OK, guys...we've covered all this several times, let me try this once again, LOL. I say that 90%+ of traders make money. New business ventures, such as trading, tend to have a 90% failure rate the first year...any business. A trader is someone who makes a living trading, year after year. If someone can't make a living trading, then he/she ceases to be a "trader" or a restraunteur, or whatever. FWIW, about 50% of our brand newbies are still here the second year. Some leave for financial reasons, some because they just don't have the discipline, and many other reasons. Over half our people have been with us since 2001 or before. So,yes, trading can be a long term career...but it takes training, work, and more continuing training, and more work...just like most business ventures. All the best, Don
Who said my sample was the representation of overall trading community? I'm puzzled like many here that 95% number that people throw around are not really a good representation. For any profession, if you include all those "extreme" cases (i.e., people doing it part-time, people opening account with 5k, etc), survival % is going to drop significantly. For daytraders (those with over $25k capital AND trading full-time), I believe there are more than 5% survival rate. 95% is just ridiculous. Daytrading is not a rocket science. A lot of folks just make it sound like it's something ridiculously difficult to do.... Statistics can be manipulated anyways to show what they want to see....
Absolutely. That 95% statistics depend on market conditions. Many people buy and hold, specially those with IRAs, This trades are marked to marked, even if they haven't closed their trades. People who buy and hold reputable companies or indexes for 10, 15 or 20 years; rarely lose money in the long run.
If the stats are even correct at all, I would say they are misrepresented, at best. Yes, if you consider every person who opens a trading account a trader..then yes, I can imagine the failure rate is pretty high...you should hear some of the shit I hear people say at the office about how they're gonna put their yearly bonus into the market and turn into a lot more, all casually. It's funny, many more gems come the mouths of the unknowing...so yeah like I was saying- if you count those people as traders, then yeah I'd say 95% or even more of THOSE people fail...now if you take those who seriously devote themselves to the study and trading of the markets....then I think the success rate is significantly higher...these people of course have to have the discipline to actually act on their trading intelligence, not just have the academics in their head. But yes, for one who takes trading absolutely seriously, then the success rate seems as if it would be significantly higher... The number get tainted once you mix both groups together, as there are relatively so few who take trading seriously as compared to the many who think it's a lottery type affair... So it just depends on how you look at it, IMHO.
Imagine anyone who wanted to could jump into an airplane an attempt to fly it. Then imagine that people were deluged with advertisements telling then that flying was tremendous fun and profitable and offering to furnish an airplane for then to fly essentially free of charge, and no particular training or experience would be required. Just jump into the plane and try to fly it. What do you suppose the success rate would be?