I have been trading since 1996. I have come to the conclusion that I will not try to explain to others what I do. It's a waste of time! Do you think the average blue collar person will understand that I am a net seller of mini ES option premium? How do I explain what a ratio credit spread is to people who can't even understand what being a bull or bear is? Try explaining quadruple witching or explaining time decay or being assigned to a non-trader. They will look at me like I from Mars! When I first started trading, EVERYONE doubted me. If the Dow dropped 300-400 points, I would get really weird phone calls from relatives asking "how are you?" when what they really wanted to ask was did you go broke today? 99% of the public have no concept how trading works. Most don't realize that if the dow dropped 300-400 points, just as many people made a ton of money as people losing a ton of money. I recently moved to Houston to avoid paying state income tax on my cap gains and a relative asked me if I found a "job" yet! After all this time, people still think that I am just in a "phase." No one understands that trading is a career choice that I have made.
Tell them that you do the OPPOSITE of buy and hold. You have no long term money in the market that gets smaller with each quarterly statement. They should understand the inherent success of doing the opposite of what so called "experts" advised them to do, advised by a collecting a very handsome fee at that.
I have tried to explain the concept of selling options for a nice premium to some very smart people. All have college degrees, some even have MBAs but yet they don't understand it. More like they don't WANT to understand it. Many people are very ignorant. But those that are truly interested, they will get the concept very quickly even without the details. And I have met very few.
Just tell people you buy and sell stuff on the Internet. They think you sell stuff on eBay and usually don't ask further. I don't like talking about trading to non-traders.
I just tell em' that there's plenty of info on my blog... when I tell people I day trade, their first reaction is "eeew, I'm so sorry... you must have lost your ass in this market." I can't help but smile
White collar workers wouldn't understand either. When I first started, I was told I was a "f**king idiot"... Now the same people are offering me money.