Anyone actually make living from trading?

Discussion in 'Trading' started by trade5656, Jan 29, 2017.

  1. Handle123

    Handle123

    Some on this forum are very quiet but are doing very well, I know several who are and they done very few posts, there are dozens who tried to post as they seem to be doing well, from all the harassment they left-, there is many on this site who are born losers and hide out so their working wives think they are trading.

    Trading is incredible tough, way too many think of making several hundred a trade and have marginal losing trades, if I could do that, I wouldn't be scalping and averaging $10-$20 a trade. You have to be persistent, you have to be giving up something in your life to want to play this same game, you have to be smart enough to have an open mind, you have to have that drive that no matter what-you won't quit. There is hundreds of "whys" people don't succeed, but if you were not born with winning attitude in life, you will fail in life.

    There are more programming one is trading against than any other time since day trading started for home trader, besides that you are trading against some of the smartest people on Earth who been doing so for many years. Fees are low and yet at end of the year if you start with small account, most likely you lost account from all the fees. Thinking about wealthiest people, they didn't day trade, don't see Buffet day trading.
     
    #21     Jan 30, 2017
  2. volpri

    volpri

    Are yu a cynical old cookie crumb?
     
    #22     Jan 30, 2017

  3. u said it best handle
     
    #23     Jan 30, 2017
    Bellwether1 likes this.
  4. Zzzz1

    Zzzz1

    No, I would not expect you to be here to help others even if you were career profitable. But not everyone is a leeches and freeloader such as you describe yourself. There are people who do not mind sharing even when they are highly successful and even if it requires an investment in time.


     
    #24     Jan 30, 2017
  5. Zzzz1

    Zzzz1

    I meant it in all seriousness.

     
    #25     Jan 30, 2017

  6. yes those are very few and they wont come up like the post is began and say hey, look at me iam the 5% or 1% thats making it, i know few here that i met from this site as well that are ultra successful but it was getting to know them that told me so not that they came and said iam making it, iam living proof of it, lastly their posts are more selective
     
    #26     Jan 30, 2017
  7. Zzzz1

    Zzzz1

    Perhaps you let your feelings and sense of good and bad clout your judgment? We all want to believe in the existence of instant karma. The loud and nasty guys should be losers, the quiet ones who are always nice to others must have success in life. I think reality contradicts your belief system. I am loud, nasty, and arrogant. But I stand up for the truth. And I am fairly certain I am more profitable than you are in my trading job. I hope I did not shatter your world view now. And guess what, not everyone who is arrogant is a liar.

     
    #27     Jan 30, 2017
    Simples likes this.
  8. Yes.... but I feel duty bound to say that:

    a) my "stake" didn't come from trading, at least not in the way you probably imagine, but from working for a systematic hedge fund.

    b) I derive a proportion of my income from dividends in a long only investment portfolio rather than entirely from trading. I could easily live off my (long run expected) trading income but that would make life to risky for me since I am by no means guaranteed to make money every year, so I would need to keep at least 5 years expenditure in cash.

    It's relatively easy to live off a large stake if you have another source of income and can live off an average trading return of 10% - 20%, with enough spare income or surplus cash to cover periods when you aren't making money. Perhaps it's true that 95% of retail traders lose money, but if you can avoid a few stupid mistakes then those kinds of long average returns are attainable for most people.

    I think it's much tougher to "roll up" a modest stake into a stake large enough to be able to comfortably live off the proceeds, without taking excessive risks (i.e. again targeting perhaps a 10 - 20% average return). I think it's damn near impossible to do this if you are trading full time as your only source of income and have to withdraw money each month for living costs.

    Trust me: I've done the necessary calculations to prove to myself how difficult this is unless your trading performance is exceptional (the sort of returns that high frequency firms make - and they need to make large multi million dollar upfront investments). Even with a very high expected return a few bad months will eat through your capital and wipe you out.

    Most of the posters who claim to have done this seem to have blown up a few times and had to replenish their stake. This is difficult as you never know whether you have been unlucky or have a bad system (and again this is pure mathematical fact - unless your returns are exceptional most people will need at least 10 years to get a statistically significant track record, and often much longer).

    GAT
     
    #28     Jan 30, 2017
    PursuitOfEdge and drm7 like this.
  9. agree tho, not everyone who is arrogant is a liar

    zzzz1 i have seen great posts and intellect comes out from u but i got to say most of the time the other ones come out combative, assumptive, and conclusive as a whole when most of the time people are speaking in generality,

    having been in jobs that all were dealing with the public i can tell u yes generally speaking the loud and talkers are USUALLY the losers, and the quite and reserved are usually the ones with money, same is with trading, loud and quite is not simply vocal, but also by many other forms such as outfit, how many rich people are dressed up in fancy clothes like gucci and big brand names, its usually the loud person trying to show something he doesnt have while the ones that have it dont care to show it, just look at steve jobs and zuckerburg they always wear the same shirt...

    lastly iam not sure how u become certain ur better than another person without detailed info,

    good luck man
     
    #29     Jan 30, 2017
  10. luisHK

    luisHK

    Jobs and Zuckerberg harbour a rather standard nerd look, dress preference depends on the scene again, go to good districts in London, Paris, Geneva and most posh holiday resorts in those area( at east Switzerland and France, which i know better) and most folks don't dress cheap ( and it is not easy to know much about people not in your scene, I have a friend running a rather large company , who possibly for a public image issue, always goes to work in a cheap suit, but when going out privately, he will often dress casually but with extremely expensive clothes )
    What's true is most luxury brands have at least 2 collections, with the cheaper lines showing big logos, and the posher line beeing much more discreete, at least logowise, while beeing more expensive, which I suspect makes it less obvious those are high end clothes to those not familiar.
     
    Last edited: Jan 30, 2017
    #30     Jan 30, 2017