DB, Your above post serves only to accentuate the point I was trying to make by saying paper trading is an excercise in futility. This is a game of losing, not winning. Any monkey can learn how to make money in this game, its really not that difficult at all. Its learning how to lose that is the difficult part. The proper mindstate has nothing to do with eliminating all emotions, its acting inspite of them. Its doing the right thing, at the right time, when every emotion in your system is trying to compel you to do the opposite. IMO, the three steps to becoming a successful speculator goes something like this; Learn how to lose. Learn how to hold on tightly. Learn how to let go lightly. At the core of all three is how you accept and then come to embrace RISK. You learn how to master those three arduous tasks and the winning side of the equation will take care of itself. No beginning trader has any business playing with a simulator. If he is so undercaptalized that he can't afford to test his ideas with sample sizes, then he has no business being in the game in the first place. And any seasoned vet who has mastered those three taks I laid out earlier will have more than sufficient funds to test his ideas out with a few hundred bucks a trial. Fooling yourself into thinking that you can emulate the same success you had on a simulator, without first learning how to embrace risk, is comparable to Warren Saap practicing his swim move using Madden 2004 as a medium. You can not learn how to swim if you don't first jump in the water. Carry on...
It's too bad that nonsense like this gets posted. What's even worse is that there may be beginners who believe it. Yes, one must learn how to lose if he is going to enjoy long-term success. But just as many traders don't know how to win, which is why they all trade like Sisyphus. Any beginning trader who doesn't find out whether or not his strategy is a profitable one before throwing money at the market and just hoping that it all works out deserves exactly what he gets. I hope someone who doesn't know how to swim doesn't have you as an instructor.
Perhaps it is nonsense, but then again, if the way did not sound like nonsense to the majority then it simply could not be the way. In a game where 90% lose, I take it as a compliment to be laughed at. I wonder how long it would take pepetual losers like traderkay and gordon gekko to make a few hundred large if the way could be transfered in a sensical manner. At any rate Mr. Phoenix, you have your truths and I have mine, and I guess the only way for us to be content with being 'right' is to privately assess our own P&L at the end of each quarter. For if there are two people I have met on Wall St. who always tell the truth, its time and ones Profit and Loss statement. PEACE to you...
Your P&L, or mine, is irrelevant. What matters is the P&L of the individual who takes your advice vs the individual who takes mine. It's pretty difficult to blow out one's account by papertrading. And the odds of doing so are much less with a little practice.
I don't know why you keep coming back at me so aggressively DB. I stated what I felt to be my experience with the game, nothing more and nothing less. If someone chooses to take my words to heart, then thats on them. If I am full of shit, like you believe I am and the person takes my advice and blows out -- then again thats on them. And while any moron can see that it is difficult to blow out ones account using monopoly money, they should also be able to quite easily infer that it is impossible to make a million dollars also, especilay being that THERE IS NO ACCOUNT! PEACE to you DB...
Not aggressively. Just responding to your responses to my responses to your responses to . . . We've both made our points. Okay by me if the matter's dropped.
Well DB seems to think so also, so you are not alone But for what its worth, I wasn't giving advice to anyone, just transfering my own truth with the game. PEACE and good-speculation...