Quote from Pekelo:
Just a few possible reasons:
1. Helps him to keep focused.
2. Helps him not to get bored, companionship.
3. Good for his ego.
4. Extra income. (always good)
5. Extra income because he can't scale up for various reasons. (specially good)
6. He actually likes to teach.
7. It actually helps his system if more people take the same position at the same time.
8. He wants to leave a legacy.
9. He likes to help others, but why should he do it for free? Also, most people don't appreciate/recognize value for free....
10.etc.etc.etc. blah-blah-blah
Yup... agreed 100% to all that plus the blah-blah-blah
I'm 44yrs old/young. However said, it's relative to whether you are younger or older than that. Twenty years ago you might have almost interested me in the massive effort = grind it requires to make the highest echelons of trader performance. But today? No thanks. If you told me I could make $10mil in five years, but that would require living in NYC, Chi or any big city, I'd refuse without a second thought.
Blasphemy, you say? Hell no. I'm old = wise enough to know my limitations. Working prop in a big city with high-pressure job and lifestyle not suited for me ain't worth it, at all.
I'm capable of trading most anything, but greatly prefer the Russell 2000 futures (TF). It is scalable to a high enough degree for any retail trader. You can turn 5, 10 and even 20 contracts most of the time with acceptable slippage and complete fills. Might take some scaled-in entries to fill all 10 or 20, but it's doable.
Now say you can average +2pts daily over a long period of time. That's +40pts TF monthly. On 10-lot it is $40,000 and on 20-lot it is $80,000
Either of those scenarios would be fine with 99% of the people who ever clicked into this forum from day one. Half that much, even 1/10th that much would be acceptable to 90% of the populace who ever wandered thru. Matter of fact, it's perfectly fine by me.
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Your former boss who ran the prop firm did not have that burning fire inside to do what his buddies did. For whatever reason(s) he just wasn't interested in leaping a bar set that high. Neither am I, neither are many if not most other traders. Here's a living example of what I mean:
My girlfriend's youngest son Dylan is nearly 16yrs old. From the time he began to walk, fishing has been his primary passion. Now I've been an avid fisherman all my life, have forgotten more about fishing than most people will ever know. I've caught more fish in more ways in more places than most people alive. But I don't have one iota the consumptive drive for fishing that Dylan has.
Matter of fact, right now he's taking my truck to a stretch of trout stream behind the house filled with trophy rainbow trout. It's all he has thought about since this time yesterday when he discovered that pool filled with lunkers.
Dylan aspires to being a pro-bass circuit fisherman someday. He has the internal drive to do that. But not many people do... even those who otherwise love to fish and are damn good at it.
