I'm 21 years old, couldn't enter University, planning to trade full-time.

[wrbtrader]

Are you talking about trading in general or just day trading? My understanding from master day trading salesmen is that day trading the ES futures or FOREX for a decade has a higher probability of guaranteeing an increasing equity curve than say, swing or position trading biotech stocks, due to stable and predictable pattern repetition over time. I guess you're suggesting price is random or dependent on inside knowledge, which would explain the 10 years of 10% equity returns weeding out most all traders.

I highly recommend you backtest the method and simulate trade the method. The results will give you a much better picture about the reality versus someone's word. Thus, compare your backtest/simulator results of the Emini ES futures versus Forex versus biotech stocks versus any other trading instrument...day trading, swing trading or position trading.

The purpose is that you may be surprise to find out you would be a better trader in another market instead of trading the Emini ES futures considering I'm sure you're talking about discretionary trading.

Yet, if you're talking about automation or something that's more in the realm of scientific application that can be quantifiable...if someone shares with you their program/code that shows trading Emini ES futures is superior...use the code to backtest it and simulator to see if such is true.

Traders that don't backtest something after learning it and then ignore simulate trading it on their own instead of taking someone's word...they will just get stuck in a vicious circle of that "does it work or does it not work"...wasting time, energy and money.

You as a discretionary trader should already know you will trade a method differently than another trader because of the psychological issues and other things most traders are unwilling to discuss. Therefore, its your responsibility to backtest and then simulate trade the method prior to application with real money because your results will be different than the results of another discretionary trader.

That's the reality of discretionary trading and something the OP of this thread will one day learn about after he reaches his goal in many years of 100k trading capital.

 

[EPrado]

This chimes with me. My experience of prop firms is the best traders are almost silent and never share secret sauce.

Yep. Over the years the best ones I have been around are very down to earth and don't go blabbing around about how they do. Some have been open to sharing their approach, but more of them worked very hard to get where they got, so were pretty quiet about what they did. Depended on who approached them.

 

[londonkid]

Yep. Over the years the best ones I have been around are very down to earth and don't go blabbing around about how they do. Some have been open to sharing their approach, but more of them worked very hard to get where they got, so were pretty quiet about what they did. Depended on who approached them.

exactomundo. the guys who have worked hard and worked out that stealthy correlation in some complex spread etc. are not going to give away any secret sauce. As you say if someone they like or chime with asks for help they may feed some crumbs to see how that person reacts. If anything they will monitor what you do with that info knowing that it is not that valuable on it's own, if you blab it then you can kiss goodbye any further help. A lot of these successful traders I see are very detached even if openly friendly and they are very good at monitoring everything, literally everything, markets, people, behaviour. Above all they know when conditions are not right and they trade very light or not at all during these times as they know their edge is reduced. When conditions are right they are first in and last out the office, never celebrating. I wish I was one of them but I am not lol.

 

[EPrado]

exactomundo. the guys who have worked hard and worked out that stealthy correlation in some complex spread etc. are not going to give away any secret sauce. As you say if someone they like or chime with asks for help they may feed some crumbs to see how that person reacts. If anything they will monitor what you do with that info knowing that it is not that valuable on it's own, if you blab it then you can kiss goodbye any further help. A lot of these successful traders I see are very detached even if openly friendly and they are very good at monitoring everything, literally everything, markets, people, behaviour. Above all they know when conditions are not right and they trade very light or not at all during these times as they know their edge is reduced. When conditions are right they are first in and last out the office, never celebrating. I wish I was one of them but I am not lol.

Agree 100%. One of the guys I was lucky enough to trade by for a bit was exactly like this. If you watched him and the 10 guys on the desk for a day or two you would not guess which one was by far the most successful. The guy is a legend in the futures game now. But....was always very approachable and would show guys the ropes, but not babysit them. Also during the dead hours(lunchtime) or shortened sessions (like today) he would not be trading at all. Would be in the break room playing pool or out grabbing lunch.

He actually originated form your area of the world.

 

[Q3D]

"Don (Miller) is an intraday S&P E-Mini Trader who has educated traders and advocated for industry transparency since 1999. Long-term performance of his privately traded fund exceeded 800% from its 2004 inception to 2010, including a 2008 performance of +214% +$1.6 Million"

 

[Magna]

OK boyz 'n girlz, the last few days of this thread have been cleaned up eliminating the little mano a mano we had going on. Let's keep the personal-attack nonsense out of here and stay on topic or move on to somewhere else. Thanks.

 

[VIXTrader]

Are you talking about trading in general or just day trading? My understanding from master day trading salesmen is that day trading the ES futures or FOREX for a decade has a higher probability of guaranteeing an increasing equity curve than say, swing or position trading biotech stocks, due to stable and predictable pattern repetition over time. I guess you're suggesting price is random or dependent on inside knowledge, which would explain the 10 years of 10% equity returns weeding out most all traders.

In general, not true. All trading styles are roughly equal in how difficult it is to achieve the kind of long term success I was referring to. So whether you're value investing with stocks, whether you're trading es futures, whether you're derivatives trading, it's all roughly the same expectation of long-term returns.

If there was a higher probability of success in one area as opposed to another, basic game theory would kick in and all the worlds best traders would shuffle into that area and homogenize the returns back to a normal amount. That's how trading works. That's why hedge funds suck for the last 15 years. They used to be good, but throw on a decade of game theory and returns go right back down to buy and hold levels.

There are only short term opportunities in certain areas that quickly get closed by open and free competition. Personally I'm an option trader so my expertise is not in es futures, but I hang out with very successful traders of all backgrounds and I've not noticed any major difference in the levels of returns between different methods.

10% a year for 10 years is good no matter what you're trading.
20% a year for 20 years is off the charts no matter what you're trading.

* of course I'm talking about with low standard deviations year to year. Anybody can have a 200% or 1000% year that skews all annualized results forever going forward. I'm talking about long-term consistency from year to year, that's what's hard.

 

[Trader22]

recently there have been a flood of 21 years olds here with questionable abilities but all want to become traders, and all asking public's opinion

if u want to try to be a trader try to be a trader - do not ask questions here or anywhere

chances are very slim, but you never know

I agree, I'm 19. Gotta learn and grind it out on your own. Wanting to be a successful trader and actually becoming one is incredibly difficult. I'm sure he'll figure that out rather quickly on account blow up number 1.

 

[Trader22]

In a typical bullish year, S&P averages about 10% annually. Do you truly think you, as an amateur trader, can beat the index by 3 fold? You need to be humble or the market will humble you in the end.

You seriously think getting 30% a year trading is not possible? Haha

 

[Trader22]

Dan Zanger managed to get 23000% return on his investment in 2 years. Why not?

Master trading the chart and anything is possible. don't listen to the clowns who say anything above a certain percentage isn't possible.