I hate to say it but one of my co-worker's wife was a doctor opening up her own practice. I remember him taking out 0% credit card to renovate her new office years ago. Today, he invests large sum of "cash" in Shanghai and got himself toy cars and speeding tickets. I don't think all that money is coming from his paycheck because I know how much he is getting... He doesn't care either.
hey brokendreams: ask any professional who has achieved success, whether it be a trader, actor, athlete or business person and they will tell you right when you think you tried everything to achieve your goals and you've lost all hope and you want to give up, give it another shot, it might take a few more attempts but thats what separates winners from losers - most people quit when they come up against a wall - you can't quit - you have too much time invested - take a break - re-evaluate your methods and don't let anyone take away your dreams...success is not that far away
normally, i will keep my peace and watch the kid go while others try to keep him, usually for taking advantage of . I just read this latest advice and can't help reply. jtmarlin, why do you want keep the poor kid? Ask him to bang his head on the wall a few more times? For what? He is exhausted already, man. if he listens to your advice, the next time it would not be he hanging it but himself. brokendreams, i personally was in the exactly same situation as you when my option dream was broken.
Thanks. This is a great post. Just by reading this, I really don't think you will be in any real trouble finding a job. You just have to be yourself. Moderator's idea of going back to school to get another degree is not bad too. Or maybe even travel aboard. Good luck and let us know when you got your job then you can buy lunch.
This thread is very touching. Perhaps because we've all had similar feelings (at least I sure as heck have) at some point or the other. It has the feeling of losing something/someone you've really loved and cared about. I'm glad to see you're getting the kinda support you have been here at ET, and just so you know, you aint the only one ... *** HEDGE FUND FLIGHT By RODDY BOYD May 20, 2006 -- Saranac Capital Management, a hedge fund whose superstar trader boss started the operation with almost $3 billion in client cash, is shutting down. Saranac, launched with great fanfare in December 2004 with a whopping $2.9 billion - much of it from Citigroup - announced that it has begun the process of closing and will seek to return its clients' remaining capital by June 30. Its rapid demise is a glaring reminder that the glitzy hedge fund business is a fickle one in which prestigious backers and a high profile matter little when investors are dissatisfied. Saranac's nine portfolios contain the fund's remaining $600 million of client capital. Even the impressive track record of Saranac founder Ross Margolies, who guided the Salomon Brothers Capital Fund to 18 percent annual returns from 1995 to 2004, couldn't trump the broad-based collapse in Saranac's complicated strategies. As Saranac launched its first trades in the winter of 2005, convertible and equity-arbitrage strategies began a nearly year-long decline. These strategies work best when market uncertainty creates wild swings in stock prices; but last year, market volatility was near historic lows. - [italics are mine, they probably threw in the towel just when the wild gyrations are about start-up again ... ] According to fund investors, its four arbitrage funds declined an average of 5.5 percent last year. Perhaps even more challenging for Saranac, its equity funds started the year with a decline of 11.5 percent - before recovering and closing the year with a loss of 1 percent - which led to additional client withdrawals. Margolies told Bloomberg News that he was closing the fund because the fees generated from managing $600 million were not enough to pay his 45-person staff. Although all his portfolios were now in the black, Margolies said, there was little opportunity to earn the large profits that would attract additional capital. The brief life of Saranac was "a sure sign that the hedge fund market has bottomed out," said a manager of a $2 billion fund-of-funds who closely watches the mysterious corner of Wall Street. "This kind of investing is just too frothy. You are supposed to have a slightly longer time horizon for a fund to pay off." roddy.boyd@nypost.com *** Best, Jimmy
Yeah I think you ought to stop focusing on "time wasted" its not wasted unless you really didn't learn anything. Your only 30. Im 24 and ive been doing this for 3 and a half years full time and 7 when you include the trading i did thru my dad. At present Im looking for a job. Is it to say that Im not good at trading? That I cannot do it? No I can but at present life is catching up with me and I don't really feel the need to let debt eat me alive. Ive traded stocks (mid to long term) and got into forex day trading last november, I even managed to make some money trading forex. My father has been playing the canadian equity markets for 18 years, and over the last 7 it has become a major source. I often wish that I could achive that level of success, but then I remember it took him a good decade to gain the power of a strategy and compounding along with some diversity. So Ill go get a job and come back to what I love when the time is right again. I dont really buy the idea that edges only work for certain times and then no longer work. I mean an edge is merely a probability, I dont rely on much of an edge other than looking at price. I am sure you will do fine, I dont even have a degree, I only finished a 2 year program and the only thing of signifigance on my resume is that I work with investments and people are calling me. Its not in how much experience you have or papers as much as its running into the right people who want to give you opportunity. Anyways best of luck, I sure hope i get a job too
Broken Dreams. I once was in your situation. I was having exactly the same thoghts. The following will help you as well as it helped me: 1. Getting a Job that can support your living. The type of the Job or the title is not really importent as long as it does not put you down. I would pursonally pick up an easy Job no matter how much it pays - you just need a break and some time to think clearly. After a year or so you are going to become confident again. 2. Deside what kind of job will make you happy. Maybe daytrading is not for you. Try doing some position trading slowely. Do not rush it. Paper trade. 3. Make 3 - 5 year plan how to go there. It can be going back to succesfull trading or a dream job. 4. 5 years from now you will be in a great shape. Personally, I have gone through all seps above. I have a good full time job that pays well as well as doing position trading. 10 out of my last 12 trades were profitable. Also, my avg lose is less than avg win. See, when I put a trade now I have no emothions or fear or grid working against me. After all, I do not need it to work - I have an income. The money I can afford to loose. It makes miracle to my trading success as well as my life in general. Also, daytrading was not for me. I am too analitical and watching a monitor is not for people with slow analitical thinking. Good luck and I am sure you will do fine. Just squize your teeth and do it starting with 1.
