I thought mike kestler and the boys at tuco were killing it? Top guy made 300k or so. It tells me when we see some big hitters they might have some other accounts there getting killed in.Bottom line the owners at tuco and the rest of prop shops are the ones killing it in overides.Why do you think don bright doesn"t trade much? The guys providing the picks and ax's(The owners of the prop shops) and not the ones panning for gold(the day traders) are the one's making the big money. I bet tuco was making 1 mil amonth min in overides.
I have been telling people here that at least 80% lose based on some theoretical derivations I arrived assuming the random walk theory, and they insulted what I wrote. Your numbers support the result. Thanks OP!
Those are great odds considering the upside potential of this business. Consider the odds of the college football athlete going pro. Take total number of 1A schools, with football programs, total their seniors, then go to draft day. Id go into trading any day considering the upside potential.
OK, from this one year snapshot we can see that out of 206 traders 33 made money and 173 did not. That does not neccesarily mean that thost 173 are failures, they may have improved and become profitable. it took me four years before I could put together my first winning year. These numbers are probably about the same for any field of endeavor where many are called and few are chosen. I worked as a stockbroker in the early 90's at two different firms. Only a few made serious money, a few more made a living at it, and most washed out of the business, myself included. The football analogy in the previous post applies here as well. The general saying that "90% fail in this business" isn't accurate. If you want to say that in any given calendar year, 90% of individual trader will be unprofitable, then that would be more accurate. However, of that 90% some will go on to become profitable later.
True, but the college football athelete contemplating going pro has some solid edge - physical ability, talent, and years of consistent performance etc. How many beginner pro daytraders have an edge in the first place?
I wonder about the accounts with negative beginning balance, negative profits, 0 contributions. With a negative balance if you're still allowed to trade you're losing the shop's capital not yours. Is that how people make money for their other accounts?
I think alot of people will look at some of these statistics and ask "Why bother trying to become a trader if the odds of making it big are so low?". But just because something is hard doesn't mean you shouldn't try. The odds of you starting a business and becoming the next Microsoft, for example, are extremely low. Does that mean you shouldn't try? I agree with an earlier post that stated the upside potential to trading is worth giving it a shot even if your odds of success are minimal. When certain people say "I'm going to make a living playing poker" most would laugh at them and give them the odds of actually becoming a pro poker player (very low), yet people still try and do succeed. So I'm not sure if the point of this thread is to discourage new traders or not, but my words of advice are if you are passionate about trading, you might as well give it a shot. Don't quit just because someone tells you something is hard.
Given enough time, 'almost' anyone can be a consistently successful trader. I am proof of that. In it's simplest terms, an EDGE and DILIGENCE is all you need. Fortunately for me, 90%+ will GIVE UP when the going gets tough.
This thread is going to be an instant ET classic. What about other firms that got shut down? Is anyone aware of any other similar records?