How to avoid being one of the 90% of small traders lose
- Thread starter emg
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This is actually good advice emg! This is precisely what I did. All I ever wanted to do was trade but I was laughed at with my undergrad degree in vanilla finance (business). I applied to a school that legitimate firms recruit from and completed a Masters in Computational Finance --->>> Finance meet Statistics meets C++. It was a bitch of a program but I landed a job before I graduated.
You can tell a firm is legit fairly easily -- you trade <b>their</b> money. Back in the day floor trading was still alive but I started trading on a computer (yes, one computer -- it was a long time ago
) a few stories above the floor.
You can land a job with these firms if you come out of Business School but it has to be the likes of Booth or Kellogg. Heck, some firms even recruit MBA's from DePaul but you gotta be cream. Look up the curriculum for the Finance MBA at Booth. It's scary.
You can tell a firm is legit fairly easily -- you trade <b>their</b> money. Back in the day floor trading was still alive but I started trading on a computer (yes, one computer -- it was a long time ago
) a few stories above the floor.You can land a job with these firms if you come out of Business School but it has to be the likes of Booth or Kellogg. Heck, some firms even recruit MBA's from DePaul but you gotta be cream. Look up the curriculum for the Finance MBA at Booth. It's scary.
Anyone who thinks they can consistently predict a 10 point move on the ES (unless they have an inside track) is someone who doesn't know trading very well.
EMG is correct. If you trade at a firm your odds of lasting go from 5% to 50%. Wanna know why? Because it's very, very political. If you develop connections you get to find out when <b>who</b> is gonna do <b>what.</b>
EMG is correct. If you trade at a firm your odds of lasting go from 5% to 50%. Wanna know why? Because it's very, very political. If you develop connections you get to find out when <b>who</b> is gonna do <b>what.</b>
I trade futures for a living. I started trading in 1991 (my own account -- with a telephone and a broker with a voice). My early success was starting in the beginning of the biggest bull market in US history. I was long everything. Didn't even know what short was. I survived the 2002 crash, made out like a bandit in the 2008 crash.
The only reason I'm still around is because of my education. If I could turn the clock back to 1990 and do it all again I'd never pick trading as a profession.
The only reason I'm still around is because of my education. If I could turn the clock back to 1990 and do it all again I'd never pick trading as a profession.
Great background . . .
You only have a few years on me but our attitudes our different. I trade for a living as well. I learned to ride the trend up in the 90's & selling pull backs, I rode the drop from late 2000 and bought retracing moves, I bought and rode the beginning of the bottom up in the Spring of 2003 selling pull backs as well, I caught the top in December of 2007 cleaning up all of the way down and buying the retracing moves there too. I've been buying since July of 2009 and selling retracing moves again. Price currently is still going up but weakening. The key is to learn to trade both directions and understand how to see strong and weak moves that telegraph price beginning to reverse or continue in one direction or another.
The other difference is that I feel blessed to have learned a profession that gives me a grand living and is mentally stimulating. It has been a long road to but the journey was wonderful.
Thanks for sharing your background.
Who said anything about 'predicting' the whole move? If the ES moves up 10 points (unless it's all on one big spike), there will be several key areas where the mkt will signal the savvy trader that they should enter. If the trader can't see these then they should NOT be trying to scalp a point off the top.
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