First, let me say that any money made in the markets can easily be lost back, so until someone takes money out of their Etrade account and spends it on something, I don't think they can truly say that they have made it.
That being said, onto my story... I've been trading for about 8 years now, and only recently have I found what I think works for me. ~500% returns in 2009, ~125% in 2010, ~60% YTD for 2011.
I spend alot of time trading, and doing research on the computer, and some of my friends knew that I traded, but not that I was successful. Initially, I think they figured that I was just like any other losing daytrader, wasting my time looking at stock stuff. Of course they had no idea that I had as much experience trading as I did, so I guess it would be reasonable that they thought i was losing.
Well, I guess this was a weakness of mine, but at some point I got somewhat annoyed at telling people who asked how I was doing, that I was doing "Ok", because I had never talked dollar amounts and I had heard through the grapevine that they had assumed I was just wasting my time. One of them asked me how I did one day, and I finally told one of them the truth, that I had lost ~70,000$ over the past 2 days, but that I had a trade that made me ~200,000$ a few weeks back.
I cautioned that person that part of my strategy may only work during bull markets, and that I could lose it all back at any time, but it was too late... the grapevine had started working overtime, and they all kept asking me about how "Gambler2075 is going to make me 1M$ when I give him 5,000$" or "Gambler2075 can just fix the goverment budget woes, just give him some money to trade".
At that point, people started asking me how to make more money with their money and people started really asking me to teach them to trade, at least several times a day. Eventually, I caved to the pressure and gave a 1 hour talk on my methods, which I figured would be over the heads of most people, who were non-traders. But I also wanted to make it cautionary, as a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.
Well, after that talk people began to realize that I have been a reasonably profitable trader. But I also noticed that people treated me differently. Even though I said that I paid well into the 6 figures from 2010 taxes, and that benefited everyone, I still got some jealous people.
Some people told me "You realize that you are not contributing anything to society by trading?" and I replied that my taxes were contributing to society" but they were still unconvinced.
Naturally, non-traders have no idea how many hours of work I have put into trading, well over 10,000, and just think that it is pushing buttons to buy or sell. I am reminded of Livermores response, when people asked them how to make some quick money in the stock market. Basically, he said that that was as ridiculous as going up to a lawyer or surgeon and asking how to make some quick money in law or surgery. The lawyer or surgeon would be offended that someone would think that they could just do that straight off the bat.
The next thing they do is ask you to manage their money, which I absolutely refuse to do, mostly because I trade my trading style because it is my money and I could afford to lose it. I would trade differently if I traded someone's retirement money.
So, in summary, it really changes how people interact with you... I have definitely noticed that people interact more 'cooly' with you, which I think stems from a thinly veiled jealousy of your success. I make it an effort to talk about my losses more, if they ask, because I think most people really want to hear about others losses, especially the ones that lost in the stock market.
One final tidbit: Some of my trades are multi-month swingtrades, and I did mention which stock it was specifically, during that presentation. I have noticed that the people that really keep you at arms length now that they know you are successful, are the one's that do not trade your recommendations. However, the ones that are now much nicer to you are the ones that did buy the position that I mentioned in my presentation.
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p.s. I also wanted to add that there are people who will ask you to teach them how to trade, and then, when you hold back, they will think you are hoarding your techniques for yourself. As anyone on ET knows, trading is much harder than it looks, and a new trader is almost guaranteed to fail and lose whatever money they put in it. Maybe they buy that penny stock that has already run up, or they buy AMRN at 17 or whatever... they will lose their money. And so, by NOT teaching your good friends how to trade, then you are basically doing them a favor, because you are keeping them from losing money. Yet they think you are just hogging your techniques for yourself. As I said earlier, it is an unintentional insult that non-traders think that you could teach them to trade in an hour... As Livermore says, the fact that they think trading is so simple is an insult to someone who has spent years scientifically studying stock speculation.