Thanks for the suggestions. I know getting a job is a priority. It's already been determined. But I'm hoping to not just get any random job but actually something that can lead me to start a fresh new career. So I'm aiming for something long-term with growth potential and not just something to keep me temporarily occupied while I build funds to return to trading. My head is already pretty clear. I've seen, observed, and experienced enough. I should feel fortunate I have lasted in this game for five years because pretty much everyone I know who started before or at the same time as me are gone, either due to diminishing equity or mental fatigue, but I know it'll be even rarer for anyone to last in this game for ten-plus years because it's just not probabilistic for a trader to have a working edge or continually discover successful methods over the market for that long. So I respect the statistics, and I would really have to defeat some incredible odds to continue. Every trader wants to believe he can somehow beat those odds and retire as a millionaire from trading, but I gave up that illusion a long time ago. I would say the window of opportunity to make a quick million is actually a lot higher for a total beginner than a seasoned trader because the new guy probably doesn't really know what the hell he's doing and he's taking strange risks than no experienced guy would ever accept. But when you're trading for a living, you cannot mess around because you have to trade with tremendous discipline. It'll definitely keep you in the game longer. However, it will not guarantee a consistent paycheck though because, at the end, you'd still need profitable strategies to work to make your living. It's realistic to find profitable strategies for any period or even several periods, but to obtain new ideas, discover market shifts when they occur, have your methods remain robust and maybe even sustain drawdowns over a very extended duration, that's really extraordinary. So it's hard for me to get excited on something like ten consecutive profitable trades. Ten consecutive profitable weeks isn't convincing neither. Not even eleven profitable months out of the whole year. The fantasy is temporary before the odds of reality wake you up that this game is not that easy, and even if it is, it will not stay that way. I've been there before, and look at where I am now. I speak from a more humble perspective. So I know if I continue, I'm never going to strike the fat pot of gold because I'm already too disciplined to be reckless, but I can't realistically expect myself to just churn it out every year and hope all conditions will be perfectly ideal neither because it's only a matter of time when the market shifts and everything turns south. It's almost like anticipating to bleed a only slower death even when things are good. So why even continue? I don't know. I just want a real job now. A 9-5 is perfectly fine, if I can even land a decent one. I have to start somewhere. I just want to hopefully have a better sense of security, which I don't have now, by the time I'm 40 or 50, and I'm pretty sure that a real job will offer me a much higher probability to achieve that than trading. I wish everyone the best who are still pursuing their dreams, but this is my own sense of reality, and I'm done, man.
I thought that too. I thought I was done. I couldn't stay away from trading even if I tried for more than a year. But hell yes. HELL YES. So that was my question. You need to know why you are trading in the first place. I have a degree in Pharmacy, I ran my own business, my own corporation. I went to work 10 hours a day 6 days a week. So I trade now. I make every trade a winning trade. Because it is the same whether you are working or trading. It is the same thing. Buy low sell high, supply and demand, income = expense. Broken dreams, you make the same mistake as everyone who is not a trader, you forgot to balance your expenses with your income. Just remember that the same probability also applies for making it in a 9-5. When your 9-5ing, there are no stops. And that is the secret, you have to know how, whether you're working or trading. It's all about passion. I trade for a reason. You want to know my story. You want to know Hell. I don't wish my pain on anyone, that's why I trade. "Every failure brings with it the seed of an equivalent success." - Napoleon Hill Check out www.growthandhealing.com This awesome dude rewired my brain. Then you will be back to give them hell. I GIVE THEM HELL. You hear me.
I think you're missing the point. It's not a matter of working or trading. It's a matter of having consistent stability and security. it's nice you have all this idealistic approach and stuff, but passion is not going to bring you profits. You need strategy. And if you're having a break-even year but still have bills to pay, are you going to be cool with everything because you habe "passion" in trading? So simply having passion is the remedy to erase all bills? Incredible. If you think you can realistically make money every year and be comfortable for ten or twenty years or the rest of your life and never ever have to face to possiblity of having to return to the work force again because you're simply invincible in trading, then trading is probably for you. You should probably also contact the author of Market Wizards. But for others, that's just not a realistic outlook.