I owned a Commodity Brokerage in the ninties, we always tried the hardest to get longer term traders than day traders to open accounts. Cause if someone who was just starting out and was going to day trade, and this was before electronics came out/had to phone in orders, if they started in January, over 90% were gone by June. And I would believe now with easy access and higher comission rates (Big S&P500 was $500 a point back then and cost was $16 to $40), fees are generally higher today in the Emini's but lower in most other markets. Newbies get in/out much faster now, and more often which depletes the account even if they are breakeven on the day. Good traders either go to deep discounts brokers, lease a seat or buy. I think the "95%" might actually be a little low, I think the upper 2% are the huge winners whether it is in trading or just about anything done in life. It takes a great deal of hard long hours of work of thinking "outside the bun" to preservere in one's field of study to do well. Most people work for a living, hate their jobs, have next to nothing for retirement and have to retire in their seventies. I won't label them as failures, but they certainly not the upper 2%ers.
If what you said is true, why people start trading in the very beginning? Coz according to what you said, only 5% can still be there after five years. Assuming what you said is true, if people hear what you said, probably almost no one would start trading any more or the people who are struggling in the market would quit the market instantly. Then who are still trading in the market? 5% trading with each other? Anothery possibility is that people believe they can be 5% despite the truth that you are telling. Honestly, if I hear what you said several years before I started trading, I wouldn't enter the market. BTW, nice post.
1. Because they think it looks easy. 2. Because they think they're smarter than they are. 3. Because, when they begin to lose, they begin to lie to themselves.
Because they are greed. That's why they want to play Satan's game(that's what I always call trading).
OT, 100% of traders are losers A few simply accept, then manage that fact â better than most ======================== Reading through your subsequent posts in this thread â you appear to correlate losing to failing â which in the normal world would be a fair comparisonâ¦. However in this (the trading) world â to succeed, one must become adept at losing Never understood the stigma associated with losing Anyway; ========================= Winning trades have never made me money â I've seen that money disappear all too quickly many times overâ¦. I am paid for managing my losing trades â each and every one of them (which in large part simply equates to me managing me) Now I am not even remotely suggesting winners are to be ignored either - they must also be managed But a losing trade will certainly do more damage to my account than any winning trade ever contemplated ======================= That folks donât make the transition successfully â C'est la vie I certainly have never held a gun to someoneâs head and made them remain in a losing trade⦠or trade frivolously⦠And I seriously doubt anyone else has either But folks certainly do Isn't life grand (rhetorical of course) RN
99% are losers. As in anything in life that is worthwhile to pursue. I can further break it down by time and magnitude of the losing, but that would be too complicated for this elementary thread.