I can confirm that CF can trade, can trade with "impossible" stops, and can trade profitably day after day and seems to have been doing so for at least 3 years, as he's one of the first traders I ever met back in the days of ET's chat room. I had the privilege of having him in my Skype room last year, where I was left shaking my head at his ability to trade Euro futures with a 6-tick stop loss, quite profitably. I learned a lot from him. Once you learn what makes the market tick, as a day trader you will win in a "Spectacular Fashion." You'll just win!
You obviously didn't major in an optimization based area. And you clearly don't understand game theory if you think trading is a zero sum game. I'm glad it's a losers game --- I've been doing it full time for over 15 years. If you blew out and failed don't assume everyone else also did.
You posted the below quote in your other thread called Day trading difficulties. Simply, am I confused or you confused. Let me repeat something I said to you in your other thread...most traders are not suitable for day trading which is why most will fail. It's one of the toughest games in town and only a few can do it profitably. In addition, you yourself admitted you were not suitable for day trading and you specifically name several reasons involving YOU (trader psychology issues) as a trader. My reply to you again is to move on and continue with your swing trading because your going back-n-forth with day trading is starting to seem somewhat strange. Surely you understand it's not your game and that you should spend your time & energy devoting yourself to swing trading or position trading...don't you think ?
it has to do with the wealth effect of price discovery. When price goes up or down, wealth fluctuates greatly. But not always has money changed hands. It is imaginary. while daytrading is a zero-sum game, longer term buy and hold or position trading knows an upwards bias. Just look at the DOW charts of 100 years. This is a true edge and has partly to do with technology innovation, and with currency debasement. Buy and hold works. with daytrading however the money comes from other market participants.
1. Jim Rogers does not swing trade, he invests according to his fundamental views. So he is not even a trader in traditional sense of the word. 2. I am more than sure, that he and other successful long term players (probably with rare and lucky exceptions) still use some strategies to limit their risk, probably more solid that stop orders, such as options or hedge in another market. 3. If you are happy with those proper FX strategies you know, why do you bother to talk about day trading at all? What is the purpose of many day trading related threads you recently started @ ET?
Thank you NoD. I must say, that you are doing extremely well too, often reading your posts I see your understanding of the markets and the trading business is truly stellar... P. S. People who helped me in my early years and even some of my current partners are fine with 4-5 ticks on Euro most of the time, so I rather suck with my wide stops.
Listen up ppl! Day trading is a losing game b/c you're trading the wrong instrument. Take your common everyday non-blue chip stock that lures in maybe 1-2 investor/trader a day. They got a big problem convicing those interested to chip in if they don't manufature social proof (buying and selling from their various accounts to create the appearance of volume). Could you imagine how their stock would look if there were only 1-2 real trades per day? If they don't create 100 fake trades, nobody's going buy. So, you the trader pitch in, thinking you'll make a killing. At whatever price you bought, the computer that manufactures fake volume "knows". So, say you buy in at 10.00 and hoping to get out at 10.50. You think that computer's gonna mark the price up, just so you can get out at 10.50? Wrong! What the computer will do is mark down the price by 10% or more in the hope of squeezing you out and making 10% off of you. After you sell, the computer will then mark the price up 5-10% from where you bought (this would be 10.50-11.00), hoping either you're stupid enough to buy back in thinking the price will go up higher, or some other sucker comes along and takes the shares at 11.00 (that the computer bought from you at 9.00 after the 10% squeeze out). Then, the cycle of (trader) abuse repeats itself, which is why you'll see random squiggly lines on the daily chart. But, if it is a sector play that is just about to become hot, the computer will do whatever it takes to squeeze you out, but -- after each squeeze, the price is made to climb higher and higher in sych with the sector. So, you can see, day trading is definitely a losing game when the ratio of false:real volume is very high. But, if you're trading something like CL, where fakes:real trades are low, the computer loses its edge --- which means that if you're skilled enough, you can beat the computer at games like CL and make money!