Say you have made 7-8 figures from day/swing trading. You are young and have some idea (maybe naive) to live comfortably on 100k or so. Take some nice vacations but other than that, you keep your friends and live pretty normal. Who should know your true income? Your spouse? If your spouse, then your mother-in-law? Your girlfriend? Your kids? Whoever knows will probably ask you to invest money for them. You know (and they know) that you can make 500-1000% returns, but you might as well just give them money, because you are just taking liquidity you would have traded in your own account. It seems easier to say "I don't do that" than trade for some people and not others, and have them find out. Either way people think you are selfish. Serious question, so this is not my normal alias. Comments from crgarcia will be ignored
i've had some friends ask me to invest/trade their money but if i'm not interested, i just tell them the minimum is $500k and that ends the discussion. just pick a number that you know is too high for that person. your spouse is probably the only one who should know your exact income. i don't tell anyone -- parents, siblings, best friends, girlfriends, etc. they can guess.
That would be even worse than telling them the truth. I mean, what kind of bastard would not lower the minimum for family and friends. That is least you can do . (i`m telling what they would think for sure)
I had a friend/co-worker open an account and gave me trading discretion over it. I hated the sob I went short 2 CLs and never even looked at the account for 3 days I think he may have lost 4k over those 3 days. He told me to go to hell, I said ok. Last I heard his account was down to 5K. Never mix business with family and always keep a couple of trust accounts under an LLC somewhere nobody but you knows about especially your wife.
I tell them that, under the advice of my attorney, I don't invest other people's money because of the potential liability. Period. End of discussion. If a family member or friend comes to me in legitimate need of money, I just give it to them.
Why should trading be looked at or treated any different than any other business you may run? What if you owned a pizza shop? Would you tell everybody how much you make or made? Would your friends/family ask you to open up a pizza shop for them to? I guess people just have this misconception that trading is some magical atm machine that can be tapped at will forever once you "figure it out"
We are nothing but the sum of our experience. "You" made it where you are today from the socialization and conditioning derived from your interactions with the people and environment around you. They have shaped you, and if you can't find it in yourself to help life-long friends and family in this ridiculously greedy world... you're part of the problem. Now if the concern is taxes, then well... start a trust fund or reit under a tax sheltered system that produces dividends of somekind in order to help subsidize thier income so they can spend more time with you. Philanthropy is a good thing, why not start with your own network?
LOL! There are lots of traders who believe (hope?) it's exactly that. (I once read about some relatively famous market guy who said upon his retirement, "50-years, and I never did figure the market out".)