I doubt there are any reliable stats available. Some news-writer-fuzzies are exaggregating by simply throwing some claims from thin air,
since nobody can confirm or falsify their stories due to lack of reliable, statistical significant, data.
I told of statistical expectancy. That is IMO more reliable than any news-stories w/o any mathematical backing.
I guess the majority of retail is within 1 stddev, ie. making some losses and some wins. But if one analyses this percentil it will show that it wasn't worth the effort,
because they worked too hard for a slender profit, if any.
And for retail any loss is a big loss, be it even only 100 bucks.
Of course going further to 2+ stddev things get interestingly. Here are the real winners and losers. One just needs to take a look at the Gaussian distribution
to compute their share out of the total of the traders.
For successful trading one needs a relatively big account ($100k+) for applying diversification
and to have a low commision rate in % relative to the account size,
and has to work with percentages (and probabilities), not with absolute values.
The diversification is the minimum of a strategy plan one should use.
But even then the statistical expectancy will still be the same ;-)
It only helps the individual trader to be on the winner side instead of the loser side.
After all, as said, it's a zero-sum game; the wins of the one are (and have to be) the losses of the other...
Just an example for an active trader say with an account of only $20k and making 10% p.a.
He/she made only $2k in a whole year! But was it worth the effort?
A bigger account would have made a difference, this time of course seeing it absolutely
and in relation to the work spent.
It is all relative to how much you want to make, what time you will dedicate, and how serious you are about losing your family's money.
You are talking mostly rubbish, and I know that for a fact.
You make money by the simple act of buying and selling, and there are several ways to effectively make money with a small $ account, but as mentioned, it is all relative.
For example, you can trade long only ES options with a non margin account, and you do not require anywhere near $100K to do this effectively.
If you trade only 1 contract, with a delta of at least 0.25, then you can very easily set a realistic target of $100 per trade, with a maximum risk of around $250-$400, which will only happen if you are stupid enough to stay in a losing trade and hold till expiry if the trade goes against you.
Of course, no matter what market you trade, you must still know how to read charts, as that is the best way to see what price is actually doing right now
You can not go around making silly statements like you are making, as they are just not true, and as per my pervious post, be careful what you say, as you might just cost some people a lot of money by listening to stupid things that have absolutely nothing to do with the reality of trading effectively.
Do you actually trade at all?
J_S
