More than anything else i'm impressed with Szeven's humility and honestly. I had a period where I had an incredible run and soon became arrogant and slightly cocky. It took a good few market lessons to put me in my place...
I'm of the opinion, that to be a good trader (particularly a manual one), you must have a degree of "cockyness" --a slight step up from confidence. There's a real fine line where great traders dwell --between confident and slightly cocky. If you get arrogant, or event worse, egotistical, you will quickly get slapped down my the markets, as you should be. All great traders, imo, go though all these phases (hopefully not dwelling too long/or at all on arrogant or egotistical, before learning better). >unsure>sure>confident>cocky>arrogant>egotistical>slapped down>humility>relearn>confident>cocky--but with a healthy respect of the markets now. If you've reached this level, you should learn humility at this point. A truely arrogant or egotistical person will not, while a person who's not naturally arrogant/egotistical will, as it was simply a "great run", and you've been taught plenty of lessons since then. This cycle tends to repeat to some degree, where we all have to relearn these lessons from time to time. If we're smart we'll learn these lessons in humility well, there are so many things the market teaches.....if we'd only listen. How Szeven learned these so fast.....well........?
For many daytraders this is peanuts. It's not the amount of points or ticks you make a day/week is how much you have been able to scale up your size over the course of time. Who has the mental fortitude after becoming consistent, to increase size, and continue to do well, that's the bottomline. NN
why are you putting out random orders? why are you are you trying to be secretive with your trades? don't worry about being secretive...just make money. you aren't that big.
ET is notorious for bashing anyone that claims to make any sort of profit in this business. Consistently pulling $5k a day from the market is one thing, but having a thread on ET with people congratulating you... that's a different type of success. Congrats Szeven.. I hope things keep going well for you.
It's too tough for them to bash someone that posted profit/loss blotters for a long time along with having a few traders that personally know him. However, if he ever becomes a vendor... He'll be called a fake because its impossible for vendors to be profitable. Mark
Man you guys, all this praise im gonna blow up on Monday aka NBBO's egotistical stage! ET has been awesome to me too, ive been able to meet some great people. Theres nothing better for success than having peers that are more experienced, have better real edges, and are willing to share their experiences with a group on a daily basis. Never forget though, its all relative. Here we are talking about how someone may have made 5k a day last week, when SAC or ESL (when hes not going long SHLD) was up 10's of millions last week. Just as there was a guy who was up 100 bucks each day last week like i used to be. I do agree as well that its one thing to have a decent run on day trading, but the trick is to transform that into a successful life. As i posted in the P/L thread 5 months ago, that was my goal this year, and so far its going ok, but as usual, not without massive pitfalls and obstacles. Trading is unlike anything else i have experienced, its relevance is everywhere in every industry and every social situation imo. Its great to be exposed so early! Now lets let this thread die before i let my ego destroy me in the mkts...
so here is the best answer to my original question: 1 Szeven started off at swift - where they are very strict about discipline........they will liquidate your positions once you hit a certain predefined loss for the day.....and fire your ass if you hit the loss limit one too many times.......they only want very consistent and risk averse traders...........so for all the newbies, its highly advisable to start off with a firm that will force you to control your risk in that manner..........limiting risk is the most essential skill to learn when starting off. (this part is about mastering the defensive side of trading) 2 Szeven started of with a real hardcore arb. edge.........whereas most guys start off trading off of noise and impulses. (this part is about mastering the offensive side of trading)
<i>"Consistently pulling $5k a day from the market is one thing...</i>" One of the main features that kept me visiting ET in general was watching szeven, lescor and a few others sharing performance. If I recall correctly, szeven had losing days. He had a few painful ones at that. Same is true for lescor... some big losses now & then, one where he sent out errant orders from his black box approach that could have wiped out entire bankroll if not contained soon enough. It's all there for posterity, in case my memory fails me. Both of those traders also enjoyed some huge days to offset losses... six-figure gains. In szeven's case, one single session last year was good for $250,000 alone if I recall correctly. That would be (very roughly) 25% of the entire year's profit in one single day. 1/250th of total working days accounted for +25% of the entire year's gross profit. Important to keep in mind that trading is about the rolling curve of wins and losses along the way. Too many traders fixate glassy eyes of the whim of no-loss days, nothing but net and warm, fuzzy feelings every night. Losing is part of winning in our chosen profession. Learning to accept that and not fight it, keep losses smaller than wins and let time take over. That is how our profession works. Enjoying our free time away from markets, financials and ilk is by far most important of all. Life is short
chew and austin p made 2 great points,chew on managing risk,single most important rule of trading,like driving,avoid accidents,they could be fatal,austins post should mention that a good defensive trader will be in business when opportunity arises,90% of you r year is made in 10% of your trading days,i.e. 250 trading days in a year,in 25 of those days you will make 90% of your money,first 3 weeks of jan were free money,if you can stay small til this mrkt breaks ,could be mid june,you will be in biz to catch nice downdraft,3/17 til now was a great time for a premium seller if you were friends with bernanke and goldsax