You may be wrong: if he was my father's in law I would find him supportive because I would have a motivation to prove that I can do it in spite of skepticism . I'm also lazy so I need to be kicked in the rear to advance - now it depends on the psychology of the person. This can also be taken as a test for searching for real motivation and capacity. I would do it only if I am prepared enough. Preparation is the key between success and failure. Precipitation is a bad idea. If time's preparation is your ennemy for any reason you should reconsider your decision by either differing or changing completely your decision.
Good point re setting boundaries... and that extends to acquaintances, customers, vendors, whoever-- people who are "toxic influences" should be 'stopped out' ... it's important to surround yourself with people who can help you, and set firm boundaries to prevent negative comments from people who don't believe in you.. i have a simple rule, eg if someone says negative things, especially the 'negative people' out there, eg whiners, complainers, those that put others down etc. ..I 'put them on ignore' and create barriers to remove their influence.. Life's too short to have toxic people/relationships spoil it... my rule is, be positive or be elsewhere, the world has enough negativity in it as it is, without subjecting myself to people who are negative.. example, my parents are great supporters, it was my father who got me into stock trading in the 90's... but I have other relatives who are negative, so I avoid them ... pretty simple.. anyways, good thread -- ken
Talk is cheap... bro! And with little or NO experience to boot you are opposing valid opinions that you asked for! Wow. You are already defending yourself against others who are only replying to you in an effort to "help"! After all..... isn't that why you started this thread????? To see what others thought?! Give us a break guy. Now you're upset that your hearing things that you don't agree with. Hmmmm.......... wonder if you'll bring that same resentment to the markets when they don't go YOUR way. Hey, if you don't want honest and candid feedback on ET... then suck it up bro!! Keep it inside! Don't ask other traders to commiserate with you and then you get haughty when they are candid in their feedback! :eek: :eek: :eek: Why not come back on ET and share your experiences AFTER you have accomplished something... anything, in trading! And then let's see if your mindset isn't different from now. Like more open. K? ICe
That's an interesting apect I am just now starting to observe: Since I have been trading I feel my mind has opened more and more. I am still quite anal, but definitely improving.
First of all, BRO, I have stated that I appreciate the comments, negative or otherwise. Secondly, I am responding honestly in kind to Scientist's comments. I am being candid with my feedback to him as he was with me. I didn't ask for valid opinions about whether being bothered by a loved one's skepticism brands someone as an automatic failure at trading. That was not the subject of this thread. The subject was how those who have experienced this have gone about handling it. I think I do have an open mindset; what I fail to understand is how starting this thread and admitting that skepticism from a loved one has bothered me has me destined to fail as a trader. And I didn't realize ET was only open to those who were star traders as apparently you are already.
Brother ice, these are rarely harsh words from you. I do, of course, wholeheartedly agree. You recognized and identified the situation here instantly, like a skilled tape reader. learninglisted, however, didn't - He walked right into the lion trap I set him. To clarify, lion traps are famous for getting the lions caught and getting more hopelessly caught the angrier they get. I clearly offered LL help, but I also wanted to gauge his emotional tolerance here. Just reading a few of his posts told me he would have a very low "break-point", that is the point where he gets defensive and starts justifying himself. Now we got a good impression as to where the point is. LL: your problem here really isn't anything more than the fact that you want to prove yourself. What you really need to do is throw that away, invite the magic of the markets into your mind and don't take offense to the suggestions of others. I don't ask you to see the market as a battlefield. That depends on your timeframe, too. If you're scalping against MM's, then it certainly is. If you had done the right thing, appropriate for a mature trader (or person), you would have taken all of my suggestions in and accepted whatever seemed applicable to you and thanked me for the rest, without justifying yourself. I would say maybe you don't have the degree of maturity yet that it requires to survive in this game and even prosper. You must learn to accept the harsh reality. As said, I used to