LOL At Those Who Try To Get Rich Trading
- Thread starter Fundlord
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is making money what people really want? I bet it isn't. most people are looking for excitement or to be proven right or they've got money burning a hole in their pocket. it's not that hard to come up with simple breakout strategies that take advantage of the small trader's biggest advantage, ability to maneuver quickly.
That's an interesting point
(one good thing about these awful threads is that they can throw up interesting insights, even if by accident)
I've often though that trading properly for most people should be incredibly dull (following a rigorous mechanical system for a start), and involve doing things that most people find very painful, like taking lot's of small losses. Which is why if you're trading to get excitement, and to get frequent feelings of validation (taking lots of small profits), you're probably not going to do so well. If that is the reason most people get into trading... well it's no wonder they don't succeed.
GAT
I agree. The point of this thread is unclear to me. That being said, I'm fairly sure the point is not constructive. I'm in my early 20's and have been helping and receiving help from people on this site sporadically for over a year. I don't trade; I probably won't for at least a year or more. I didn't get on this site to further my delusions of buying a private plane, I did it to learn about the business of trading.
What the OP seems to believe is that it's easier to strike it rich as a business owner than as a retail trader, my replies to that idea are:
1. Whatever you're doing, if you're doing it to become rich, you've basically already lost. You gotta show up because you want to be there. Perhaps my single greatest failure and success before coming to college was my junior hockey career. I never really had any delusions of making the NHL, but I loved hockey and I just wanted to do it. Long story short, I didn't make the NHL obviously, but when I turn on the TV, I see my former teammates and I'm now captain of my college's club team, which has been the highlight of my college career socially and--although it's the last bullet on my resume--comes up without fail in job interviews. I can also tell you that I would've never had the discipline or maturity necessary to get into or succeed at this school without playing hockey, but if at any point I would've quit because I didn't see a yacht in my future, I would've missed a defining life experience. Your 20s should be full of defining experiences. Maybe being a discretionary day trader is indeed pretty much doomed to fail and maybe it builds less character than competitive sports, but don't sit here and try to deprive people of their curiosities. It's only 10K to a 20-something. It's not like they have a mortgage or won't make it back over their lifetime. Even though I don't trade, I don't value the OP projecting his experience of retail trading being doomed to fail onto others.
2. I take issue with this idea of building a business as a path to millions that's somehow easier. I'm not gonna cite the hard work of business people I know who have been successful such as my father, but I am going to cite the reason he would never give me any money to trade. You'll never succeed if you don't treat trading like a business. I'm not gonna bore you with my whole "arc," but I'll say that I've spent a respectable starting account balance worth of internship money on historical data, majored in Math & Statistics, and interned as a software engineer in order to get an opportunity to trade professionally. I wanted to make trading my business, so I expended the effort to do so. Oh, my dad still wouldn't give me any money either....a hard MAYBE five years from now if I've demonstrated success as a professional trader. Just opening up an account and learning technical analysis is not consistent with the effort necessary to conduct the business of trading. You aren't going to be successful in any venture unless you put in the effort, and in the case of the failed 20-something trader, there may still be time to do so if you're disciplined enough to do what it takes to break into the industry or become successful as a retail trader.
Tough love here OP, if you were really serious about trading as a business, you'd be thanking the 10-12 actual professionals here for their contributions on threads you started with actual questions, not "LOLling" at the average member of this forum. Your choices are 'get serious' or 'stay stuck.'
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Fundlord: any idea of how many young boys train and try a football career?
what do you think is the proportion among these young pro who make it in a first league of any nation? 1%? 0.1%, 0.01%? Is it foolish for them to give it a try ( where they get to learn extremely valuable "beliefs" - resilience, ... - that are very often prized ) ? Trading has similarities with sport athlete champion.
Now fundlord: how is your trading doing?
what do you think is the proportion among these young pro who make it in a first league of any nation? 1%? 0.1%, 0.01%? Is it foolish for them to give it a try ( where they get to learn extremely valuable "beliefs" - resilience, ... - that are very often prized ) ? Trading has similarities with sport athlete champion.
Now fundlord: how is your trading doing?
This thread is by not meant to be offensive to anyone.
I am not knocking the traders who make a decent return with decent capital and compound their net worth or make a good income but those who try to make 500% per year and expect not to lose everything.
Its not a worthy investment of your time if your goal is to become wealthy. You would need a series of very asymmetrical bets in trading to be wealthy. Risking 10% to make 200-1000% etc returns found in CDS and black swan option plays. Trying to make 500% per year with symmetrical bets your bound to have a 100% drawdown before you reach 500% by chance.
