I think there are two answers to this question. Firstly why do most people do it, and secondly why do I do it?
For most people; trading is seen as:
- a profession (business? lifestyle? hobby?) requiring little start up capital (wrong, in my opinion, unless you have another source of income)
- requires very little experience, skill or training; any that is required can be picked up from reading the right books or attending the right training course (wrong)
- appeals to the cognitive bias of illusory superiority; everyone thinks they are better than average (wrong, and because of the skewed distribution most people are actually below the mean).
- requires little time, concentration and focus (wrong, unless you automate trading).
On the latter point, a little anecdote. A two part documentary on traders was shown in the UK late last year. The second half dealt with retail traders (or rather wannabe's to be precise). One woman wanted to trade so she would have more time with her kids. During school vacation she was filmed ignoring them whilst she focused on her ipad's trading app. So that career decision hadn't really worked out.
(Jane is the woman)
I'm slightly mystified why more people don't trade succesfully on an automated basis, but also pleased. I guess it is partly because the off the shelf software that exists mostly encourages overfitting and overtrading, because the same biases and issues with manual trading can also bite you on the ass whilst designing a system; and the psychological profile required to accept an automated system will do better than you will is rarer then it ought to be.
Real estate is a tricker one. In many ways it shares many of the misconceptions of trading; essentially that people think it is much easier than it is. A similar set of get rich quick snake oil salesman descend on both.
Probably more people are succesfull in RE than in trading. However that's mostly been a 'rising tide lifts all boats' effect. I think that it's easier to avoid getting blown up, since its more obvious when you're over leveraged and the banks do limit it (at least in the UK, and now if not in the past). So capital requirements are higher. I think the skills and knowledge to do well in real estate are easier to access and learn. It's harder to make really huge mistakes, and more obvious when you do.
So that's the general public. Why do I trade rather than set up a dry cleaning business, or go into RE?
I grant you that probably a higher % of people running dry cleaning or any 'proper' business succeed. Perhaps 85% of restaurant start ups fail. Still looks good compared to 95% of traders.
Both RE and dry cleaning involve more work than I am prepared to, or need to, do. If properly costed, I could get paid many multiples more per hour if I went back into asset management, a job that at least some of the time I enjoyed.
If was able to combine a passion with a business I
might go into; but realistically not. I think it would be harder to enjoy your passion if it was also your business.
I also have absolutely no 'edge' in real estate. I have no professional background as a builder, estate agent or surveyor. Not sure if 'edges' exist in dry cleaning but I certainly don't have one. I don't think I have an 'edge' in trading, but then with such a high failure rate anyone who avoids making big mistakes will win, so I'm probably better than the average.
So it makes no sense to go into a business that I have absolutely no special ability at, at which I'd earn less money than if I did something else, and which I wouldn't enjoy.
