I read the thread; it was interesting. People in college these days must have a lot to consider. Traders have a lot too. There is no requirement for any specific rationality nor having rationales. But there are always some consequences of practices, both expected and unexpected. College students are really in a terrific place to prospect for future opportunities. And it is interesting to see the scope that ET presents for such prospecting. I really like using the potential of markets as a starting point. The financial industry is supremely documented in this respect. In terrific contrast, there is the documented failure to exploit this potential. ET is a classic repository for such, directly, by inference and by the abundant voids in the spectrum of possibility. The market continues to offer it's potential and the contrasting fialures to acheive are represented by short term episodes where there is a constant turn over of classic failure themes. What is in between, is an interesting assortment. The most common scenario is the one most mentioned in this thread. That is a constant, static retreival of profits at given levels. Hundreds of dollars a week usually. There has to be some effort to keep these models static. what happens to the weekly profits? They must be taken out, I guess. the major consequence is that the operating trder never gets to a place to make money on a professional level (like an annual income earned by educated people out of college). A while back all of this was emphatically explained by "long term daily averages". Here different answers were posted that do not compare. I liked the discussion of "how to characterize" what is going on and what is possible from the market. Getting a static steady state answer does not seem to be a possibility but it is what we have here largely. These are the principle characteristics that I see as most likely for any sucessful trader. I think they are logical prospecting points for college students to use to find out what is going on in trading. 1. Successful trading does not stay at a static level of production. The level must improve over time in a natural way as profits accumulate and are used in trading. This is a definition of growth. 2. Before 1. occurs trading is unsuccessful and is a series of restarts caused by a series of screw ups. When screw ups are handled trading gets to 1. In ET most people fall into the 2. category it looks like. 3. At some point the 1.'s shift from the intial money velocity that defines the growth of compounding with the original sucess simply because compounding "takes off". For example divide compounding into three segments over time. The first two do not cause much change; the third, last part, does cause significant change. In ET most people must be in the first segment. 4. At some point, the trading method can not handle any more money (no more increase in capital being actively used) and an alternative most be deployed. Reading ET shows that these things more or less are going on to some extent but not doing as well as 1. and failing (repeatedly) are more prevalent. I think things continue to remain the way they are promarily because of the box people define that they stay in. The alternative to the four items above which people complacently survive with and perhaps get to the last one, is a clear different choice. By inference, the thread alluded to such considerations. The twin forks in the road both need to be considered. One is recognizing the market potential and that the extent of it's exploitation in minimal. The second is to really focus on eliminating all present presumptions in the risk and management departments. The first is a market matter the second is a trader matter. This college student's greatest prospecting opportunities ly on this turf, It would also be a terrific idea for anyone who is in any of the static places described here to consider stepping out in these directions too. Defining the measures of these opportunities are natural first steps. Going from 600 plus a week to 1200 a week would be worth a couple of hours work it seems to me.
Firstly, Thank you for understanding and putting into words the essence of this thred. You remind me of a college professor I had in the past...then I realized you are Jack Hershey...... Michael B.