Day trading is losers game

[failed_trad3r]

Quote from Spearhead:

I tend to agree with the main points of the OP. Most traders do fail. If anyone got a real peek at performance of individual accounts of retail traders, it would probably discourage people from ever trading. Since this is the case, those numbers are closely guarded and never released to the public. I think research that was done in the past indicated 90% losers, 1-2% consistent and substantial winners, 8-9% winners but not substantial and probably just treading water. If I remember correctly, out of the 90% of losers, roughly 10% were catastrophic losers who basically blow out their entire account.

These aren't encouraging statistics for aspiring traders. Although I consider myself part of the 1-2% consistent winners, whenever anyone asks me about trading as a profession rather than a hobby, I vehemently discourage it. I suppose out of those 1-2%, everyone has their own "secret" for how they're doing it, but I suspect it is not just a matter of time, effort, and psychology. People on this board seem to think you can read some books, pay for training, spend the necessary time, and you will somehow get good enough to profit from the market. I just don't believe this to be true.

The previous poster mentioned something about finding the right arbitrage / market inefficiencies. On the scale of difficulty, I would venture that it's on the order of coming up with a new, undiscovered physics theory. I'd also guess that most people who spend the next 10 years studying the market will still not be profitable daytraders. It might go from 90% failure rate to 70% or so, but I just can't imagine the majority would be profitable.

How many people do you personally know are successful daytraders? I don't know any besides myself, and I know plenty that tried to trade actively and lost enough to not attempt it again.

the reason is daytrading is a zero-sum game. There will ALWAYS be losers.

In a closed system where all daytraders trade against eachother and each spends 10.000 hours to learn daytrading, still you will have losers. Thats why the "business" of daytrading is crap argument and the 10.000 screen time is also a crap argument. It is also the reason discretionary daytrading doesn't work and the reason automated systems stop working sometimes.

Your systems has to be better than others, aka for example in poker if your bluff is better than the others you can consistently make money, but the other will learn to create better bluffs, then you need to step up your game. Is is a constant struggle for edges.

 

[cvds16]

business is a constant strugle for edges too ... and for that matter so is life (if you don't think so, read up on Darwin)

 

[cornix]

Quote from oilfxpro:

Do you find scalping easier than day swing trading?Is it easier to see direction on 1 min time frame than 15 min?

Here is some scalping trades for today , 45 pips profit with 8 pip stop ,and target of 8+ . Spreads were 2 pips plus , with cheaper spreads of 1 pip from 66 trades today but lower spreads could bring in 66 more pips.I felt comfortable trading this tight stop scalping.

A few poor entries were made , and a few exits were missed.I see this net profitable performance as repeatable every day .I learnt the use of tight stops.What is your criteria for tight stop entry?Is it trading only in a highly trending market?

1. I see no difference in reading 1 minute, 15 minute, 1h or 1 month chart (provided, market has enough volatility). All the same principles, just different fractals.

2. Criteria for tight stop entries is to enter when price moving against you by more than your stop amount proves you wrong and there is no reason to stay in the trade anymore. This is much more often reversals, than trends.

3. Cannot download your attachment, cause you use spaces in your file names and ET screws them up.

 

[failed_trad3r]

Quote from cvds16:

business is a constant strugle for edges too ... and for that matter so is life (if you don't think so, read up on Darwin)

except in business your edges are not always zero-sum, it way easier that way. you can create a whole new market out of nothing.

 

[cornix]

Quote from cvds16:

business is a constant strugle for edges too ... and for that matter so is life (if you don't think so, read up on Darwin)

Exactly! There are many relatively efficient markets besides contracts traded @ exchanges.

For example:

Opening a new restaurant in a city full of restaurants is equally if not more hard as becoming a good trader and also involves fight for the "edge" (to make guests start visiting your restaurant instead of visiting your competitors).

 

[wrbtrader]

oilfxpro,

You've been making statements that day trading or any other type of trading (except for swing trading) does not work. Heck, you even started this thread that "Day trading is a losers game".

Yet, every once in awhile amongst your negative message posts about day trading...you make a few messages about a particular trading day of day trading profits or making suggestions about ways to beat the market via day trading (e.g. martingale type position sizing).