frequently disagree with Alfonso, and here I'm critically agreeing with him! This is a major point. Don't let the reality of it go past you. One day, a year from here, when you might have failed completely, you might look back at Alfonso's and my post here as the only ones that were valid, honest and straightforward. If you do succeed, you're free to laugh into our faces. I wish very much for you that you will. I'll be laughing with you. Until then, you've got to be able to look reality into the eye, or it will look straight into yours. If you can't handle straightforwardness and honesty - Then, by lord, you cannot even contemplate handling reality! That's just my 5 cents. I wish you all the best in your endeavor, brother. Since you know so well, You don't need me anymore. Good Luck, ~Scientist
No no. Not because you started the thread. You're getting too personally affected here. I was just making suggestions. Don't get your knickers in a knot! Well, that's what somebody else said on the pivot-thread. I only confirmed it. I would say - Yes. There's a lot of tools and things you need to know before you can make it. Trust me on this one - or find out yourself. I never said you did. I said you shouldn't even think about doing it. EVER. If you do, you will die immediately. You will turn into trader-dust like the vampire getting hit by the sun breaking through holes in the walls. Make sure you write down your "NEVER" statement and the "I take responsibility for my actions" - And put it on a piece of paper next to your monitor, with the other rules, like your stop-loss rules etc. Like the 10 commandments, you shall chant them everyday, as a practice of discipline, at least while you're learning. Don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying you must kneel on a carpet made from $100-bills 5 times a day, rocking back and forth, chanting "Greenspanu Akbar, Greenspanu Akbar", or even scream this all over Manhattan from your 59th-storey office window. As if anybody would hear you, anyway. What I mean is: Just take the matter serious enough to sink in, that's all. Face reality, only then can you bring it on your side. We're not making any assumptions at all. We're only referring to experience with ourselves and other day traders we know who have already been through all of this process. Take it, or don't. LOL! This is hilarious! I think it is, because I read this first thing in the morning, and I'm glad I read it on my kitchen terminal, because the coffee I sprayed all over the place reading this wouldn't have been nice in my office. ROFL. Maybe I was just in a funny mood. I like your sense of humor, though. To mention, there is a chinese prover that says: "The absolute truth is the thing that makes people laugh." Think about it. Fas-cinating! You're on the right track. I very much wish for you that you're right. Take my best well wishes that we'll meet again in another year's time without you being a financial quadroplegic with 365 open scars and flesh wounds for every day traded. However, be open to reality. All the best. Yes, and thank you very much for bringing up the topic, it's a great thread. As you can see, many others, including myself, face equal problems. No need to be offended man. I meant to help you, not to discourage you. Didn't you see that? I wish you all the best in your endeavours, my brother, and I will herewith close the session. There's a whale family with a white calf down the cape and I'm gonna thunder down there now in my VTI in 6th gear to see it. All the Best, ~Scientist
Okay, I'll take your word for it. This wasn't the topic of your thread, but I since I already brought it up: it's still my opinion that someone who was truly certain that somebody else's opinion of them/their activities would not affect them would not even bring the subject up. I know you probably have an answer to this, too. However, I would ask you to hold off from replying, for the moment to switch off the brain's automatic defensive-reply generator, and really ask yourself -- really ask yourself -- am I bothered by his comments? You don't have to tell me, but unless you can honestly answer "no" to this to yourself, and truly feel that that is the true answer, then I submit you, and thus, your trading, will be negatively affected by the meaning you attach* to your FIL's opinions. (*Remember, others' opinions have no intrinsic power to affect us, only that which we give them.) A year may or may not be long enough. If I were you, I wouldn't put too much stock (read: any) into the estimates of learning curve length given by others on ET. It's my firm belief that the vast majority are lying (ie, they are not profitable, but pretend that they are, and quote "took me about a year" cos it "sounds" long enough.) You're right, it is just my opinion that a year isn't long enough. Just know that it's an opinion formed by having grown up in a "market family" and from