make those kind of returns, and multiples of that, particularly those who do volume, i.e. work the most! Just look at velocity_trader, what does he do? 2-3K Euro a day, trading on average 5 DAX contracts. Maybe he doesn't trade every day (I don't), but what looks like 40K a month on 5 cars is awesome, but nothing surprising to me, given the kind of work and energy that goes into this kind of trading. Whatever margining you look at, he'll be making a few hundred thousand $ a year. What's that in %? Plenty. Hundreds, thousands, who cares? You're getting paid in $, not in %.
I am mainly a scalper, too. Myself, I am thinking of getting myself a much more serious setup now, with a Bloomy, Reuters, couple of crunching workstations for programming & testing, monitor turret, X_Trader, better software for charting, T1, etc etc. I come to about $5K a month. What do you think pays for this? The return on my investments? Give me a break!
Just thought I'd throw that in here - be it just for the purpose of controversy. Peace.
Scientist
Exactly. Its all just a business. If it makes money for the investors - whether thats just you or a group - and the return to the investors is acceptable then the venture is a win.
As far as learning the business ... I give very low credibility to any path other than working in a paid position for some non-trivial period of time and learning on someone elses dime ... there is some useful information posted here on ET from time to time but it doesn't represent the knowledge necessary to successfully trade IMHO .....
You got it, CalTrader. Fully agree on this. I said this myself very recently; There's hardly anything in fact to be found on ET that is valuable to or for becoming or being a trader. This forum, IMHO, is for the purpose of entertainment, and who knows, maybe even community, and for the paying sponsors, which are 'selling the dream' to the majority of people here.
In terms of real value to the path of successful trading, you'll be better off, more benefited, and probably more successful reading "Trading in the Zone" three times, than being an active member here for 3 years straight. And quite possibly a lot less confused, too.
Remember, the majority is always wrong, so we can safely assume that the majority of people here - yes, even ET'ers - is simply wrong. Assuming this, what would be the benefit of reading thousands of "wrong" posts, other than if you had a razor-sharpened objective mind to tell and filter the BS from the occassional value? Preference or adversion for particular people, for example isn't enough - Fruitful participation & learning on a highly controversial topic like trading requires full objectivity on every single post you read. That, IMHO, is the big challenge for any participating ET member.
Warmest Regards,
Scientist
Not sure I agree with this. While there is not much on here for people who don't want to work for their trading success and want things handed to them, there is plenty of info and many ideas to be found for one who is willing to dig through the archives. But, to your point, there aren't many people who are willing to do the necessary work to become good at this (or anything for that matter).
Yeah, you're right in that. Absolutely, *IF* you are willing to do the work and search for it. I gave an analogy on this before, too:
Finding good information on ET is like mining for diamonds. For every carat (=0.2g) of diamonds, an average of a whopping 100t of hard ore have to be crushed. Does this not make diamonds worth the enormous expense of resources (= money & labor) required for mining them? Sure it does!
The same goes for ET. Sure, the "hit rate", percentage-wise, can be considerably lower than that of diamond mining, but it might be worth it if you're willing to put the work in.
True, as with anything. Nothing comes from nothing.
Hey ice, that's not fair! I like nature, and everything in nature has a purpose!Quote from iceman1:
I second that...
how can anyone who is reasonably humble and realistic NOT say that there is value to be found on ET.
I bet a person with that mindset probably looks at many things as having little or no value. Like nature for instances, etc.
ICe
Except for trolls, of course. But then they don't occur in nature. They only 'occur' on ET...
I think the problem is that a lot of unsuspecting people who are looking for work or to get into trading as a profession - and who dont know any better - read a lot of the posts here without the ability to filter. In this case they are getting a lot of sales pitches and marketing noise without much useful signal.
Entertainment, yes.