Dude, you crack me up. Last time you said, "Traders lose because of the software they use." Now, you claim retail traders can't make money. Never let any facts get in the way of your opinions. Today, several retail traders all made money following the same system I outlined in my First Journal. Even more remain profitable since they started trading according to the rules outlined. One individual started three weeks ago, and made his first trade today. He made money - in a retail account. And call me silly, but I suspect there are many other ways to make money trading out of a retail account. Suggesting otherwise is simply ridiculous. - Spydertrader
I've traded prop and retail. if you know what you are doing, no diff. in fact, "prop" can be a disadvantage depending on fees.
Spyder, You should let this go. It took awhile to learn, but people can and do argue with cold hard empirical data. They themselves cannot do it, so it must not be true. I do not know the psychological basis for this. Best Regards Oddi
trading is no different from any other business MOST businesses fail - restaurants, delivery services, whatever. why should trading be any different? it isn't thank God for losing traders. they provide liquidity, and their stops and margin calls help fuel nice runs
People do not fit into earnings ranges over time. A person has a capacity at any given time and there is no way that a person can remain in a fixed position over time. There are two reasons: 1. The person grows and thus his capacity enlarges. 2. His equity curve basis, based upon capital in the markets, grows as well. Take a firm look at how a person goes through his trading life and see how the dynamic of things prevents some simplistic notion that a steady state condition is achievable or logical. The two major efforts a person makes early on are both acquisitional. The person acquires the truths of the markets. He also obtains the capital to trade. One does not trade in any market one does not understand or sees as a place in which to take chances. One only trades what one has learned about. That is, knowing how the market works for the portion of the market one is allowed to trade in. This makes money and there are no associated expenses since this is only a part time endeavor that just builds wealth. It all starts at an initial rate of 10% a month and improves to 10% a week after a very short time. The amounts are determined by taking a portion of what is continually offered to the trader. Think of it as doubling your money each quarter. Three or four years of this and having a job allows a person to acquire enough capital to trade full time. At this point the trading accounts are drained steadily to some extent. Say, at a rate of 1,000 to 2,000 dollars a week. The steady state condition for this would be to have 10K to 20K of capital in the markets after a 3 to 4 year build up from initial capital. There is no initial capital small enough to only have 10k to 20K by this time. The drain of capital is always much smaller than the appreciation of capital. So a person's operating capital continues to grow. Logically, he knows the commodities markets and the stock markets. Commodities trading is limited and stock trading is not. Commodities trading is more leveraged and more profitable than stock trading. Commodities trading takes many times more time than stock trading to accomplish. Dumping excesses into 501 (c) (3)'s (think foundation) since 1986 (the last change of the laws) requires unloading some of the capital you place in the 501 (c) (3) annually. Think of a 20 year turn over ratio roughly. The task of learning the truths of the markets is uncomplicated vis a vis whether you are dealing with a truth. Truths are timeless. You only get to find them while debriefing after you have been trading right on the edges of your known truths. And those new provisional truths that you are running into as you broaden the no risk areas To you as a consequence of knowledge and skills) in which you make money. The markets are transparent and they are always consistently right. Most people have never even seen the markets. You only get to see the markets as a consequence preparing to debrief yourself on what you have seen. Traders are like carpenters with 20 years experience. Some have one years experience repeated 19 times and others have grown every year they have beeen at it. They get different size pay checks too.
If you are breakeven or a little better after one year, I would consider you successful. That's how much the odds are against you.
3+ yrs to become profitable. Never sustained large losses other than not producing an income (~200K in time/$$ losses). My trading has become more profitable the simpler I approached it. This is the main thing I learned in those 3 yrs. Plus risk managment is truly key.