Please don't give @themickey a hard time. Unlike me, he has been trading for over 30 years and knows this business. Your logic says: 1. Ed Thorp is smart, rich and is a mathematician, so unless you are a mathematician, you cannot be a smart and rich trader. 2. You never asked if @themickey is a mathematician. How could you assume he is not smart, not rich and not a mathematician? Using that same logic, I must assume since you mentioned it with conviction, you must be smart, rich and a mathematician? Have a good day sir.
I think @themickey has given plenty of people a hard time. I mean, he is doing it in this thread!!! I have been trading successfully since September 1998, and it's the ONLY job I have ever had. I KNOW my business. Ed Thorp is brilliant, and way ahead of his time. Markets have changed radically in the last 20 years, and I have witnessed it firsthand. Personally, I would have studied computer programming, or math. No, you don't need math to be successful, but I realize the reason I am successful is due to the thousands of hours of screen time, aka, EXPERIENCE. Frankly, starting as a brand new trader must be so much more difficult than ever before. Using logic, I can make the assumption that @themickey does not hold a Mathematics degree. I don't know about the other 2 items. I would not mind taking an IQ test. I was part of the Gifted Program, since middle school. And using the same logic, you can infer from the mention of my degree (which is now useless), that I am not a Mathematician. Oh, and I DEFINITELY have the other 2 items; one, since I was born, the other one, since the year 2000. It's been a truly amazing life!!! But, I recognize timing is everything. I was simply at the right place, and at the right time. Have a good day, Sir...
I too doubled my (7 figure) account in the last 2 years, any decent trader should have been printing money during this time of great volatility. I've always said that volatility is a trader's best friend, your profit potential is limited by trading range, and range is always much greater when vol is high, its just common sense. I recall arguing with a couple of newbs over this years ago on ET, I don't see those pikers posting here anymore, probably got killed trying to make 2 pts daily on the ES when it was averaging 5 pt range back in 2017. Daytrading, retail or not, is fantastic when conditions are right (and you have the skills for it), its horrible and not worth the time when realized vol is extremely low.
There is ALWAYS a financial instrument with high intraday range and high volume somewhere, RIGHT NOW, the trader just have to look/scan for it. Never limit yourself to a specific market and never wait 5,000 years for a trading opportunity, trade what's moving NOW and ignore all the rest, that's all there is to it. If the Yen is not moving switch to Soybeans futures or the emini Nasdaq or whatever stock or bond is trending like hell at the moment.
Yeah but most traders only trade 1-2 products, it takes time to know a product, not advisable to run around chasing something just because its moving.
Exactly right -- range is everything.. wide range multipoint clean charts are critical. Choppy low-vol charts are death, which is why I don't trade es... bc many days are chop on open
I really hope it ISN'T just a gamble! After losing at this for nearly 6 years i'm certainly starting to wonder, but there do 'appear' to be some retail guys who make consistent profits. Not sure if they're using the same tools as the rest of us or whether they have access to different information, though. Personally, I've been using 'price action' and charts (5m, 60m and daily on the ES) all this time, but it's kinda been 6 years of frustration so far tbh.
In my opinion this is THE biggest mistake a trader can make: limiting himself to a couple of financial instruments. Over the years the opportunity cost becomes enormous. The only goal of the trader is to make money NOW, no to "familiarize" himself with a couple of stocks, commodities or currencies that may or may not move for weeks or months, while good, fresh trading opportunities are popping up each day elsewhere.
Keep studying the stupid charts and one day something will click, I promise you. Personally it took me more than 20 years of hard work, frustration and testing to figure this crazy trading business out. And I am still learning each day. So study hard and don't give up.
Diving into something that one isn't familiar with can be disastrous, imagine trading CL without the knowledge that inventory numbers are released every wed at 1030...