how to make money

lescor · Jun 19, 2005

Quote from Lights:

i believe there is money to be taken but people don't for some reason or another. pigs get slaughtered but sometimes it takes courage to be a pig.

The point I was making is this- If you had a chance to double your account ("make size") on one trade with a 90% chance of success, but if you were wrong, you'd lose all your money, would you take that trade?

Again, if you swing very big and aggressive, you had better be right early and often.

None of the long term successful traders I know would ever consider trading that way. They are all relatively risk-averse. Not to say they won't risk a lot of money when the opportunity presents, but never enough to make a substantial dent in their trading capital.

NKNY · Jun 20, 2005

Quote from lescor:

The point I was making is this- If you had a chance to double your account ("make size") on one trade with a 90% chance of success, but if you were wrong, you'd lose all your money, would you take that trade?

Nope.....

murray t turtle · Jun 20, 2005

Quote from NKNY:

I disagree.....you need to replace Balls with discipline.

Then find a method/model that has a positive expectancy with a reasonable drawdown for your risk profile .... ( I like to keep the DD at no more then 20 %) Then, use your new discipline that you just acquired and trade it without second guessing it. Enter when you have to and exit when have to ....IE: when the rules say you must....! You don't stay in another day waiting for it to come back. If your still doing that you have a long way to go my friend. Your trading without a plan...your pissing in the wind...

But hats 1/2 the battle ..

What about position sizing.....You could have a great system and get killed if all your eggs are in one basket. If you must trade one vehicle then make it an etf or index futures but STOP trading all of your portfolio on a single or a couple of stocks. Especially If your trading the stock market. If the market is going up 3 % then why buy 1 or 2 stocks. you may even lose money if they go down while the market as a whole advanced. That Ever happen to you...? And I don't want to even talk about adverse news that could cut you stock in 1/2...ouch ...What about your short opening up from 10 to 50 after a halt....you say it can't happen to you.. You may be right but are you trading or gambling....How much of you account will you lose if a stock opens 500 % higher.

Try and identify stocks that have a tendency to advance more then the market does when it's advancing and decline less then the market does when it's declining. Reverse for shorting.... Now it's a tendency not an everyday thing. YOu can only see this tendency over weeks and months....This may help you get a leverage effect without leverage.

Your thinking why not simply trade trade the Q with leverage....I don't trade the QQQQ with leverage because the leverage is even sided as opposed to my basket which holds stocks that have met my criteria ...... In other words, in an up move I may make better gains then the Q while losing less then the Q when the Q declines. YOu may even see times when the Q declines a little while the basket advances.... Thts why...

So shelf the Balls and discover the brain...it will help you find something that works....then use discipline to trade it....

Nick

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Nick
Good pick s.

And another reason it may not be best for some to trade QQQQ with leverage;
not everyone has a Paul Tudor Jones personality or even wants to hunt gamebirds.

And, any ETF are almost never best % gainers.

Electric Savant sounds like your helpful wife has certain seasonal swings;
which well , are seasonal swings,
something a swing trader or any time frame trader could appreciate/work around.

Lights · Jun 21, 2005

there is a spectrum of trading, a spectrum in life. there is a time to turn your cheek, and a time to punch. once you understand that, you have full freedom.

Quote from lescor:

The point I was making is this- If you had a chance to double your account ("make size") on one trade with a 90% chance of success, but if you were wrong, you'd lose all your money, would you take that trade?

Again, if you swing very big and aggressive, you had better be right early and often.

None of the long term successful traders I know would ever consider trading that way. They are all relatively risk-averse. Not to say they won't risk a lot of money when the opportunity presents, but never enough to make a substantial dent in their trading capital.

suigo · Jun 23, 2005

you just have to do the right things, and follow the rules and let the market tell you what to do, you will defintely making SIZE money.

Lights · Jun 23, 2005

discipline takes a pair of "brass balls"

Quote from lescor:

The point I was making is this- If you had a chance to double your account ("make size") on one trade with a 90% chance of success, but if you were wrong, you'd lose all your money, would you take that trade?

Again, if you swing very big and aggressive, you had better be right early and often.

None of the long term successful traders I know would ever consider trading that way. They are all relatively risk-averse. Not to say they won't risk a lot of money when the opportunity presents, but never enough to make a substantial dent in their trading capital.

ElectricSavant · Jun 23, 2005

at my age the closest thing I get to brass balls..is kidney stones!

Quote from Lights:

discipline takes a pair of "brass balls"

marketwhizz · Jul 29, 2006

paypal email scheme? where's a mod when you need'em....

steve46 · Jul 29, 2006

Quote from lescor:

The point I was making is this- If you had a chance to double your account ("make size") on one trade with a 90% chance of success, but if you were wrong, you'd lose all your money, would you take that trade?

Again, if you swing very big and aggressive, you had better be right early and often.

None of the long term successful traders I know would ever consider trading that way. They are all relatively risk-averse. Not to say they won't risk a lot of money when the opportunity presents, but never enough to make a substantial dent in their trading capital.

Corey:

A trader taking that bet would be characterized as a "full Kelly" bettor. Currently I know of none still in this business although there could certainly be someone naive enough to do so.

For myself I will bet up to 1/2 the Kelly system for my personal account on trades whose percentage is 95% in my favor. This year I have done this 6 times. All of them went my way. I would expect to get hit at some point and so one way to minimize the inevitable loss is to sweep profits out of my account on a regular basis. That way when I do get hit on one of these trades the impact on my net worth will be less than 2%.

In other words, there is a way to do it if you simply act intelligently.

Steve

krazykarl · Jul 29, 2006

Quote from steve46:

Corey:

A trader taking that bet would be characterized as a "full Kelly" bettor. Currently I know of none still in this business although there could certainly be someone naive enough to do so.

For myself I will bet up to 1/2 the Kelly system for my personal account on trades whose percentage is 95% in my favor. This year I have done this 6 times. All of them went my way. I would expect to get hit at some point and so one way to minimize the inevitable loss is to sweep profits out of my account on a regular basis. That way when I do get hit on one of these trades the impact on my net worth will be less than 2%.

In other words, there is a way to do it if you simply act intelligently.

Steve

you toouched on an important point, and something that would have helped me up to this point greatly: sweeping gains from your account. such a newbie mistake to not do it. what % do you sweep and how often?