read Market Wizards. Trading is not what everyone makes it out to be. And the 90's are definitely over.
read Market Wizards. But remember, those days are gone... So are a few of the "wizards" that were interviewed.
Keep in mind, however, that there are statistics about owning your own company as well: 90% fail in the first 5 years and of the survivors, 90% in the next five years. That means that 99 out of a 100 fail. Does this mean much? Not really- I run mine, and happily am still around after 10 years. If I can, so could many others- I have certain skills, but am lacking others completely. Had I read the statistics, I might have stopped right away- it sounds completely hopeless. In reality, who cares- probability has limits. If you really want to do it, prepare yourself as good as you can and just go!
that's a good point. i forgot all about that, even though I used to tell it to myself all the time. memo to self....
Just the contributions to this thread I think already demonstrate that this site includes a few people who are quite realistic. On the other hand, it wouldn't be surprising at all if active contributors to "Elite Trader" would skew a little bit towards "above average," if obviously not to a true "elite." As I suggested earlier, the vast majority of the vast majority who don't make it at all (bust out or give up) probably aren't frequenting trader's sites very much. Excuse me if I get a little off-topic, but there's something I've been wondering - just some thoughts, offered with respect, from a trader of much less experience and accomplishment: You keep on bringing up how much trouble the traders at your firm have been having lately. I get the impression that you're mostly "packers" or "sector/basket traders," though I'm entirely ready to be disabused of this notion. If that impression is at all correct, then I wonder if anyone over there has sat down with charts and studies, and has searched for concrete reasons why the particular method might not suit recent market conditions. The only other mega-basket trader I know (he learned his technique from the ProTrader founder, I believe) also was having a hard time recently - until he seemed more or less to disappear entirely. Maybe there's not as much of the kind of market-wide momentum and follow-through, particularly long side momentum and follow through, that makes the strategy work best. There has been a strong downtrend, overall, especially in the Nasdaq, but a relatively high proportion of sessions have been closing higher than they open, and I would suspect that getting short in big baskets must be a somewhat less efficient process than getting long - perhaps because of the uptick rule, possibly because of the peculiar differences between falling markets and rising ones. There might be other reasons as well - maybe having to do with the washed-out situations of certain formerly excellent trading vehicles. It's likewise possible that certain alternative strategies are quite well-suited to this market, though not necessarily to the maximal exploitation of buying power in a prop firm context.
Being successful in the market in large part has a great deal to do with your success in accessing probabilities and risk (potential loss). What will you be giving up? What could you lose? As traders people often lose a lot more than money. They lose their family, friends, self respect, old career, etc. What are you running from? You know the answers to these questions. But what will you be jumping into as a trader? Standing on the outside looking in, things often look a lot more glamorous, exciting, fun, easy, etc. I strongly urge you to be very careful about jumping your current ship until you know more about trading. From my experience, if a person can not make money swing trading, there is a very very low probability they can make money day trading. I would suggest you start with swing trading while at your current position for a while. What you learn during this time will greatly increase you odds for success as a day trader. What books have you read? What training tapes/CDs have you watched? What investing, trading experience do you have? I wish you a lot of luck, be careful.
i liked that post. you showed the reality of becoming successful, but you also said to give it a shot anyway. i agree, you can take chances and possibly fail, but at least you tried. if you don't take the chance, you'll probably regret it and be miserable anyway.