ha ! so here we go
But it was not so easy to achieve not because my quasi-target was wrong. It was not easy due to absence of necessary skill.
Why do traders fail?
- Thread starter Tradester123
- Start date
But it was not so easy to achieve not because my quasi-target was wrong. It was not easy due to absence of necessary skill.
so what you were hoping for was not so easy to achieve , but you did not target something probably easy to achieve - I would have prefer so easy that any "idiot" ( in a good way) can do it with a bit of experience.
I would say without a basic skill it was equally unlikely to break-even or make any profits. So it's a matter of skill. Always. Not targets.
P. S. Nap time for me.
OK. Done for me as well.
Let's say that it is usually easier to trade to an easy yearly target,
than to trade to a target one perceives as hard to achieve.
Let's say that it is usually easier to trade to an easy yearly target,
than to trade to a target one perceives as hard to achieve.
May be just for a change, you MIGHT want to target just one tick for one full year.
Here is another interesting research paper small traders just lose:
Do Day Traders Rationally Learn About Their Ability?
http://www.usc.edu/schools/business/FBE/seminars/papers/F_12-9-11_ODEANpaper.pdf
80% of small traders lose within 2yrs while the remaining 19% lose after 2 years.
Only 1 % makes money day trading.
More than 90% of small traders lose! They just lose!
Small traders used algorithmic believing emotion control (losers), while professional successful higher educated traders used algorithmic for the speed.
Big Difference
More than 90% of small traders lose! They just lose!
You could say the same thing about poker players - 90% lose. However there is no correlation between higher education and success at poker (or trading).
If I had to wager I would guess that a lot of the retail traders who fail have similar characteristics. They likely don't have a trading plan or don't follow their plan. They likely use poor money management techniques. They likely blame things outside of their control for their results.
If I had to wager I would guess that a lot of the retail traders who fail have similar characteristics. They likely don't have a trading plan or don't follow their plan. They likely use poor money management techniques. They likely blame things outside of their control for their results.
The higher education angle is interesting. Reminds me of when, toward the end of engineering school, we all were wondering why we needed to be able to calculate the full navier stokes equation for textbook problems that were obviously too sterile for the real world, later using numerical methodz in MATLAB and finally hitting the job market and realizing that we were all going to be glorified technical writers........
.....and some HR lady at a job fair summed it all up: "Engineers think differently. We hire them for that, not for what they learned in school." Going through math boot camp, becoming intellectual Marines, so to speak, may have done something to our brains.
As far as trading, I took the Russian Engineering Approach: found a few successful traders and reverse engineered their setups. Out of the 7-8 subscription services, a couple had some real gems, and for less than the cost of one semester in school :eek:
.....and some HR lady at a job fair summed it all up: "Engineers think differently. We hire them for that, not for what they learned in school." Going through math boot camp, becoming intellectual Marines, so to speak, may have done something to our brains.
As far as trading, I took the Russian Engineering Approach: found a few successful traders and reverse engineered their setups. Out of the 7-8 subscription services, a couple had some real gems, and for less than the cost of one semester in school :eek:
So out of curiosity, I did an estimate the profits Trader Ed gained in March alone and I'd like to focus on just the ES.
The gain on ES alone was a little over $4000 (minus commissions it would be around $3900).
For ES, he did about 43-45 trades with 100% win rate.
Say, someone followed him and trade only ES and caught only 50% gain of ES (just say $2000 for easy calculation).
With $4000 margin, $2000 is a 50% gain in one month, so if the capital doubled every two months and compounded it every two months, then by the end of 12 months it would be about $250,000. Of course all these calculations are hypothetical. By the way, the gain in CL for the month is about $8900 and I didn't bother to do the math for 6E gain.
This was my thought. Perhaps it is *very hard* to accurately appraise one's own trading ability. Just like intelligence. Most people consider themselves to be the smartest person they know - an obvious fallacy from the big picture perspective.
The guy who runs OK Cupid did a survey on users opinion of their intelligence. 60% considered themselves genius! Yes, sixty percent! Now it may be that OK Cupid pretty much only draws from the very tippy top of intelligencia, but the much more likely answer is that people generally cannot asses their own intelligence. When you are a dolt, it's very hard to tell - cuz if you could tell, well then you wouldn't actually be a dolt.
Perhaps the same thing applies to trading ability. It seems very easy to look at past trades and say "But I should have done this and next time I will."