There are two Gary Smith. One is multimillionaire and semi retired wrote a book "How I trade for a living". The other one is known as Mr. Chartman in fox moneyshow, also writes in the realmoney.com and theStreet.com. The above one who challenged us all is the multimillionaire, and he did not get rich by peddling books, he did through trading and he can prove his verifiable record.
I know Gary well enough to state he is indeed the real-deal. He's trading a large book earned from 20 or so years of solid returns. I honestly don't understand his proclivity for contributing to these trading sites, to each his own. riskarb.
Riskarb, glad to see you posting again! After getting stuck in that piss-off with JS I was afraid we lost you. Without posts from knowledgeable traders like yourself, we are just spinning our wheels here.
Then I apologize publicly to the Mr. Smith other than Gary B.. Going to the bird feeder to pick out a crow for breakfast now. Geo.
I am very skepitical of the claims myself, that there are hundreds of Joe Traders pulling money from the market everyday. The very nature of the trading enterprise dictates that there can only be a few who can make a living only trading and even less who can make a living only trading over a period of years. It's a zero sum game with a rake and as such the only way to make money is to play in the tail end of the distribution. The smaller your capital the more difficult your ability to extract a meaningful profit with only reasonable risk. My feeling is people who claim that they are making a living using 25k or 50k are: A) deluding themselves , B) have not been at it for very long and are in the process of going bust c) have another 250k to back up that 25k and like to think they only have 25K d) Are happy with the food stamps as their secondary income
I guess we could find out how many successful traders there are if some of the bigger brokers who advertise on ET - such as IB - gave out their statistics. I suspect it would be prominent in their advertising if say "50% of all our traders doubled their money this year". The actual results are possibly a little bit secret.....
I think we have to remember that the main function of the futures markets are to provide a market for hedgers. It isn't here just so a bunch of gamblers/speculators can get together to trade with and take money from each other. Us traders are ONLY here to provide liquidity for the hedgers. That being said, there are many participants who have offsetting positions and may have a losing futures position that in reality may only be a hedge taking them to neutral on the market. So while this participant could be considered a loser on his futures trade if it goes against him, in actuality he is not a loser when you consider what he is trying to accomplish. I guess my point is that there are many many participants who can lose on their trades but not lose on their overall position. They are only concerned with limiting exposure in other instruments as they see necessary.
What an excellent point, pspr! And this is precisely why money can be made in the market - Because there are people who simply "don't care" if they "lose" on the paper in a particular single transaction. If there are people who "don't care" and people who "do care a lot", then there is a chance that those people who "do care a lot" may derive an advantage good enough to extract profits from a directional trade over those who simply don't care for whatever reason, such as non-directional (spread or hedge trade or whatever) therefore don't put in the work, and make money "available" to the more directionally focused ones. And this is only one way in which liquidity becomes available to a "private day trader". There are countless others for sure.
I scanned this thread a bit. I notice that the first post referred to index traders, which is something that we don't recommend to anyone as a successful, long term trading strategy (maybe for hedging purposes). Index futures are pretty darn tough to beat. My named was mentioned, and I have to agree that I do have other revenue sources, but I take the time to post the simple opening strategy to help those just getting started (and many long time traders keep doing it as a basis for their annual income). I noticed that there was a question about making money with $25k...I have to agree, it is very, very difficult....you cannot even do the openings correctly with a small retail account like that. That, of course, brings up the need for capital usage...but I've shown how that works a zillion times here. What I want to do is copy a note that I posted on my opening page and insert it below...perhaps my "2 cents" are better served this way: ------- The entire foundation for the opening orders has changed dramatically over the last year and a half. We have gone from showing the "automators" how to do 50-150 stocks, to focusing on under 20 (you'll notice that I only do 7 now vs. 14 last year). This improves consistency (up to 80+% vs. 65-70%) because you can better read the tape, do much bigger size (which saves you a lot of money in costs and fees)....and allows you to get to know your stocks much better. We all learn how to trade 1 or 2 "children" (stocks) day in and day out...we teach a whole new regimen (much different than last year) for these core stocks....again, we have to adapt to the market. Forget all the naysayers who are stuck in the past, who say that they "can't make money anymore" "decimials ruined it" "bullets ruined it" "volatility ruined it" and all that nonsense. Our new people are actually doing better, percentage winner-wise, than many of our dinasours who have too big of ego's to learn new things. However, in defense of our older, more experienced group, our advanced 2 day classes that my brother gives are completely filling up our entire downstairs area, forcing us to rearrange the entire building to make room for 100 people to sit in, theater style. All this may sound like a BT commercial to some, but you know in your heart that I have been trying to help you and others (knowing you've chosen other firms) for quite some time. I went to NYC, and two guys were doing 200-500 share lots, and breaking even, and not doing openings. In 2 weeks, they are doing 20,000 -40,000 just on the opens, and with Bob's help are doing 200,000 shares per day (at much lower costs), and making triple what they were making before. The whole point is to learn, adapt, learn, adapt, and keep on doing it...and don't get bogged down with the "losing mentality." (whew, sorry)... Sunday morning before the Super Bowl...getting motivated for good game!! LOL ----------------------------------------------- >>Above from opening thread to my buddy "Tony San Diego" All the best... Don
It's funny how as soon as you cast doubt on the believes of some people they come out quite angrily making long statements see- mingly to reinforce their own believes. Positive thinking is a good thing but in the markets it can also cause you to lose your money, time and even your mind if you are not careful. IMO if you make consistently money getting in and out every day, why would you even spend time arguing here? I'd be happy to hear that others don't believe they can make money the way I do actually. Gary Smith's book is really not a dot- com mania book btw. This guy has been trading for a very long time . He would not claim something can be done because he has been doing it for 6 months or a year like some here. Only at the end of your life will you be really able to tell if you made it as a trader or not. As for me, I have one method that has been making money 80% of the time for a year with small losses. As soon as I diverge from it and trade intraday a lot I come back to my old 40% hit rate . I don't get many trades but I don't like losing . I don't go out and say it can be done just because I found something that has worked for a while.