Quote from traderNik:
Disagree strongly. Trading isn't gone from anyone who has the determination and the desire combined with the aptitude. That's not everyone, I admit, but you won't know until you try. Professional basketball might be gone for you. I am very surprised to see this comment coming from Jack Hershey!
You got good advice here. Just don't put $50K in an account and try to start scalping. Start slow, swing trade, get a feel, lose small when you lose, analyze your trades, come back with a better plan, and repeat.
I respect your viewpoint. You mention his determination. I feel that he is captive to the environment he read about. My view is that he could have mentioned a lot more in terms of tangible influences. A lot of top B schools use pragmatic case studies and no stone is left unturned. I do not see determination.
His desire did not manifest in his portfolios. Why no position trading in them? "Feeling" markets just isn't there.
Aptitude is not an important thing to me. Trading and the market's operation is a crude thing at best. I looked at children of wealthy people in very priviledged situations for ten years (Greenwich, Switzerland and Philly); making money in markets is an automatic for the whole spectrum. They could operate a full S&P service in the classroom daily with no coaching after the intial ramp up. Today the PC makes averything totally possible although several platforms feeds are still required.
This guy would have the aptitude just like everyone else.
So what closed the door after this person made the effort that he did for 7 years. Nothing rubbed off at all and he acquired beliefs that are insurmountable to overcome by trying.
A sixth former who is trading, is there at the crack of dawn, not after hours and after work. When the bundle of WSJ's hit the parking area, they were sliced and diced before anything else every day. Motivation to read and have a library is a mild non inspiring non hands on non event oriented milk toasty thing. On the other hand these kids charted daily and had a wall of annual reports arranged alphabetically and all the "news" was clipped and chroned for the FA part of making money. Back plotting was an automatic and rapid charting exercise and everyone knew who had what caharts since they did it cooperatively. I know this guy has a PC and resourses available up the yin yang, but he is passive.
So why no mention of plans to learn and a business plan canned and revised about 10 times? He only knows in terms of his family plan but not in terms of his "potential job". nada and he is Bschool oriented. This is a very low pressure zone like a vacuum.
He built something over 7 years and it closed the door, in my opinion
Bighog is going to retire in 375 days (18 months). He only has about 8 doublings of capital left, based on his stated relative performances. Others suggest this guy proceed. This guy, on the otherhand, only has a few years (5 to 8) reserves to begin like bighog did; flushing 200 to 300K down the drain. Now at 37, in 10 years from now, he will be a dilletante at best and have no end in sight like bighog does. Bighog is going to pick up and hit the developing nations beaches; this guy is socially established on the other hand and will want to retain a lifestyle. I think the door is closed on that.
