Like investment research, 95% of everything you read is garbage. You will know who is worth listening to and whose posts to skip over. It's not strictly related to profitability. A few people have insightful comments on here, and are probably not profitable traders.
You are most assuredly not alone. This isn't a democracy, and it is sad to see worthwhile discussion derailed by the proud and arrogant who mistakenly believe that all contributions are equal and there is some sort of entitlement to inflict their intellectual and personal limitations on others. Perhaps it would be easier to ignore were it not driven by pride, envy, avarice, resentment against achievement and general poor character. I believe it is the disappointing weaknesses and overwhelmingly negative intent evident in certain posters which can drain one of any creative spirit or generosity to share interesting or helpful material. I would be interested in reading more of your anecdotes concerning those who you were fortunate enough to meet and be inspired by in the earlier stages of your career. You know from personal experience how seeds can be planted and inspire greater levels of success. I really appreciate that you are paying it forward with your contributions here, but fully understand that you may not be inspired to do so for much longer. Unfortunately, perhaps this (and other similar sites) are simply not the correct environment to host such discussions. Perhaps a workable alternative would be a section on this site, or a new site entirely, where only "verified" posters had posting privileges, but interested observers could follow the conversation, and perhaps submit guest articles/posts/comments for review. Daily Speculations seems to make that concept work fairly well, and I'd venture that the signal:noise is higher there. I would be very sorry to lose this facility where interested aspirants and professionals can benefit from the gracious sharing of knowledge, experience, and intelligent discussion. Also, certainly some parts of the financial community are insulated and low profile and sites such as this provide opportunities to make connections and advance mutually beneficial relationships where this may not otherwise happen. The withdrawal of serious, intelligent, and successful contributors to this site seems sadly rather inevitable. I would be interested in a web based "enclave" for serious traders and other financial professionals, to be by invitation only. It would be nice if the content were public in order to assist those looking for information, but it would remove the nuisance of disruptive anonymous posting.
Hi garachen, I understand your complaints, but I guess that a public and anonymous forum on the internet will always have these kind of problems you mention. It doesn't matter which particular forum you are part of. And I doubt that forum owners will change their policies due to the views of a professional trader (unfortunately) - these forums are targeting the thousands of retail traders and the respective vendors. From the responses I have read in the threads you were participating in, I would assume that ET is probably even the best forum for you to post the topics you want to convey as there seem to be a few others who are professional enough to be able to discuss with you or at least ask intelligent questions (even if disturbed by many others). I assume that there are many people who do not participate in the discussions but read your posts with interest (like me). I understand that you do not want to set up your own forum. But if posting here bothers you too much, you could consider the following easier alternatives: your own blog (seems to be very easy to set up with google's blogger.com, can include the comment function for followers) or your own group in google+ or facebook, which might be even easier to set up. All of these can be set up with restricted access for followers. Let us know if you do any of the above. I hope we will be able to read about your experiences and views for some time! Regards, k
After giving it some thought I think I'm not the target user of this forum - or maybe any public forum. I don't think I'd start a blog or anything like that until after I retire. Enough non-money generating hobbies at the moment. I have an idea for my last post. I think it will be fun - haven't seen anything like it here.
Too bad to hear you will leave. But understandable. Or, if you continue to "print money" like you seem to do, we can hope for early retirement... Looking forward to your last post! Cheers!
This is a pretty tough environment for retirement. If I didn't keep spending on infrastructure I probably would have done it by now. For example, say you have $10,000,000 saved. Assuming you can just invest conservatively *maybe* you could make 1%/year above real inflation and after taxes. And that's kind of doubtful. So that's 100K/year and I'm in my mid-30s. A long time to live (I hope). Of course it's a retire-able amount in some sense but it's no longer a great amount like in the past. So I have no idea what I'd need anymore. But hoping it only takes another year or two.
No possibilities to take a more passive role in your company and let some trustworthy capable people manage it for you (and collect the dividends instead of only 1% above inflation)? Otherwise, if it takes you another one or two years until retirement, I will have a good track record by then. You might want to seed finance some promising new traders
If a person has the brainpower to earn enough money to SAVE $10 Million at an early age, the last thing that person needs to worry about is how they are going to make it through retirement. Nobody of that caliber would decide to just turn their money-making brain off and do nothing for the next 40 years while living off savings interest.
Brain Drain? LOL Be for real. I like ET. I just wish brother Baron would take it "Back To The Future"...(the new and improved version.)