whenever I bring the idea up with regular people it seems to catch them off guard or smth. however I don't talk to a lot of people. they don't have to be offline people but people that you didn't have to go out of your way to find (like going on a forum made specifically for traders)
Nope, never. And every time I say and explain what I do, whether online or off, they look at me like I have ten heads. But this also brings up something I have thought about, and happened to think about again today... With sooooo many people out there in the world who are apparently "trading", why are futures volumes so low? Like YM or NQ for example. A typical volume day on the front month is what, 70K-120K contracts? So out of the tens of millions of traders in the world (I have no idea how many, but has to be at least that many, yes?), there's a fraction of 1 percent who trade futures actively/live? What gives?
Divine timing...I was just on the verge of going to the bathroom to take a dump and shower before reading this "regular people" thread. (no joke) I don't know anyone who trades. My only meager connection is this literal website. -- if even, at that. Trading is gambling. there is no way to sugar coat it. -- So if you tell people you trade your own account...they may look at you snarkly like as if you admitted to them you're a gambling addict. Retail traders make up a historically very low, tiny percentage of the daily collective volume. Most of it are professional traders, or fund managers managing macro funds. So that's not a good or healthy gauge to use. I look at the daily volume for options on the ETF's, Indexes and Stocks https://www.barchart.com/options/most-active/etfs I wouldn't necessarily say it's growing or diminishing. It is what it is. Quite frankly, it should be of little to no concern for me or you anyways. There's more than enough space or liquidity or volume in an ocean or even the smallest of lakes. Not to sound like a snob or an elitist, but I don't think I am even interested in knowing or talking to real live other traders. -- Most of them, 99.7%, are losers. Well maybe the ultra ultra successful one's only...like Japanese traders CIS and BNF, and Dan Zanger. and maybe Tim Sykes. and various Trading competition winners.
NQ is closer to a quarter million a day and was over 400k one day this week but yeah, more talkers than traders. I had a trader friend and a damn good one now sadly passed that rather than explain what he did simply said "I'm semi-retired and fool around on the computer at home."
Yeah geez, both NQ and YM have been up quite a lot this whole week compared to previous weeks. Tuesday and Wednesday. Forgot we had the holiday this week. Losing track of the days!
As a retail trader, it has taken me years to become successful with equities and options, and I think a lot of the lack of futures interest has to do with the mark to market feature, whereas you are debited or credited the same day. . . Yes it's a mind game of perspective overall, but it's enough to rattle most people.
Generally I've found, or I seem to think that trading is more popular in the UK than in the US. That might not be true around cities like New York or Chicago, but where I am located, it's a stretch to find anyone other than buy and hold types.
Actually futures get good tax treatment as to IRS 1256 where gains (or losses) are treated at 60% long term capital gain and 40% short term.