Talk to some long term investors as to how they've done over the past 10 -15 years. I know plenty of traders who have done very well in that time frame. There are edges in any activity that one can have. Do you not think Tiger Woods has an advantage over 99% of the population? He started playing before age 2. And even lesser known pro golfers have ability to make a lot of $$$, due to their work ethic and desire to succeed.
You're wrong about that, majority lose at least some at the beginning and need a few years to get. Sure, they might get lucky and start in sync with the market by pure coincidence but they usually get their fingers (or even hands) burnt at some point.
First you have to learn what a profit factor is. Then you talk about teaching other people. This is a copy of a private message exchange I had with you after you asked me to explain to you how a profit factor is calculated. OK Donna?
Again, you demonstrate a hefty lack of intellectualism. Understanding Profit Factor and Sharpe/Sortino and a lot of other things is no guarantee of success, and many have done it without grasping them "first" Donna could teach, as many on this site have a high opinion of her efforts. The same cannot be said of you. And even if she taught, you probably still wouldn't learn anything. And I wouldn't be waving PMs around. First of all, they are supposed to be private and you did not ask her permission. Secondly, your responses were deeply unimpressive.
EE for a period of time. I worked in digital design, primarily video algo's. Mostly video algo RnD in hardware (i.e. MatLab + FPGA's). I transitioned to finance in grad. school after taking some computational finance courses. The EE paycheck was OK but its certainly not a "high paying field" as an employee. Maybe as a founder but the work life balance is difficult. The way you've phrased the question is akward. I pursued my intellectual curiosity, i.e. finance, specifically trading. It was never too much about the money as it was the abstraction and creative thinking required in trading that brought me to it. The idea of making money purely by thinking appeals to me and trading allows for income with no glass ceiling. That said, I run a fund and make a good living trading. My schedule is very flexible and I have full creative freedom to research whatever I want... That's really all I ever wanted, full creative freedom. Markets are deeply intellectually satisfying in that respect. You're bringing up a paper from 93? This paper is stale... no truth to it and I can prove it. If your ploy is to get someone to reveal a stat. edge here, its been done... do some better research. If you were (or are) attending any decent finance program and you stated what you stated above, you'd likely get a chuckle out of the professor. As in, they'd laugh at you... FYI, had you bothered to do some decent research, you would have found that many of the longer term posters here have revealed statistical edges on this site. Stat. edges that will work in perpetutity given that the market structure remains somewhat constant. These edges are certainly not amazing or anything, but, if followed over several years, they will produce profit. In general, there are a large number of people who share your belief system (the intradaybill handle is defientely one of them) and this belief system will hold you back unless you learn how to be flexible in your thought process, accept new ideas with open arms, and, above all, never get married to any one idea/belief system.
If this is a veiled request for me to teach you how to obtain a profit factor similar to mine, my class is currently full In all seriousness, though, I don't think the fact that I didn't know how to calculate profit factor, or that I have no idea what MACD is all about, or what a constant volume chart is, etc. has any bearing on whether I can trade well or teach someone else to trade well.