I started as a broker and opened up my first personal account with less than 1k and only added 2k to it once (inheritance from my uncle.) The highwater mark was a little over 160k. I kept that going 13 years and supported 3 kids and a stay at home mom before I lost it all in some July Wheat. So how much did that education cost? I don't know.
i lost about 20k Euros. And i blew up at least 50 times, i guess........ I always need a little longer, but when i got it, i got it..... LOL
I think the draw down is, for many of us, only the tip of the iceberg. While my total draw down before I started making small profits was low -- under $4,000 -- the opportunity cost over 18 months was quite significant. I'm not complaining about the cost but it is important to put all the elements into the equation if you want to get to a number that is real ... real for you!
I started out after I decided to leave the Army, and I wanted a more independent form of earning a living. So I bought every classic book on trading, and the whole CMT curriculum and I started paper trading for months and watching the market every day. And when I went live, I kept on paying "regular tuition dues" until I ended up profitable because of one big winner on a silver option. That silver option paid for the couple of thousands spent on books and the many bad/amateurish trades because I kept it very small in all my losing trades. Things got a lot better after that, because that one good trade provided a lot of insights. In my case, my best education was not in the books, it was in what I did before I got involved in the markets. I was a professional muay thai fighter, and that taught me to take the abuse and the discipline, and then as recon sniper where I learned to lay low for as long as it took until it was the right time to pull that trigger. The trading education will still cost you every day, the market are a living object, always changing. So you never "really" learn it, as if it is math or economics. I think everyone is always learning everyday. Every season/environment brings its flock of preys and predators.
yeah I would agree with that. It's the one big trade that pays for all the mistakes. But nobody wants to live that way. They want something you can do every day that makes money. It's always good to stay alive as long as possible, but at some point you need a kill.
So your "blow-ups" averaged about 400 euros apiece? How do you distinguish between a blow-up and a losing trade?
Like everyone says, the market is a jungle/war zone. You can only hunt what's out there. Some guys start trading every day and chasing every thing they see. Forcing the issue. They end up slaughtered (just like in every battlefield/jungle), wasting finite resources (energy/capital) when it's not demanded. They get too exhausted/broke before the big kill shows up, and therefore starve out. One needs to be selective, capitalize on the good days to make it through the lean days. You don't see wild animals chasing every potential prey every chance they get. They stick to their favorite preys and stalk them all the time, favoring some more than others based on the season. Markets have pattern just like every environment, and those patterns change with every season. Just watch, learn, specialize and then follow. Those idle hours just watching are the hardest thing for most, and therefore the best tuition. The tiger doesn't tell its prey: "hey what don't you show up at 930 down by broad street." All predators serve at the mercy of their preys. They follow them and learn them, not the way around. The day you stop learning (stop paying for your trading tuition), you become someone's else prey. my 2 cents.
and then some of us are cockroaches. No real predators (other than Orkin) and no real prey, but we can live on cardboard under the refrigerator when times is hard. I don't need a kill to make me feel like a man, but I do need to slaughter something every now and then to feed the family. I suppose you can pretend you are a fox, or you can simply just raise chickens.
The biggest "bum" in the savanna: Male lion The most feared predator in the savanna: Lioness The hardest working predator: Female Cheetah The person with the most kills in history: A female sniper We "men" take ourselves too seriously. Predatory instinct is a mindset and unisex. This thread is about tuition. The best tuition I paid and still pay: daily watch of the market. Amount: 12hr/day * minimum wage/or whatever is someone's opportunity cost * 5days/week *... + minor losses That's the real cost of trading. Paid for by bigger winners ( or whatever the edge might be) when capitalized. College tuition is set, and you are more likely (though hard nowadays) to get a job and pay bills than making it out of trading. But to each its upside and personality draw.