Quote from pairsarbtooo:
dude it wasn't "easy" back then. if this forum was up back then, you would hear talk of high commissions not covering trading costs (im pro proprietary but if you were retail and traded with mb trading it was nearly 18 bucks a trade for direct access) , amongst the other gripes of the day.
whenever markets are tough you see millions of these posts that its "over" for the individual trader. I am hoping this is still the same old thing seen each decade when markets get difficult to trade. im not sure, but there is generally nothing new about this cycle of tough market - lots of complaining.
Remember, 90% of all people in the markets still, after all of this time, have the strategy of buying and holding, those people are having a tough tough tough time whenever the market moves up and down or sideways...they take huge losses when they are on the wrong side and get eaten by fees when it's sideways.
the other thing to think about is...do you think all of these automated programs are making money? I mean, lets really look at this, the programs are programmed by humans, if you look at human trading, 90% of traders supposedly lose to 10% of traders and the brokers...soo...what makes you think the automation is somehow taking all the profit....i surmise MANY of the automated guys lose too.
i wonder how many automated guys override their system when it experiences a large drawdown? or when the markets get too volatile?
I have no data...but I think the automation might change trading, but it cannot change losers into winners. The market has always had a high percentage of losers compared to winners. I think that will probably always stay the same.