No no no, it's much simpler than all that. No successful trader is "supportive" because no successful trader is that stupid/suicidal. This isn't the Special Olympics... not everyone comes home with a medal. In most cases, helping other traders will actually cut into one's profits to some extent.
To truly wrap your head around this, first consider those markets that are zero-sum games (e.g. futures, forex). "Zero-sum" means that every single dollar a trader makes is balanced by a dollar that some other trader loses (ignoring commissions and exchange fees, which actually make things negative.)
Think about that for a moment. You're a *professional* trader... this is how you put bread on the table. The instrument you're trading is zero-sum. Some guy comes up to you and tells you that he's been losing money, and he asks you to teach him how to make money. So you sit down and explain your system to him, and he goes out and makes a bunch of money.
That money he's making is coming directly out of your pocket--well, yours and every other successful trader's. And what if all the losers come knocking at your door, and you teach your system to all of them... you're turning losers into winners, but IT'S A ZERO SUM GAME... dollar for dollar, it's *impossible* for the winners to outnumber the losers. For every loser you convert into a winner, you make less money. Eventually, if your secrets become common knowledge, your system crumbles entirely and you (and everyone else using your system) become unable to turn a profit.
This is why no one posts a straightforward how-to. It might be effective at first, but as it became common knowledge it would very quickly lose all predictive value.
You might argue, "but what about stocks?! They're not zero-sum, right???" Well no, they aren't, but my explanation more-or-less applies to them as well. I'm not sure if I can explain this formally, but as far as I can figure there have to be losers in the stock market as well or else the entire thing would turn into a gigantic pyramid scheme ("bubble") that would inevitably collapse and take the entire economy with it. That's the crux of the matter... hyperinflation. If everyone KNEW that GOOG is going up 10% tomorrow, then everyone would buy GOOG right now, thus driving up the price *right now*. It's a vicious cycle, and from what I can figure there are only two ways out:
1. The system loses its effectiveness.
2. The entire market implodes due to hyperinflation, and the "everyone-wins" scenario turns into "everyone-loses."
There are exceptions to the sharing_is_bad philosophy. On a very limited scale (i.e., non-public-forum), I believe that very specific strategies can be self-reinforcing.
And then, of course, there's the fact that money isn't everything. Some successful traders will share just for the hell of it, in spite of all reason. They'll share with a few specific individuals, who will profit immensely, or they'll share with the world and their system will lose its magic.
But the vast majority of traders... they're just going to sit there, vague and smug, enjoying the fruits of the system they worked so hard to build. And why not? The only alternative is to dilute their success, if not outright destroy it.
This isn't like meeting women. There are more men than women in the world, so it's perfectly possible for ALL of the guys in the world to get married... but it's NOT possible for more than 50% of the ES traders in the world to make money.
You need to buckle up, buckle down, get VERY serious about carving out your own niche in this game. If you're not ready to do that, quit wasting your time.
Or, better yet, waste your time on some generic, publicly-available system... go ahead and throw some easy money out there for those of us who *are* serious about this game.
To truly wrap your head around this, first consider those markets that are zero-sum games (e.g. futures, forex). "Zero-sum" means that every single dollar a trader makes is balanced by a dollar that some other trader loses (ignoring commissions and exchange fees, which actually make things negative.)
Think about that for a moment. You're a *professional* trader... this is how you put bread on the table. The instrument you're trading is zero-sum. Some guy comes up to you and tells you that he's been losing money, and he asks you to teach him how to make money. So you sit down and explain your system to him, and he goes out and makes a bunch of money.
That money he's making is coming directly out of your pocket--well, yours and every other successful trader's. And what if all the losers come knocking at your door, and you teach your system to all of them... you're turning losers into winners, but IT'S A ZERO SUM GAME... dollar for dollar, it's *impossible* for the winners to outnumber the losers. For every loser you convert into a winner, you make less money. Eventually, if your secrets become common knowledge, your system crumbles entirely and you (and everyone else using your system) become unable to turn a profit.
This is why no one posts a straightforward how-to. It might be effective at first, but as it became common knowledge it would very quickly lose all predictive value.
You might argue, "but what about stocks?! They're not zero-sum, right???" Well no, they aren't, but my explanation more-or-less applies to them as well. I'm not sure if I can explain this formally, but as far as I can figure there have to be losers in the stock market as well or else the entire thing would turn into a gigantic pyramid scheme ("bubble") that would inevitably collapse and take the entire economy with it. That's the crux of the matter... hyperinflation. If everyone KNEW that GOOG is going up 10% tomorrow, then everyone would buy GOOG right now, thus driving up the price *right now*. It's a vicious cycle, and from what I can figure there are only two ways out:
1. The system loses its effectiveness.
2. The entire market implodes due to hyperinflation, and the "everyone-wins" scenario turns into "everyone-loses."
There are exceptions to the sharing_is_bad philosophy. On a very limited scale (i.e., non-public-forum), I believe that very specific strategies can be self-reinforcing.
And then, of course, there's the fact that money isn't everything. Some successful traders will share just for the hell of it, in spite of all reason. They'll share with a few specific individuals, who will profit immensely, or they'll share with the world and their system will lose its magic.
But the vast majority of traders... they're just going to sit there, vague and smug, enjoying the fruits of the system they worked so hard to build. And why not? The only alternative is to dilute their success, if not outright destroy it.
This isn't like meeting women. There are more men than women in the world, so it's perfectly possible for ALL of the guys in the world to get married... but it's NOT possible for more than 50% of the ES traders in the world to make money.
You need to buckle up, buckle down, get VERY serious about carving out your own niche in this game. If you're not ready to do that, quit wasting your time.
Or, better yet, waste your time on some generic, publicly-available system... go ahead and throw some easy money out there for those of us who *are* serious about this game.
