Quote from pairsarbtooo:
What happens in trading is most get sucked out of money when they are young, and never really go back. Therefore, there are not enough older guys to tell the young (20something30something traders) that all of this is a scam, go back to basics. So the firms and industry suck the capital from these young traders who have absolutely no clue that their whole world view of how to trade is wrong, and completely plays into the industry's hands. The middle aged guys who are developing an accurate world view are generally scared into working for someone else (nothing really wrong with that but it's certainly not why people generally trade), being beholden to a spouse's opinions (vaginalcontrol) or family obligations, and have no time to relate their experiences to the younger crops who just otherwise fail by design and have no clue there are other ways to succeed in this business. A small percentage of it make it and generally don't talk at all. Some make it and from time to time rant and rave about things in this business. Few people though actually listen.
This board is chock full of traders who have no clue. Who have never backtested (and found that short term parameters that generally don't work), who misunderstand the significance of fixed costs and soft dollar fees (commissions), and who fall in to the leverage trap without quantifying risk, volatility, etc. In fact, with all the new tech, I have found the younger you are the less problem solving ability you actually have, not because you don't have the tools but because you don't have the thinking ability. It was either never developed or it's remarkably atrophied. Too many video games, too much predictive programming from various media devices, and never trained in trivium quadrivium /critical thinking. A new generation of more compliant financial slaves. Especially if you did well grade wise in public education, you are the generally most handicapped for real world problem solving and critical thinking ( because the public indoctrination education system rewards obedience and compliance not formulating and thinking).
The biggest threat to a corporation is a threat to their capital, and anyone with great ideas and the ability to implement them is a threat. So they support engineering an educational system that makes you able to do some narrowly defined job, but without the confidence and ability to create and innovate. This is also why they carefully and systematically buy up all patents from young brilliant inventors(who create solutions with intellectual or physical innovations), and then shelve them until their current outputs outlive their useful financial lifecycle. So, if you do find a profitable method that kiills it, by all means don't share it with anyone, especially a firm that asks you divulge it, in order to "trade" with them. Extract the maximum dollars you can and never share it, never. If it works, don't sell it. If a firm asks you to tell them your system, create euphemisms (" identifies trends in the highfrequencysuckass derivative markets and capitalizes on the divergences in clearing times of the underlying contracts"). Never share your code or rules except give examples of risk management that are reasonable, and "acceptable." Your firm is there to clear your trades until you have enough money to clear your own, and to help you with leverage until you don't need it. You have a plan to exit when you accumulate enough capital do fund the next phase of your life. Remember this, they are not your friend, or buddy, and they will move in the direction of their profit only not in any perceived loyalty you might have. Sadly, this is one reason why they are dropping off. I have learned this through experience. It's directed at the 1% of you that will perhaps use it.
Put your money offshore and run it through various other country's entities and avoid all taxes that you can. Follow the Apple's or Starbuck's methods of hiding profit (Starbucks has net losses in the UK for over 10 straight years, writes the gross profits to their Netherlands mailbox corporation, pays no tax, and pays no tax in the UK for example) . Start thinking like this. It's a game and the real rules are not advertised on websites.
Really the only way to make it as a true trader, in my opinion, is to be by nature a non-conformist to the whole industry. If you learn what most people learn and do what most people do, you have the results most people get, which is in fact losing all of your capital. You have to seek out and follow the successful outliers. They are general hard to find, and they usually don't want to deal with you. They know the sacrifices they have made to rearrange their actions against the popular code. They worked hard not to be sheep and generally not going to show you the playbook, you kinda have to earn it. You will know when you are moving in the right direction by the events that seem to occur as you move forward. Red pill/Blue pill kind of stuff. In the beginning it can be very depressing. It can be so tough most people go back. Only for a few.
It's a lot like the advantage video poker players in the casino, they do long term math and feel they have an advantage. They bang away at their game hour after hour and lose a lot very slowing, but because they are pressing buttons and colors and noises abound, they feel like they are producing. Most day traders are no different. They are quite similar. Except, for day traders there are no comps, their capital is all locked away out of their control, and they have to pay other fees besides their lost capital. Any money they make is taxed. They bang away generally by themselves all morning long, while they give their human and financial capital to the large entities that make the rules. To succeed at a profitable trader or gambler you need to be very confident and do most of the things differently than the rest. You need to develop confident through real winning. My hero is more Amarillo Slim than George Washington.
The classic methods of finding trends has worked over time for the past 100 years. As government assimilates the free enterprise system, that will also likely come to a halt. After that government will fail, and the effects in the short term are unpredictable. Why firms are disappearing is explained by the intense regulation, traders doing too much frequent trading. Both of these are designed to put individual entities at a competitive disadvantages. Securities laws are generally not their to protect YOU, but to protect the big firms from the risk to their capital that would happened if YOU became really good.
RANT over.
