majority traders really lose money??
- Thread starter ttowntrader
- Start date
Why are you even here man, you are so negative about the trading business, I cant for the life of me understand what you are doing here.
The people who make the blanket statement that "XX% of traders fail" are full of shit. There's no way to know how many traders fail. I blew out my account after my first 8 months and had to stop. So does that mean I failed? No, I was back at it a few months later. So does that mean I'm in that elite % of profitable traders? No, I had to close my account out to pay for emergency expenses. So does that mean I failed? On and on, get my point?
The NASD published some of it's findings of some of the daytrading firms that went bust back during the tech boom. The wording of the findings were so twisted that it could have been interpreted many different ways, but they showed at one firm only two traders made money the whole time the firm was in business. I posted it on this board once before, but I'm not going to go through the trouble of finding it again. It's somewhere in my post history in a similar thread.
Here's my rough criteria for determining success or failure, take it or leave it, and it's open to revision. If you can put together a calendar year of trading, that is January to December, and you have a capital gain at the end of it, you are profitable. I don't care if you did 75,000 trades or 1 trade. In the last 12 years I've learned that it's very difficult to book a profitable year. Even after I put together a string of them, I ended up getting humbled. I've traded both ends of activity, from hyper active to long term. I finally started booking black years when I started trading longer term, and that's what worked for me. Obviously, that's not what works for everybody.
One other note - notice who some of the people are who constantly proclaim that 90% of traders fail. Do they have a service to sell you that will put you in the profitable 10%?
The NASD published some of it's findings of some of the daytrading firms that went bust back during the tech boom. The wording of the findings were so twisted that it could have been interpreted many different ways, but they showed at one firm only two traders made money the whole time the firm was in business. I posted it on this board once before, but I'm not going to go through the trouble of finding it again. It's somewhere in my post history in a similar thread.
Here's my rough criteria for determining success or failure, take it or leave it, and it's open to revision. If you can put together a calendar year of trading, that is January to December, and you have a capital gain at the end of it, you are profitable. I don't care if you did 75,000 trades or 1 trade. In the last 12 years I've learned that it's very difficult to book a profitable year. Even after I put together a string of them, I ended up getting humbled. I've traded both ends of activity, from hyper active to long term. I finally started booking black years when I started trading longer term, and that's what worked for me. Obviously, that's not what works for everybody.
One other note - notice who some of the people are who constantly proclaim that 90% of traders fail. Do they have a service to sell you that will put you in the profitable 10%?
No! In fact I think most traders actually make money, they just don't make very much. Certainly not enough to justify all the time, effort, and risk that goes into it. In the end it's just another job and if I'm averaging a 100 bucks a day trading, while missing the opportunity to make 3-4 times that in some other profession the choice becomes pretty clear, even to stubborn old fools like me.
To each their own, and hats off to those that can actually turn a good buck year after year.
To each their own, and hats off to those that can actually turn a good buck year after year.
Interesting.... Can you tell us more? Is this of the likes of E-Trade and Scottrade?
I have a few family members in the brokerage business, both equities and futures. They say 90% of equity day traders lose money and 95% of futures players lose money. The good news for them is these people more often than not reload their accounts until they tap out and there are always new people coming into the market who think they are smarter than the next guy. There always seems to be new sheep money for brokers to sustain their livelihood.
"Where Are All the Customers Yachts?"
roflmfao. The game never changes despite the quantum leaps in technology, books, seminars, gurus and self-help coaches.
"Where Are All the Customers Yachts?"
roflmfao. The game never changes despite the quantum leaps in technology, books, seminars, gurus and self-help coaches.
I don't know. I read about it in a trading magazine. I have also read about a study once that came from robert green of green trader tax service who do quite a few tax returns for traders but I can't recall what the exact numbers were from it. My problem with the stats are when they say that 90% lose. Who are they calling a trader ? Everyone who has a retail account ?
Green told me 90+% of the retail traders he audits lose money.
Volente,
I quoted from the Green study in a thread I started here about 2 years ago. I know it's here somewhere.