Trading is a Giant Scam!

Quote from Steve Tvardek:

You just havent learned the game yet, it takes lots of time and persistance. The ability to keep trying and failing and trying and failing before you figure out how things work (and you dont have to blow through many thousands either). Trading isnt easy, its not a get rich quick scheme. It takes months and years of tinkering and observation and "testing the waters" before things make sense.

Starting a thread like this just shows ignorance and frustration. There are many people on this site and people I know in real life who make great livings trading the mkts every single day. Just b/c you havent done it or know of people who have, doesnt mean they dont exist.


Well said...
 
Where are his underwear? :D

I think the percentage of people who go bust trading is about the same as any start-up business (about 90% supposedly). Winners take money from losers - it's the way of the world.
 
Dude, if you had taken those $100,000 ten, twenty, thirty or forty years ago and bought a few houses on the West or East coast you'd have at LEAST 10 times as much. Forget this bullshit backtesting garbage. It's really for amateurs $ dreaming and looking at the past and most likely with no $ to trade/invest.


Quote from Hook N. Sinker:

I wonder if you have any test data that shows your trading method produces profitable results.

A tool does not have to correctly predict the future to be useful.

A mousetrap

<img src=http://www.showcatsonline.com/images/mousetrap.jpg \img>

1) does not predict the future, and
2) sometimes catches a mouse.

===

Following are the results of a trading simulation using 37.52 years of weekly historic price data for Altria Group Inc. stock symbol MO. This method buys at the following trading session open if the weekly closing price is greater than the 40 week exponential moving average value, and sells if the weekly closing price is less than the 40 week exponential moving average value. This model simulates trading long positions only.

Number of trades 45
Total profit $ 668036
Profit after subtracting $ 10.00 commission, slippage per transaction: $ 667136
Heat is 7.00 per cent of equity.
Greatest drawdown is 0.0599 (5.99 per cent).
Cumulative Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) is 17.78 per cent.
Initial capital is $ 100000

Growth rate is about 18 % per year, greatest losing streak is about 6 %.
 
Cant speak for Steve, BnB but it took me:

19 years and 3 blow outs, taking crappy jobs at night and on the weekends, so I could have my days free to train. Blank stares and derision from relatives, friends, and strangers when they asked what I did. Purchase of more snake-oil than I thought I'd ever fall for, "guru" worship, seminar attendance, more trading software than could be fit on 10 hard drives. On and on.

And alot, ALOT of fun.

Because NONE of that compares to the pure hell that is the majorities "stable" 9-5 life you mention as they slowly inch along the freeway in their metal coffins to a dead end job that Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton will sell off to China or India anyways to pay for their kids Gulfstream 5 as they collect $125k/hr on the after presidency lecture tour.

I dont know you and have no idea how long you've been trading. Dont want to know. But I know this, there is no way you can successfully trade(ie says trader/investor on your 1040 form under occupation) unless you have suffered. Maybe you have not suffered enough yet? Or maybe you have. And trading is not for you. Doesnt make you a bad person.

This has nothing to do with brains, desire, or even balls.

It is just a pure grind. Trading is the last bastion of civilized brutality left. The purest legal one anyways.

Greater the risk, the greater the reward. If everyone could trade, who would work? No political correctness here. Look at the heavyweights. Niederhoffer, John Henry et al. We are all just one trade away from humiliating ruin. If we allow it.


Would you really trust a dentist with 6 months experience?

Not likely.

How bout the surgeon cutting open your heart?

Only in trading can you be sold the idea that in 6 months you too can own Chicago and New York. Then just for kicks you can surf the financial waves of London, Frankfurt, and Hong Kong.

Just trading a handful of stocks is a 80 hr week proposition. Never mind Hang Seng Futures.


Trading is NOT a scam. It is a reminder to be ever vigilant in creating your destiny rather than crave surety in a world that gives none.

Dont quit. Find what works and drive that blade to its hilt.


Quote from Bullz n Bearz:

Hey Steve, how's everything?

I agree, maybe there is some frustration in me, but I am so damn determined to learn the markets and make my living off them.. I trade commodity futures(mini euro and mini crude) and I have great days, but today the market is just going against my anticipations. Would you share some of your experiences on this thread to let others and I included know how you got exactly to where you are today? cheers
 
Quote from trend_guy:

<b>"Just trading a handful of stocks is a 80 hr week proposition. Never mind Hang Seng Futures.</b>

Truer words never spoken.

80? I think that's a bit extreme. 8:30-6:30 should be more than enough time for research, strategizing, and review... that's 50 hours...

How are you able to usefully fill 80 hours of your week with stock trading related work? What is your daily grind like?
 
You could count the number of millionaires that made it legally and morally on your left nut.. trading's not so bad
 
Quote from Bullz n Bearz:

Guys, I have to be honest here. I don't think trading is a lucrative business and here is why most people lose at trading.

The markets ARE very random and they cannot be predicted. Nobody knows who is buying what and when so you are working off what data is given to you.

I can tell you so many people on ET have probably lost their entire savings trying to make big money in the markets to only soon find all their money given back. Sad it is, but that is the nature of the markets.

Spydertrader makes you think he knows what he's talking about, but he himself and old man Hershey cannot guarantee you the success like they like to make you try and think.

So, for anyone that is new in the markets, I would just suggest give it up and try something else like working a regular 9-5 job. They are 9-5 fixed income for a reason. Stability.

Markets =unstable

Nobody can win the markets. Nobody

http://www.moneychimp.com/articles/risk/sharpe_ratio.htm
 
I don't know anything about your trading situation but from your comments you are probably trading too hot, meaning too much risk in your portfolio, big drawdown, heat, etc. It is pretty easy to blow out of an account <100K if you are leveraged like in futures, options. The correct use of leverage is not discussed very much; the sharpe ratio has its critics as the factors such as standard deviation can only be known historically, but it is a good starting point to understand risk. Good luck with your trading/investing.
 
Quote from FXTraderWill:

80? I think that's a bit extreme. 8:30-6:30 should be more than enough time for research, strategizing, and review... that's 50 hours...

How are you able to usefully fill 80 hours of your week with stock trading related work? What is your daily grind like?

I'm always around it... I will go golfing or run errands, or do other stuff but I'm all over it the majority of each day... I've never counted the hours but I can't even begin to tell you how many nights I've been up til 3am looking at charts, researching, reading etc.
 
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