Failing traders: the merits of pursuing poker instead

[bjw]

I'm yet to see someone who can consistently trade successfully over a long period of time and is able to prove it in years and years on various forums.

i never understood this. why would someone want to prove to a bunch of unknowns that this person is able to trade succesfully in the first place? also, how can you use the fact someone is not willing to prove it to you as a benchmark for anything?

maybe, i'm just speculating here, the kind of person that seeks admiration from an internet forum by making false claims about his or her trading skills isn't the type of person that's generally any good at trading.

 

[cornix]

It sounds like you made a graceful departure from trading.

If you don't mind me asking, how many years did you spend learning and practising?

If speaking of trading, I spent nearly 10 years learning and trading with mixed success more or less full-time. Some edges were very real (heavily mispriced binary options in 2005 as a perfect sample), some ceased to exist, so probably were temporary waves of large directional moves somewhat similar to late 90's which allowed even dumb money like me to trade.

Now I came to conclusion the most worthwhile use of financial markets is investing for longer-term. Almost sure money if you do it smart (being patient enough to wait for big opportunities) and much less stressful.

So I din't say "goodbye" to markets, but rather changed rhythm of participation.

 

[cornix]

Thanks. 99.9% of those who claim to make it longer term are lying or simply the survivors Who quit when ahead-- The market is designed to always win like the casino and will quickly morph or regulate away any real edge.

Ironically market can be almost sure money in some situations and almost surely a losing venture in other. That's my experience.

 

[cornix]

Brave of you to admit defeat, Cornix. I remember reading your posts here and on your private forum and you were somewhat of an inspiration that this might actually be possible.

Thanks for the kind words, Michael.

Funny, but I firmly believe it IS possible. Just not the way it's pumped in the advertisements of those who benefit from that.

It surely is lucrative business for brokers, money managers, vendors, authors etc.

Stock market is historically the best vehicle for long-term investments.

If you find some real inefficiencies or possess insider info or manipulative edge (let's be realistic and not pretend such cases don't exist ), you have a real edge too.

Probably if you possess some talent reading the market by price or other indicators... maybe. But it ended for me. No idea is that something wrong with me or the market. Maybe if I added some strategy which works for someone in the current conditions I would be still profitable. But I don't have such a strategy.

And the ultimate choice we must make in life is improve the quality of life, not fall prey to false pride or whatever. "False pride", the term used by my "trading hero" Vic Sperandeo. Who quit when time has come. There must have been a reason he did. We all have our reasons.

Who knows, maybe later I'll say I was wrong in this post and again think day trading is THE GAME. Have no idea. But certainly happier now than I was in 2013 and that's all that is needed to know for now.

 

[Pigsky]

Each forum has a few gurus. Some of them get exposed as blatant scam artists/liars.
Some are just selling books/seminars to make money as they can't make money trading.
Some of them are genuine/well-intended people, but they later lose all of their money after running out of luck (lucky that their 'system' happened to fit the current market environment)
Some of them aren't selling anything, but seem to just want to have their ego stroked and love people looking upto them in the misguided belief that they are a successful, consistently profitable trader. (they are not actually profitable)

These people keep the dream alive.

Yes that sums up the people you run into in forums. When you are new you don't know any better. They do keep the dream alive.

That is what hooks many people on daytrading futures and forex. I think most would be skeptical of a website offering trading education from a guru with no track record, no pedigree, no qualifications, no proof of any success..... yet making claims that suggest of earning a consistent low-risk living with 10k of account size. Sounds like BS. But when you see people in forums and chats claiming to be highly successful using teachings of this guru, it changes your mind. They seem credible to a novice, and it gives credibility to the idea you can make a $90,000 a year living flipping 1 futures contract over and over each day. You can be fooled by randomness in your own testing of ideas.... finding a rule set that makes money for several weeks or months..... which makes you think you are getting closer.

it can take a long time to start seeing the truth. Many months and for some many years. But then you can still have nagging doubts that maybe you are overlooking something. The hindsight charts look so good. Maybe you are as guru says...... lazy and need to work more and harder. So it is a messy mental trap to get out of.

I would not be surprised if some of those people who seem altruistic good samaritans are actually selling mentoring or consulting services to people. It would be easy to do via PM. Others are as you say just looking for ego boost and online fantasy life.

 

[JTrades]

I din't say "goodbye" to markets, but rather changed rhythm of participation.

Can't argue with that. Very reasonable.

 

[JTrades]

Elsewhere on ET...

I've had strong success ... with a record career yr in fiscal 2014.

I have 85 - 90% winning trades in a given year...

I have the same high rate of profitable trades...

 

[marketsurfer]

Elsewhere on ET...

I hope these claims are true. But, they only seem to exist online ----

 

[bjw]

where else should they exist?

 

[drcha]

Yes, we exist. It can be done. Yes, longer time frames are easier to work with.

The average losing trader would probably be better off buying a mutual fund or stuffing money in their mattress than playing poker. I hope no one will take that advice.

But, permit me to give a little pep talk to the discouraged.

Despite the lack of chat room evidence of winning traders, ask yourself: is anyone able to do this? The answer is yes. There are plenty of private equity funds, hedge funds, mutual funds, etc. that make money, and some of those don't even use the leverage available to the individual trader. So, if anyone else is able to trade profitably, and you are not disabled in some fundamental way, there is no reason why you should be able to do it. The only thing standing in your way is yourself. The successful people are not all smarter than you are, and they do not all have every single piece of inside information (though they may have some). Read, think, backtest, paper trade, trade small for a while, be brutally honest in examining your errors, and you can learn trading, too. However, there is one thing you must be nearly perfect at: money management. Get that right, and you can make a few mistakes on the trades. Conversely, all your trading can be right, and if your money management is bad, you will still make a mess of things.