Why do so many even try....

Cheese · Nov 21, 2005

Quote from TWMPMM:
"This is a fact:
Speculation is the hardest business there is on the planet."

I've heard this SO many times and it still makes me laugh. MOST fail because MOST are either lazy, undercapitalized, or both. The failure statistic we hear so often: "95% fail...blah,blah,blah" is meaningless by itself. How many of that 95% worked hard and had enough equity to begin with? I'll bet VERY few.

True enough.

'Undercapitalized' however is not the real problem. An individual can work from tiny capital. It is failure of effort .. lazy, as you put it.

It requires complete and utter dedication to put together a ruthlessly effective trading model. And I'm saying that after the advantage of prior institutional experience in the business .. a floor trader, supervising and advising major futures accounts in NY & Ldn and running a commission house for an investment bank.

Truth is the huge opportunity is there only for the dedicated player who sets himself up to win in this game.

risktaker · Nov 21, 2005

I kind of agree with you on some things...the public is definetely in "love" with a lot of public corporations. There needs to be a *really* strong washout for this bullshit dead environment to come alive again.

Quote from rimshaker:

Anyone who has the nerve to say it's easy hasn't been around longer than 5-7 years, tops. Of all the great speculators who ever lived since the 1800's, not ONE has ever said this business was easy.

The public is too brash, too arrogant, just too many participating in the markets overall, no savings. I'm not a doom and gloomer, but it's been a long while since there was a "cleansing" of the system (2002 was merely chump change). You can almost feel it out there... hell, you can see it thru the VXO/VIX. It's like the public needs a goood bitch slap to humble themselves again.

coolweb · Nov 21, 2005

If you never try, you never know.

Know.

From one of my favorite quotes:

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt -

Cesko · Nov 21, 2005

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt - [/QUOTE]

Beautiful

40yotrader · Nov 21, 2005

I think you can make trading much harder than it is. When I tried discretionary trading I thought it was very hard. I consistently lost money on a simulator. When I switched to mechanical trading it became much easier. Of course I've only been trading live for a few years so there's still time for the great unknown disaster to strike. Trading for me has been much easier than my former career.

43yotrader

Cheese · Nov 21, 2005

Quote from coolweb:
If you never try, you never know.

Know.

From one of my favorite quotes:
"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt -

Agree .. absolutely.

risktaker · Nov 21, 2005

Weren't you contemplating opening a Subway sandwich shop a couple of years back?

Quote from 40yotrader:

I think you can make trading much harder than it is. When I tried discretionary trading I thought it was very hard. I consistently lost money on a simulator. When I switched to mechanical trading it became much easier. Of course I've only been trading live for a few years so there's still time for the great unknown disaster to strike. Trading for me has been much easier than my former career.

43yotrader

TWMPMM · Nov 21, 2005

"If you never try, you'll never know" - Coldplay (fix you)

40yotrader · Nov 21, 2005

Quote from risktaker:

Weren't you contemplating opening a Subway sandwich shop a couple of years back?

That was the backup plan if trading didn't work out. Fortunately there were no big differences going from paper trading to live.
So the Subway thing is somebody else's dream. You want chips with that footlong? lol

43yo

risktaker · Nov 21, 2005

Glad you stuck around. Yeah, a sandwich shop would make a boring life!

Quote from 40yotrader:

That was the backup plan if trading didn't work out. Fortunately there were no big differences going from paper trading to live.
So the Subway thing is somebody else's dream. You want chips with that footlong? lol

43yo