Quote from Ephstrader:
I have been a professional trader for the past 7 years trading predominately Nasdaq stocks. My p/l has gone up 20-40% a year from about $30k a year to my peak in 2008 at about $200k. Life was good...until 2009. Last year I made about $20k. I wish that were a typo but it isn't.
Obviously my confidence, size and risk tolerance have been profoundly effected by my performance. I have kept my head down and slogged forward hoping something would break right but I have felt 1-5 steps behind the curve consistently. I feel the only thing that can explain this is a systemic change in the way the markets trade making my techniques less profitable or obsolete.
Has anyone else noticed this out there? I'm not sure what I can do. Obviously I am broken, not the market and I'm not looking for a silver bullet. I just wanted to see "what it's like out there" and determine if something has changed in the market, if my strategies no longer work, or it's all in my head.....