I'm just curious... what kind of reactions do you receive when you tell someone you're a trader and you do that to make a living... It seems to me that many people mis-associate trading with the boilerroom, gambling, or just doing something illegal...
Yes. Most of my friends and family think that TRADER == GAMBLER It takes me a long time to convince them that online trading is a business with low barriers of entry, but high rate of failure(85% ?). However, all my friends, who have started their own business, have folded their companies. To me, starting a non-trading business has 100% failure rate. Hence, trading is a relatively safe profession.
Hahaha yes. More often than not, when people ask me what I do (I never volunteer the info) it is all they can do to muster a positive response.
a lot of people i've told are sort of like "woooaahh".... i think forging out on your own at such a heavy risk garners an unusual respect. especially if the people you're talking to know you to be pretty intelligent and deliberate in your pursuits. i have some friends who are fascinated by how abstract it is too. if you trade financial futures, you're using minimal physical capital to harvest a living from an idea. do the stock indices actually exist? they're abstractions. index futures are twice abstracted. the few i've told think it's really neat.
The universal response I get is: "Isn't that stressful?" to which I answer, "No, it's boring" (Of course, it's very interesting, but that is my response.) This either caused them to walk away or ask a lot more questions. I am also never sure which adjective to use - Financial Futures Trader, Commodities Trader, Futures Trader, just Trader. (I do discretionary daytrade the ES, but also run two mechanical systems that trade commodities (softs, metals and financial).) Futures Trader seems to work best. And I am more of a wannabe at this stage (one year). - rcm
Never understood why traders wouldn't. Personally my friends and family are VERY jealous of me. I love what I do, work great hours, answer only to myself and make a good living doing it. Why wouldn't I tell them what I do? If you have people poo pooing your job, time to get new friends.
I told my barber two days ago that I'm a trader and he went on to tell me a story about how he knows someone's son who lost a lot of money in the market. That's the typical reaction I get. So I'm thinking of different ways to answer the question now. Any suggestions? Money Manager? Investor? Portfolio Manager? Discretionary Swing Exchange Traded Funds Trader?
The best way to shut people up would be to wear a super-sized gold chain and drive away in a Mercedes S500...I'm years away from that though.