dozens and dozens of stories about various (would-be) traders passed on to me by relatives and friends. Forgive my bluntness again, you don't specifically state it, but I gather that you consider being slightly over break even in a year's time rather ho-hum. I would say if you achieve that you've done smashingly well; a year, in my books, being scarcely long enough to learn the rudiments, let alone the all important process of refining them. In short, no. I'm guessing the "prop trading model" that you're referring to is of the put-your-$20k-down-professional-customer variety (the one where everyone knows someone who the "guy sitting next to me has made 6 figures the past five years"). What that model is "all about" is "teaching" (or else influencing) you to trade methods that have you generating commissions big enough to make an insurance salesman blush. There's exactly one daytrading strategy that I'm aware of (although I guess there might be a couple others) that requires anywhere near the amount of leverage a prop firm will give you, and it hit 90% on the Stochastics band a couple of years ago. (The fact that they advertise this as one of their "advantages" and "benefits" is rather telling, I think.) "Being capitalized", at least as I understand it, is "having enough capital" to tide you over through losing streaks without the remainder becoming "scared capital", which never (according to legend) trades well. It's my opinion that the market doesn't take too kindly to people trying to make a living from it even when they are in the best of cicumstances. Sizing you up again, I see an anxious (and willing and able to tell about it) father in law, a thus far patient wife and mother-to-be (but we all know how patience is influenced by bank accounts, time and new born babies), and the subtle but dangerous influences of "prop firm" culture all to contend with. Those are, needless to say, hardly ideal circumstances. Well, that's my take on it. But I will offer this interesting "paradox". If you are to make a go and success of this trading thing, it's precisely opinions like mine, your father in law's and those of the Icemen and Scientists of the world that you must learn to ignore. All the best.
Yep. Agree in all points. I must heavy-heartedly agree again. You're probably not good enough over just a year. How long did it take me from starting to trade till profitability? 3 months! Well, that's the $-time figure. Here's some reality, and some history: The reality is that I've studied this stuff since I was 8, and more actively througout the 90's. I always had in mind becoming a trader and I had my name up on the highschool's stock-picking (pos trading that was) competitions. I rarely was #2 or #3 in the late 90's. I also was amongst the only people using TA vs most people using FA(besides my best friend, classmate and son of a local banker who basically competed with me for the #1 all the time). Percy now is a financial advisor and I'm a trader. He would envy my job for sure, but he lives in Germany now, far away. I also competed in VSX for years and eventually made it into the world-top there, consistently. All this happened before I started to actually day trade - actively. It still took me 3 months of tough work, after long time on the sims, spending days and nights to figure stuff out. I thought I knew it all, and there still was so much new stuff to learn once you had to trade seriously! As a personal guesstimate, no matter what ET members may say, I would say it takes about 3-5 years to become proficient - That is, actually draw a good living from $50K with little DD's. To me, that doesn't sound like a long time. How long does it take to become a hairdresser, for F's sake? 3 years? I don't know why people want to all learn trading "immediately", as if it is an intuitive thing we're born with. They're just kidding themselves. It requires an extensive, stretched, and comprehensive education. And this educations costs both time and money. Take my word for it, learninglisted. Just don't do anything stupid. In your own best interest. Agree in all point again. How about:"It hit 90% on the Stoch band a couple of years ago" - Alfonso, that it bloody hilarious! Take this in well, learninglisted. How much capital do you have? Do you have the $100K I detailed you would need altogether? Come on? Answer this to yourself only, but make sure you answer it! This guy sayis it all. Make sure you're aware of this, LL! Oh, bloody oath! LL, if you do it and succeed, you're free to kick me! I'll invite you for a big night out and unlimited free piss! Anybody wanna join? Great post, Alfonso! LL, Good Luck to You! ~The Scientist
Thanks for your comments and advice. Seriously. Our discussions here have given me much food for thought as well as future thread topics. I wish you both continued trading success. Cheers, LL p.s. "Unlimited free piss"? I do love the Aussie colloquialisms!