My over 6-year trading experience in a nutshell

Quote from slumdog:

Slippage and commission costs tend to get covered up in high volatility high profitability markets. But when the markets aren't so rich for the picking you wonder why you are spinning your wheels and getting nowhere, and slippage and commissions tends to be reason.

An even bigger career killer than slippage and commission is living costs. A guy with a family and mortgage needs to make what at least 50K to get by, more or less, depending on lifestyle.

Once you factor in living costs, commissions, slippage and spread, a trader needs to make around 100k a year just to keep the account balance flat for the year. And the tax man wants his share too.


A tough game to be in.
 
Quote from Dustin:

To some extent the same competition existed when Asia blew up in 97, ltcm in 98, the boom in 99 to 2000, the crash in 2001, the quant volatility in 07, the collapse in 2008, and the knight blow up last year. There were massive edges during these events, and there are small edges available every day still. As professional traders we live for the high volatility events, and just try to make a living the rest of the time.

But that not the edge the retail traders are looking for , i will tell you what i consider an edge : if you have billions then you have edge , if your servers are nearer to the exchange to get the flow faster and to front run you have an edge , if you are an insider then you have an edge , looking at the charts to predict whats gonna happen is not an edge , the market is very efficient , if a certain setup is going to make money for sure then algos and everyone will jump in to take advantage which will make this setup obsolete immediately , so to say there is an edge in market profile or TA ... etc is counterproductive !
 
A marketmaker has an edge , instead of paying 0.25 they get 0.25 , but they have to fight for it take risk manage their books pay money wait for the flow ... etc just to make the spread ! lol
 
Quote from Surprise:

But that not the edge the retail traders are looking for , i will tell you what i consider an edge : if you have billions then you have edge , if your servers are nearer to the exchange to get the flow faster and to front run you have an edge , if you are an insider then you have an edge , looking at the charts to predict whats gonna happen is not an edge , the market is very efficient , if a certain setup is going to make money for sure then algos and everyone will jump in to take advantage which will make this setup obsolete immediately , so to say there is an edge in market profile or TA ... etc is counterproductive !


I agree in general, but let's try to go through this in a logical manner, i'll start with this question.

Q) Is profitability possible using the basic market data? (exchange traded products only for now)

By this i mean charts, T&S, LEV2, DOM.
 
Quote from burt_schroder:

I agree in general, but let's try to go through this in a logical manner, i'll start with this question.

Q) Is profitability possible using the basic market data? (exchange traded products only for now)

By this i mean charts, T&S, LEV2, DOM.

yes and even without it , it is one of the tools for you as a warrior .....
 
Quote from Surprise:

yes and even without it , it is one of the tools for you as a warrior .....


I think it's safe to say that profitability is possible using basic market data.

Q) Why is there a variance in how individuals mentally compute/process the basic market data?
 
Quote from burt_schroder:

I think it's safe to say that profitability is possible using basic market data.

Q) Why is there a variance in how individuals mentally compute/process the basic market data?

But your question is not right , there is no variances , 90-95% lose overtime , so the normal is to lose ! why ? because you pay spread and slippage and because of your limited financial abilities plus the emotional side so it is the normal to lose and that's what the data shows 90% or 95% or whatever lose . So lets go back to what i've said if you are well capitalized you may make it , if you are emotionless because again you are wealthy and you have other sources of income ... etc then you may make it , if you earn the spread instead of paying it ( pit traders/MM ) you may make it , if you have the 3 you may make it . If you cheat ( insider , libor scandal ) you may make it . Thats why many hedge fund managers make it , first because they are well capitalized , so if they made 20% annually they will live the best life , second because of what they spend on data , information , traders ... etc .
 
Quote from Surprise:

But that not the edge the retail traders are looking for , i will tell you what i consider an edge : if you have billions then you have edge , if your servers are nearer to the exchange to get the flow faster and to front run you have an edge , if you are an insider then you have an edge , looking at the charts to predict whats gonna happen is not an edge , the market is very efficient , if a certain setup is going to make money for sure then algos and everyone will jump in to take advantage which will make this setup obsolete immediately , so to say there is an edge in market profile or TA ... etc is counterproductive !

You didn't read or understand his post, short term asymmetric volatility expansion can be traded by most traders, you don't need a billion or have a Gb link directly into the exchange.
 
Quote from mark_mm:

You didn't read or understand his post, short term asymmetric volatility expansion can be traded by most traders, you don't need a billion or have a Gb link directly into the exchange.

You didn't get my posts then , i didn't say u need this to make money , i just gave an example of what can be considered an edge , i am discussing the edge aspect and how there is no such thing as an edge to exploit as a retail trader ....
 
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