For someone with limited personal capital, trading for his own account may make sense as a way to make a living and hopefully amass capital for himself. But once one has amassed substantial capital, through trading or otherwise, it could be more fun to retire and pay a successful trader/investor to do the work. If you had several million dollars to invest with the goal of having it grow to the most money possible in five years, with what trader or firm would you place it? Would it be a hedge fund? If so, which one? What annualized rate of return would you expect?
Others on here have claimed to do 1% a day. Doesn't that come out to about 25% a month? 1% of $3,000 would be $30 a day. You would think that would be possible. 1½ NQ points a day could do it. Perhaps the only thing preventing any individual from achieving this is personal discipline and strategy.
Lack of realism is one of the first cause of trader's demise. 1% a day on average is not impossible if you talk in arithmetic terms. Some people have done 250% per year (250/250=1%) Arithmetic doesn't mean anything though. If you talk in geometric terms, the figure is a lot less flattering if on the last day you lose 20%(0.71% in geo vs 0.91% in arithmetic).
I post this only for those who might not know better...most of ET is smart enough to test out any service or claims before diving in, but for any who might not be... I subscribed to a free trial at the service that GD2KNO was hyping back in late Nov. The service had claimed to run for 4 years or so, and never had a week with less than 40 points on the sp, and further claiming to average over 10 pts per day. The service sends buy and sell alerts via a messenger system, not a chat room...which doesnt allow you to know if there are any other members receiving things at all. There was no risk disclaimer given, no website, no idea at all of fees or how to pay them, etc. At any rate, on my very first day observing, the service lost about 8 points. The 2nd day, about 6. The 3rd day another 8. The 4th day I believe they captured about 5 pts. The 5th day another loss. Needless to say, each day was followed with "explanations" as to why they were suddenly, after 4 years, experiencing losses. Each day was the "worst loss we've ever had." There were emails about a death of a friend close to the head trader, which troubled him enough that his calls were not accurate. Etc. In fact, I just received an email this week from that same service, apologizing for another large loss day and again referencing another death of a friend as the cause. There have been other emails during the last 2months...apologizing for servers failing, for emails not working, explaining paper trading changes they were making for the system.... Sure it might have had 208 weeks of 40+ pts each week and then suddenly stopped generating profits. Systems fail..but...you examine the facts and decide if you believe that, or believe something else. If they really have the Holy Grail and it just had some demons and got unholy for 2 months, which coincided exactly with the period right after GD2 started hyping it on ET, great for them. If any other ET member observes the service and finds it is suddenly throwing out 10 pt days every day, please PM me or post for us all...but I just felt I should throw out my 2 cents as someone with experience with them.
Sheesh! Asswipes! They could at least have gone thru the traditional prior 2 stages (head trader abducted by aliens, then 'hideous lawn mowing accident') before going for the 'kill'. The world is FULL of these c*nts. And they seem to make a VERY good living at it!
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck . . . Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Tacsian. You ought to mention it to Baron. --Db