Im in college and some classmates think they are going to make millions trading with "game theory fk maths/stats"
I am not knocking the traders who make a decent return with decent capital and compound their net worth or make a good income but those who try to make 500% per year and expect not to lose everything.
Its not a worthy investment of your time if your goal is to become wealthy. You would need a series of very asymmetrical bets in trading to be wealthy. Risking 10% to make 200-1000% etc returns found in CDS and black swan option plays. Trying to make 500% per year with symmetrical bets your bound to have a 100% drawdown before you reach 500% by chance.
Im in college and some classmates think they are going to make millions trading with "game theory fk maths/stats"
Im deeply biased here obviously, but my sentiment is these kids [me] are on the right track. I know a number of them myself. The unfortunate part is that actually implementing any of this stuff in a meaningful way is much more difficult than they seem to understand.
Fundlord,
I disagree with your point of view, as I believe in "human development".
From un-"othodox" money making activities, this is what I have seen:
* one guy was convinced he could make serious good returns in poker.
He actually went to do some PhD and posdocs in math related stuff, all aimed
for his goal. Effectively he has excellent returns in poker.
* one fellow, inspite of huge "adverse circumstances", can return 200%-300%
in trading because the person has been dreaming big, and thus trying methods
to do big. Now, it is all about ironing out all the "barriers" the person has
and I would not be surprised that in few years time, emerges to the limelight
one of the greatest traders of our times. Was the person foolish to go and
find out ways to hit it big?
* one other fellow, spent time studying "lottery systems", even taking
some math & physics degrees at a later time. I think now he is looking
for a team of 300 to win the huge lottery draws ( aka more than 500millions
one). Is he foolish?
What I am saying is: it is best to encourage people to find the resources to reach
their goals, that means presenting the barriers-problems-"resistances", instead
of saying "it can't be done". There was a time where it was believed to be foolish
to invest all of one's fortune into building a flying machine.
It is a psychological attitude to say "it can be done", and another one to
say "we can't get past this impossibility". These two attitudes are totally
opposite.
I disagree with your point of view, as I believe in "human development".
From un-"othodox" money making activities, this is what I have seen:
* one guy was convinced he could make serious good returns in poker.
He actually went to do some PhD and posdocs in math related stuff, all aimed
for his goal. Effectively he has excellent returns in poker.
* one fellow, inspite of huge "adverse circumstances", can return 200%-300%
in trading because the person has been dreaming big, and thus trying methods
to do big. Now, it is all about ironing out all the "barriers" the person has
and I would not be surprised that in few years time, emerges to the limelight
one of the greatest traders of our times. Was the person foolish to go and
find out ways to hit it big?
* one other fellow, spent time studying "lottery systems", even taking
some math & physics degrees at a later time. I think now he is looking
for a team of 300 to win the huge lottery draws ( aka more than 500millions
one). Is he foolish?
What I am saying is: it is best to encourage people to find the resources to reach
their goals, that means presenting the barriers-problems-"resistances", instead
of saying "it can't be done". There was a time where it was believed to be foolish
to invest all of one's fortune into building a flying machine.
It is a psychological attitude to say "it can be done", and another one to
say "we can't get past this impossibility". These two attitudes are totally
opposite.
Options is not like playing blackjack or betting on a spin of the roulette wheel...it's not a completely all or nothing bet. there's alot of wiggle room to be creative. US options are more creative and loose...European options can only be exercised at expiration, if I understand it correctly. I think you are paper trading/learning on half-truths.
I'm not saying making 500% is easy, but it is not that impossible or astronomically rare as some may think it is. It's just a matter of playing/trading in the right arena, with the right strategy, and risk appetite.
If you can't make money with a $1,000 trading account...then it won't make a bit of difference if you have a 10,000 or 100,000 or a 1,000,000 trading account -- you just suck at trading, and need to do something else.
...Just sayin
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Options is not like playing blackjack or betting on a spin of the roulette wheel...it's not a completely all or nothing bet. there's alot of wiggle room to be creative.
If you can't make money with a $1,000 trading account...then it won't make a bit of difference if you have a 10,000 or 100,000 or a 1,000,000 trading account -- you just suck at trading, and need to do something else.
I have made money trading and most likely will again when I fund my account again. But some guy with 10k is not going to make a living without taking enormous risks levered to the hilt.
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