A phrase that I herd while watching wallstreet warriors http://www.hulu.com/watch/14023/wall-street-warriors-from-robes-to-riches#s-p1-n1-so-i0 19:52 A group of Tim Sykes young trader friends are talking about how much money it would take for you to be happy, and I guess feel better than everyone else. Do others here share that attitude? JUST wondering cm69
These kids are caught up in the hype... I hate NYC because of this materialism and Wall Street epitomizes it. (I live on Long Island btw) They are completely out of touch of reality, thinking that they will be satisfied with all that money. If any of those guys obtain $5,000,000 I bet you he won't be satisfied. He is going to want $20,000,000. Humans are this way and will never have enough. It reminds me of this documentary on Fora TV where people with net worths of $50,000,000 didn't think they were rich because some of their friends had $200,000,000. Then the 200,000,000 guys were jealous of any of their billionaire friends. Lastly, these kids are probably not traders, only Sykes. They just have entry level Wall Street jobs somewhere... 50K. I wonder if they still have their jobs.
A group of young punks talking about F-You money in 2006 or so....my guess is 80% are out of the biz right now
Trading is a zero sum game. Dont we all subconsciously have this mindset? is it bad to want to improve ones skills? (in other words when it comes to trading....make more $)
Sorry, but I beg to differ. That's the mindset of typical losers, which are a dime a dozen in this competitive game. Trading is akin to sports. When you see a good athlete, you don't say "geez, he's good only because he's being paid $10 million". On the contrary, he's worth $10 million only because he proved to the world that he deserves it. A successful trader is no exception to this rule. Next time, don't dwell so much on how much you can make, but on how to trade properly. For most of you that means how not to lose what you already have.
an athlete getting paid 10 million doesn't necessarily prove to the world that he deserves 10 million. It is just what someone is willing to pay him for his services, that is all. A rich person can pay a man millions of dollars to count the grains of sand on a beach. Does that mean that the man counting the sand services is worth millions of dollars? probably not. It is what is.
I think we're getting a little off topic. Its not a matter of paying a man what he's worth. The question was 1. What is the grand total of money that you think you need to be happy?...5m..10m..100m again in the movie, one of the young guys said that he'd be happy with 500k a year invested in T-Bills. He was quickly shot down by Tim Sykes or some other guy that said that its not enough. 2. Do you think having great wealth gives you the right to look down on others, even if your wealth took a great amount of time and sacrifice to achieve? Hence the term "FU-K YOU" money. As if to say, I make more money than you, therefore I'm a better person. However in the trading world ones wealth is directly related to their success or lack thereof. So maybe trader Joe with 50m has the right to say he's better than trader Bob with only 5m.
I stopped listening to Howard Stearn over 10 years ago but I recall that he was talking about F U money back them. I understood it to mean the amount of money you need to have to be able to say F U to your boss/clients because even if you lose your job/clients you will be more than OK. Basically the amount of money that it takes you to feel completel freedom to do what you want to do or not as far as employment/business, not to feel better than anyone else (I don't think that most people think this way anyway). 1. I could be happy with a fraction on my net worth, I probably couldn't have as much fun though If I had to put a $ figure on it probably $2-300K though I may have to relocate out of the 1st world. $2-300K and one could probably lead a happy life in Thailand or some place like that. 2. Feel sorry for the people who think this way, closes them off to many things.
Fuck You money is an old concept on Wall St, and I think it is worth thinking about deeply because it tells you a lot about who you are and what you want. Fuck You money is an old concept in general, 200 years ago you would have been called a man of independent means, and you would have either spent your time playing cards, being an amateur academic or politician. Some people think $50,000 a year will finance a lifestyle they can be happy with for the rest of their lives - which works out to $65,000 pre-tax for some. They then assume they can get 5% for Treasuries, which means they need $1.3mm. This math of course ignores the effect of inflation and also of constant withdrawals on a volatile endowment. Those Treasuries are going to be whipping your $1.3mm around, and when they are at a MTM low, your fixed withdrawals are going to be taking a huge bite on the principal, thereby lowering future returns by a lot. Same reason why defined benefit plans aren't very viable. Also, most people cannot help but spend up to their means (or beyond). When you start making more, you will start spending more, and that $50,000 will start to look unrealistic. It will climb to $100,000 and then $200,000 and then higher. A lot of people scoff at this and say they can never spend $200,000 a year. But if you think about the ratio of how much you spent in your first working year out of college, versus how much you spend in your tenth working year out of college, you can see how easy it is for cost of living to rise. There is simply no limit to how much a person can spend before they say "it is enough". Lots of poorly disciplined sports stars plow through millions with little to show for it. It takes a lot of discipline to spend well beneath your means even when you are rich. These are the reasons why I think Fuck You money is a key concept for a professional trader to grasp.