Get your facts right. In the US there are 100543 retail forex accounts (Q2 2013). About 35% (average over all brokers) of these are profitable. Traders at Interactive Brokers stand out where more than 46% of the accounts show a profit. FXCM had the least number of profitable traders, only 28%. Edit: The broker reports are submitted to the National Futures Association (NFA) every quarter so the numbers are updated frequently. They have been fairly stable since Q1 2012.
Who says retail traders would make fortunes (by fortunes I mean more than $10 million)? The debate is if just using price as an input one can make money in a statistically significant way. TA and PA are the same thing so it makes no sense to consider them separately. TA in anything that simply uses the price and volume as the only inputs with possibly some market indicators. Nothing scales indefinitely in this world.
Time to leave this thread because it has drilled down to semantics. Here is a synopsis: Individual traders can and do make a boatload of cash compared to having a regular job kissing some corp's ass for peanuts. Yes, it can and is done using simple-simon tools called a modern order entry platform with charts. No need for expensive overhead in "home based" order entry/exit mouse clicking. On a percentage basis many of us "homers" with a $25k futures account can outperform MOST hedgies day in and day out. How many of those same hedgies can beat the SP500 INDEX? The facts are public knowledge. If hedge fund managers are so great why must they require a 2 to 3% fee and steal 20 to 30% of your profits? Who is the fool in that picture? I am sitting here watching TV about some guys digging for Gold in a jungle, I chuckle knowing that watching a simple chart with a simple method I will make more in Gold alone then they will, but I must admit, it looks like fun playing in all that dirt with spiders crawling on your nose at night. Gold, Crude oil, or whatever floats your boat is fun, it really is. Who needs crap like prop firms or so called professional money managers? Surely more money managers stole more from you than they made on the legit for you. TA is all most of us need, it is all most of us want. The difference between users and complainers is in the understanding of the zigs and zags. I will quit trying to help surf, he is hopeless, he can not even answer a girl with decent answers. SHAME on you surf!!
Actually it is the "nature of the market" that makes reearch possible. Not much is required either. Here is a research project that anyone can do. I will pose the research and, also, I will show how completeing the first research leads to the next research. 1. What is the NATURE of market's variables? I found the answer. This lead me to the consideration of the dependent variable. 2. How many different and unique types of price bars are there? I found that there was a small list. I checked out the sizes of bars as compared to volume bar sizes. Thus I had a DIRECT relationship of two variables. 3. To finish my research, I examined the relationship of the two variables as to their dynamics. I found that the relationship was ageless and was implied first a very long time ago. I also noticed no one was using this known relationship. So there was nothing left to do except create a routine (MADA) to handle the system of operation of the market. This was figuring out how to partner with the market to take the full offer of the market. Since this is all competed; it is said that I originated a new language. I did apparently. We all know its name. I can make Trade Navigator crash if I hi light several of my human tools (extention of mankind stuff are what tools are). So I just added the tools for 1. and 2.'s research. Market research almost never begins at the beginning. Without a foundation nothing is really possible.
Yes, some may be able to do it. I'll never say never but the evidence is against it ver happening. You may do it, Hog. I don't know. There are folks with special gifts in all endeavors. But to suggest that noobs not seek out true professional training in the trading field is just wrong. Shame on you for shining a light down the wrong path. surf
I'm not talking about guessing right on a micro account and making $10 of profit. The average FX account from where those numbers are derived is $500. I mean making as much for them time expended as one would from an average low skilled job. Not profit only.
Very well put, Surf. I am baffled by the attitudes of many here. If one suggests that noobs seek out training from real-life professionals with proven success in their field, or education from respected institutions, you are scolded and accused of being a troll.
Surf is a troll. He suggests WTS for three reasons: A. B and C. For a noob these are very funny to even read. No amateur trader gives a shit about A, B or C. Reasearch 3. shows a paradigm. H1. If volume is increasing, then price trend will continue. H2. If volume is decreasing, then price trend will change. PM of the paradigm: Volume and price vectors. Now we ask: What is WTS's stellar record fo0r handling noobs. A little research will tell all of us as part of our due dilligence. MS traded at a prop firm after the changes he saw from the 1990's. He left his prop firm since he no longer believed what they were teaching him and he says he was not successful. He uses his failure at a prop firm using TA to tell noobs that TA does not work but they should go to a place like he did and not leaqrn TA trading but learn the edges of A, B and C that are being taught at WTS. No one is going to be a trader if he learns other stuff and for sure, if the nnob leaves WTS, he is not going to have the WTS edges WTS seemingly provides. So what to noob make while learning at WTS. MS recommends to successful traders that they do the combine. Why? Who knows. Whaqt is the success rate of those who do the combine as MS recommends. It is very negligible. NADA. I have been accused of not taking the combine because blah blah blah. I am laughing. These two things MS recommends to noobs and to sucessful traders prove to me he is a troll. QED. My view is that the market can be successfully traded using RDBMS. My research, which now anyone can do for themselves, show that the key is the relative measures bar by bar. Al Brooks got there too. I put up the loaf of bread and defined the clices. work done with these tools is like going to the refrigerator to make sandwiches. I post my charts that are fully annotated using thgese tools. anyone can connect the dots specifically for a day they could have made the same amount of money. MS posts one slice of my bread to show what he thinks is the best example of what is thge worst in TA. This is a third element of a proof that MS is a troll plain and simple. I think that MS has never sat with expert trader, ever. TradersExo used to run a forum at the expo called "Expert Traders That You have Never Met." I can tell you that when they see me they say hi using my first name. They do not know this troll called MS. You say: "If one suggests that noobs seek out training from real-life professionals with proven success in their field, or education from respected institutions....." Give us a break, MS has never done that once in all his years at ET. Donna helps people. Other heklp people. MS says he cannot tell if any of these helpers have ever Blah, Blah ......... Of course he can't ... But then he does identically to these people just exactly what a troll does. Can the moderators see him disparging others. Yes and No. It is possible they do not understand his commentary. since he doesn't use frank and dirty words, they maynot even see him at all. Maybe he complains occasionally. I know he has me on ignore except when he is refering to his honored and informed buddies and then asks me questions (while spelling bank names wrongly) to acieve some unseemly goal with respect to me. This looks like he is being a troll. In fact many of thw women who are relatives do have middle names of that bank. He knows this shit because he reads the NYSR. Why is he focused on me like an unfriendly troll. Those I mentored attend his parties; he know thaey are expert traders. He knows about the global meetings conducted the same we he throws his party. He knows these traders are successful and come from all over the globe. since he knows all of these things and he is a failure in TA, why does he behave like a troll on ET? WTF? there are many many edges in TA and he knows many many people who trade using these edges while they use TA. WTF? Can the ET moderation get on the stick? Probably not. Watch this post get deleted. Make a copy while you have the chance. I did.