Anyone see this month's Trade Monthly? Had a list of the top 30 traders under 30 years old. Pretty inspiring. A lot of these 25-28 year olds are trading hundreds of millions. Good stuff.
notice all trade at KNOWN firms and none trade at these half assed prop/ daytrading firms that take 5k and the traders just keep blowing through everything they own.
Actually, that's mainly because it's much easier to identify top traders that trade for hedge funds. The hedge funds benefit from the marketing that the Traders Monthly article generates for them. Independent traders, on the other hand, have less reason to want the publicity. Truth be told, I know several traders that could have been recognized as 30 Under 30 traders, but were not, given that they were private traders. The same goes for the Trader's Monthly "Top 100 Traders" list. They were all exclusively hedge fund or institutional traders, one of which managed to lose ~10% on the year for his hedge fund capital under management, but still garnered a $100M+ paycheck on his management fees. Unfortunately, with recognition such as this, the Traders Monthly lists become much less relevent to all traders, IMO.
ERICP is absolutely right. Most people that actually consistantly make money from the market typically do not publicize it. The ones that do are typically "market gurus" that make money from the seminars they teach. The hedge fund managers make most of their money from % of assets, not returns. And their returns, % wise, are not necesserily higher than those from a "prop shop or whatever". And - it doesn't really matter where you trade, in your underwear, in a prop office or in Greenwich, you're trading the same thing.
People notice what? The excessive spending and splurging? That could be from robbing a bank. Lots of private traders trade from home, make a very very very impressive return and only their spouses and the IRS know the sources of income. I doubt the IRS calls traders monthly with stats on their traders.