Agree with your overall premise - however, know of people making over $1 million a year complaining about connections being down and successful five figure weekly performers complaining about commissions.
You're quite right. I'd be less than truthful if I didn't admit I'm guilty of this sort of thing too. I guess it's a matter of degree. It's how much time do you spend in unproductive states. Keep it to a minimum. I got really flamed a long time ago for pointing this out: the opposite of whine/complain/moan is thankfulness and gratitude. I heard Sir John Templeton, when asked what the single most important principal to his financial succes was, say this,"the attitude of gratitude." It's not always easy to do this. But, I can say from experience, my biggest advancements came after times of experiencing major challenges and maintaining my focus on what was great about the situation. Losers will say this is altruistic tripe. That's why they're losers.
Do i think the posers will tell us? No What difference does it make? Well it makes all the difference in the world if people are actually logging on here to get genuine information. I mean how valid are the software reviews? I personally have been using RealTick since 1996 before they even had it available on the internet. RealTick has had one major outage in the last 1 year. RealTick was down for a half a day, but I see ET guys kicking the crud out of it. I personally think you would need to use a software product in trade on it for at least a month, maybe 2. How valid are the broker ratings if the majority people on here have an average po size of 300-500 shares and need or even wants a per share deal? How valid is it if the majority guys on here trade futures because they have to not because they want to? How many of you have been in this business for 3 years with no other source of income? I think it becomes very important if you want get around all of the bull in this industry AND believe ME IT IS DEEEEEEP.
Here. For one, a real one who happened to be very profitable in the last 3 years out of one's 5 year-old career.
I'm mildly amused at the implied notion that full time traders are somehow the real thing and part timers are not. I trade for 1 hour in the morning (or less) then go to work. My profits are steady and substantial. Some of us part-timers know a hell of a lot about trading, and can make money, but can make even more in another field.
Maybe as a celebrity. But if you are a good trader the only thing that could keep you from making a lot of money would be risk aversion. Can you really be a good trader if you are not willing to take the next step? Actually, if you happen to be good only at trading tiny stocks you might also have difficulties trading the necessary size to make a killing. But there are so many markets out there where you can move $1M in a flash without having any impact on the market that there should be a way for someone with the knowledge and confidence to make a lot. How many jobs pay you more than a few million and still allow you the leisure to trade an hour a day?
Lobster, I genuinely think of you as a smart poster but you missed the mark here. Many wage slaves these days have jobs that pay six figures per year. If I knew quitting a high income job would perhaps permanently lock me out of a no risk, good earnings bracket, I would be hesitant, no matter how good I was trading. Besides the obvious fact that we're all only as good as our last trade, in this low interest rate environment, it takes a lot of savings too equal 100k or 200k a year. In other words it takes mucho dinero to be set. An ironic story I often tell my younger trading friends is this one. Back in the mid eighties when I was in my early twenties one of my best friends went to work as a paramedic for the Chicago Fire Department. He was making around 22k a year. At that time I was on a roll and making about 22k a week. Needless to say I felt that humanistic combination of guilt and superiority over my life saving, public servant friend. If at age 24 I were to imagine each of our lives at this juncture I would have guessed me to be retired by now with a few million, and my buddy to still be scrapping dead bodies off of expressway on ramps. However after a series of bad trades, bad investments, and a couple of decades of fun, hard living, I'm still hacking in it out, trying to rub two dimes together in this POS index chop, while my friend, the noble paramedic is about to retire at the ripe age of 43 on a pension of 55k a year. I would need the interest on a couple of million to equal his income stream. So my advice, if you have a knack for trading, by all means pursue it. But don't quit that boring yet maybe once in a lifetime job, selling software, or managing a development company, or even being a municipal employee, until you've really salted away enough that you can become untouchable.
That about sums it up...I trade full time, and I work full time, because my systems are automated. I don't plan on quitting my job until I am worth 1MM in aftertax dollars.