Do you even enjoy trading?

Discussion in 'Trading' started by michael21, May 15, 2012.

  1. Lucrum

    Lucrum

    So doctors come to you, a nurse, and confide that they wish they were nurses.
    (Which would be the equivalent of a jet captain saying he'd rather be a stewardess.)
    Then you a nurse, supposedly, consider joining the NG to go to med school, when you're already in your 40's.
    And on top of that the NG does not have a single job opening posted anywhere in the country for a doctor. Nor do they mention on their web site anything about paying for or sending anyone to medical school to become a doctor.
     
    #31     May 17, 2012
  2. Musta been Lucrum, whom I had to put on ignore because he is mentally unhealthy. Oh well, next post! Hopefully it will be from someone how actually has something to say, relevant to the topic, or this will be on it's way to chat:)
     
    #32     May 17, 2012
  3. Lucrum

    Lucrum

    #33     May 17, 2012
  4. Was he bitter specifically about his trading? If there was something else going on in his life making him bitter, then it's nothing to do with trading. I'm sure that most everyone, regardless of occupation, has some bitter days, even if on the surface they shouldn't be bitter. Bitterness can be driven by things far deeper than money, after all.

    Traders run the gamut of personality types, although I do think that you have to be very competitive to want to trade, which is why a lot of firms look to see if you've played sports in the past, although with the proliferation of quant-driven strategies, I guess even "Mathletes" could count in your favor, despite it not really being a sport per se.

    I enjoy trading for the intellectual challenge and that never gets old for me.
     
    #34     May 17, 2012
  5. jem

    jem

    I traded full time for about 7 years.
    I had 5 plus 100 percent gain years in a row.
    When my edge was close to gone... I found it less enjoyable.

    The process the study of getting up the mountain. To unlock the mystery of profitability was awesome. Making the money became a job to me. Bu,t I was daytrading... concentrating hard for 5 to 6 hours a day plus reviewing setups.

    I look forward to someday not running my business and just swing trading for fun. I preferred trading and for a while I truly loved it.
    But, its also pretty cool when you cash some of checks I have been cashing risking much of my own money.

    I suppose trading others money would be the best job.
     
    #35     May 17, 2012
  6. No, not at all. Eventually, all the former excitement and interest and mystery and intrigue turns to veteran indifference.

    Been there, done that, seen it all umpteen times. Playing give & take and give & take for years on end until it's no longer any game at all.

    A great example of this veteran evolution was Lescor's thread back in 2010. He made something like $600,000 that year profiled in a daily journal here. If memory serves correct, he had roughly 2/3 profitable days and 1/3 net-loss days at best... might even have been nearer 50/50 overall.

    Just repeating the same steps day after day, operating in systematic fashion, results are whatever price action dictates that day.

    Meanwhile, after doing this long enough, you dream about playing golf or fishing or traveling or any number of fun-filled things other than sitting in a chair, pushing buttons to play the give & take process.

    Do this long enough, and it gets methodically boring. Just like everything else in life. That does not mean trading isn't fulfilling or lucrative or self-serving or all those positive things. But for sure it ceases to become a mysterious puzzle and eventually turns into nothing more than a series of similar actions that creates known long-term outcomes.
     
    #36     May 17, 2012
  7. jem

    jem

    It should have said "without" risking my own money.
     
    #37     May 17, 2012
  8. Lucrum

    Lucrum

    A 1 in a 100 post.
     
    #38     May 17, 2012
  9. mm19

    mm19

    your method not scalable obviously.

    i bet study of your trades provided jobs for 5 indian phd and number of other staff associated mortgages, while studying how to replicate what you do.

    who says traders do not provide good for economy :cool:
     
    #39     May 17, 2012
  10. jem

    jem

    actually, what happened is that nyse stocks went to ecns and pennies... allowing people to arb with electronic futures.

    In fact two of our traders were former traders with the guy who founded Bats. Basically Bats started doing our jobs. We looked for stocks which were out of whack with the futures then we looked for support or resistance areas to either expect the rubber band to contract or snap.

    Bats and other algos forced stocks to behave more like the futures.
     
    #40     May 17, 2012