Quote from Took2Summit:
right, and i agree with you, i also would not have participated in black monday, and im sure a lot of us would have gotten out scratch free. i wasn't making the point to say black monday could/would wipe us out, i made the point to say you can't really rely on probabilities when the possibility of an 18SD event can occur.
i used to play poker professionally (had to stop thanks to doj). i had a tried and true 12% roi in the games i played. with that said, there were times i would go playing literally hundreds of thousands of hands losing money, but i would keep playing the way i knew because i knew in a sample of 5 million hands i would have a 12% roi, and it was true. this is because i had a statistical edge.
in trading, your what you presume to be an edge can vanish, and you can play the next 100,000 hands assuming you have a 12% roi, when now you have a -2% roi because unknown variables entered the game. and to compound matters even worse, you might even actually make your 12% over these 100,000 hands when you now actually have a -2% roi, thus adding to the delusion.
so, is it possible to have an edge? any strategy at any point can have a new variable added to it, and you could make tons of money before you figure out that there's a new variable, however that variable could have taken away your edge, even though you are still making money.
Quote from actionzip54:
That's not true. As a former poker player you don't have defined edge because the players are constantly changing around you. If you continue playing in the same way or style and don't adjust your going to be beat.
I.E. if you played 10% of your hands in 2004 in cash games in 2004 you were probably able to rake it in until 2006 when the poker landscape began change.
Quote from TheMagican:
have no idea what we are talking about,but the thread is about an edge...
Quote from Took2Summit:
you obviously don't know much about poker. my edge is determined when i get my money in better then my opponent, and doing so over a long period of time. for instance my pocket pair vs his two overs all in pre flop gives me a 52-55% chance of winning the hands based on the cards. this is a definable edge getting my money in good.
in trading you can get your money in better then your opponent as well, but from my knowledge there is no way to put an actual percentage on it like the example i just gave where i have a 52-55% chance of winning the hand (trade).
Quote from Surprise:
But that not the edge the retail traders are looking for , i will tell you what i consider an edge : if you have billions then you have edge , if your servers are nearer to the exchange to get the flow faster and to front run you have an edge , if you are an insider then you have an edge , looking at the charts to predict whats gonna happen is not an edge , the market is very efficient , if a certain setup is going to make money for sure then algos and everyone will jump in to take advantage which will make this setup obsolete immediately , so to say there is an edge in market profile or TA ... etc is counterproductive !