Simply, you're all over the map...very difficult to understand your opinions via the contradictions that sometimes seem like a "lack of sincerity" to learn about day trading except for the messages that deals with "trader psychology". It's almost as if you're day trading in the background and you don't want us to know about it and once in awhile you have a profitable day trading day (real money or simulator) and that's when you make those rare positive day trading commentary that it "is" or "can be" profitable.

Quote from oilfxpro:

04-26-11 05:57 AM

I am not going to continue with day trading or explore any methods related to day trading. It is not for me...

Therefore, I'm just going to assume from this day forward that you're scalping or day trading regardless if such is via discretionary or an automated/mechanical trading system...regardless if it's every trading day or a few times each month.

Also, you shouldn't attach .rar or .zip files here at ET because most will not open such files for obvious reasons. Thus, I highly recommend you attach images or charts (.gif, .jpg, .png, .doc) to get more ET members to read your attachments. I say this because I did a survey here at ET and elsewhere via posting images or charts in different formats. The .rar and .zip files are least likely to be downloaded by traders along with having the most complaints that it's not viewable.

Mark

Quote from wrbtrader:

04-26-11 05:23 AM

Hi oilfxpro,

You continue answering your own questions that you're currently not suitable for manual day trading (also known as discretionary day trading).

Simply, you know what's profitable for you (automation day trading and automation swing trading). Yet, you remain fixated on discretionary day trading that doesn't work for you. It seems logical to me to spend time & energy on something that works instead of on something that so far has not work considering you're in a very unique situation via having other options. In comparison, most losing discretionary day traders do not have a profitable automation day trading or automation swing trading system like you do.

Further, the #2, #3, #5 and #10 from your above list are very problematic. There such a problem that any trader I meet that mentions such about themselves...

Don't open another chart, don't take another trade and go get professional psychological help prior to returning to day trading (seriously).

Also, most traders sabotage their own trading before realizing what they've done. You seem to be coming to grips with what you're doing.

******
Further, it will be interesting to see if you're addictive to day trading via continuing exploring it with your day trading discussions and chart examples of particular types of intraday price actions as a discretionary trader (no automation) while knowing you're currently not suitable for it and knowing you have a profitable automation trading system involving day trading and swing trading.
******

Mark

 

[Fireplace]

Excellent!

Quote from cvds16:

Most people just don't get sophisticated enough at this, yes, it's simple, but not that simple ... there are nuances ... if you don't know how to read those, yes then trading is impossible ...

 

[oilfxpro]

Mark

I went back on simulator to change natural instincts on trading.I am trying to see if I can remove all the negative traits from my trading before going live again.

I am also preparing for the swing trading on oil and fx.I have free time on my hands.

This is on trial.If I go on 1 min charts with tight stops and do a hundred trades a day,getting in and out of trades frequently , I find myself in the comfort zone.This fast in and out within minutes style of trading suits my style.If you do 200 trades daily , your problems disappear because you change sides at every turn of the trend line.If you do enough of them , you have an edge because your eyes can see more good opportunities to trade , whereas if you limit your trades to 2 to 3 , your potential is limited.

I traded on simulator for a whole week many months ago , trading 200 times a day .The results were an astonishing 20 % a week.The method could not be implemented on live accounts , this was because it was discretionary based on trading instincts.I tried to apply rules to the method and it failed.Now I found a few rules that can be applied to the method.

Your opinion is welcome as always.

 

[Visaria]

Quote from oilfxpro:


The results were an astonishing 20 % a week.The method could not be implemented on live accounts , this was because it was discretionary based on trading instincts.

Can you expand on why you could not implement this method into live trading? Was it the emotions of trading with real money came into play?

 

[oilfxpro]

Quote from Visaria:

Can you expand on why you could not implement this method into live trading? Was it the emotions of trading with real money came into play?

The simulator worked very well.So I go in with real money and tried to be careful and implement it slowly.I started with half the method trying to be extra cautious.This type of trading is very fast and does not require a slow , cautious approach to trade.The frame of mind to implement the method was not correct, hence the failure.