I can assure you that there are members here who trade on our own and appreciate your contributions. Anyone that gives you negative feedback is lacking in other aspects of life.
Thanks, guys. However, the comment regarding snarky replies was purely humoristic related to @Coin Flip's comment on page 948. LOL. I honestly don't mind some snark. I even find it entertaining and funny. Life's too short to get wound up by comments on the internet.
Honestly, I'm not sure if trading can be taught and I also think it requires a special type of personality to be risking your money on a daily basis. Even with the right knowledge one may end up sabotaging oneself as the trading game is rigged against human nature. Typically by doing the opposite of what's required, i.e., letting losses run while cutting profits short as soon as some green flashes on the screen. I do think a mentor can speed up the learning curve and put someone on the right track, but ultimately, one needs that personal experience and thousands of hours of screen time and back-testing/back-checking/studying across various market conditions and events. That's the only way to build trust and confidence in whatever system you're trading. And for those without a mentor (like myself) it can easily become thousands of hours learning the wrong stuff. A few years ago now I actually disclosed my complete system with all written documents to a guy who in return would help me rewrite my statistical application in an improved format and possibly improving it beyond what I have now. After a year it was clear to me that he still had not learned even the very basics and he eventually gave up. There's been written a lot about this in Market Wizards. From what I recall, the success rate was very low with most of the Market Wizards that had tried to employ and mentor new traders. I believe Linda Raschke said she had a guy on that was very capable, but he would simply sit through sessions not being able to execute. There's also the famous Turtles experiment which was in fact a bet between Richard Dennis and William Eckhardt where the former believed trading could be taught and the latter did not. Ultimately, the experiment was a success as quite a few traders became successful, although of course many failed as well as they was not able to follow the rules. I think it was a mechanical trend following system. Also worth noting that Richard Dennis ultimately closed down his funds after a major drawdown of around 50 %. Not easy this trading game. I'm sure quite a few of the Market Wizards were just in the right place at the right time, but I digress...
My humble opinion is that not everyone deserves to have (more) money. I'd rather not help anyone than to help those who are ill suited. Having more money will only reinforce their faulty character and bad habits, and I know they will end up harming others. So before passing on what little I know, I need to know who I'm dealing with. Unfortunately, I haven't met anyone yet.
They say that in Major League Baseball, you could turn out the lights in the ball-park a tenth of a second after the ball leaves the pitcher's hand, and it would not change the outcome of the pitch. That skill can not be taught. It comes with experience, and a certain type of innate talent. I suppose there's level's of knowledge out there that can be taught, but you can't teach feel. It's impossible to quantify, the by-product of a thousand experiences.
Go Look Up the father of Trader tax accounting Robert Green owner of Green trader tax accounting .He invented doing Trader taxes for full time traders . His outfit has done 1000’s and 1000’s of trader returns over the last 25 yrs . I used him for about 10 yrs . I asked my accountant with him how many traders really make money over 5-10 yrs . He said he can count them on 1 hand . Thats coming straight from the source . I’ll leave it at that .
I bet if you asked him how many traders needed to use his service over others? It would be counted on one hand. He would not admit that, however.
I would love to be an intern at IB just to be able to look at accounts. I realize these days that some pros might have multiple brokers and purposely arbitrage between the accounts to hide what they are doing, or what their net position is, but just picking up on trend from accounts that are in the millions with good daily profits would be an eye opener.