Is active trading a viable job for an individual?

Discussion in 'Trading' started by BYoung, Apr 13, 2018.

  1. Overnight

    Overnight

    I hate to get in the middle of this three-way conversation between JSOP, jinxu and 312, but I just need to point this out JSOP...

    No, that is not true on many levels.

    A.) Not every company has "an employee handbook". There are companies out there besides huge corporate "McDonalds" with no need for such things.

    B.) You have no duty at all to do anything, except what the company wishes you to do. This is usually to help the company provide greater return for it's stakeholders.

    C.) Upholding an amicable relationship with a supervisor is the least of companies' worker worries, and the company most likely doesn't care about that. They want you to be efficient in your job, not efficient in your water-cooler blather with the immediate boss. Most supervisors are assholes, which is why they are supervisors. Perhaps you have not worked in enough jobs to know that the middle managers are the weakest links in any company chain, and the ones most likely to get the axe when the sheet hits the fan? Supervisors are dead weight, and a waste of materiel.

    P.S. D.) If I read a rider in my employment contract that one of my duties was to appease my supervisor, and to maintain a "good" relationship with him/her? I'd bail the hell out of that room, and that building, and that idea of working for a firm like that. Seriously? My duty is to kiss my boss's ass? Umm, no? Hellooooo??!
     
    Last edited: Apr 15, 2018
    #141     Apr 15, 2018
    312 likes this.
  2. intelligence has nothing to do with trading. for example, if your car is broken, do you want a mechanic who has years of experience to fix your car or a college phd professor? you have some ppl who are very smart but don't know how to trade. you have average person, but have learn how to trade by year of experience and learning the proper way to trade. you by making a statement by saying you must at least make $150k/year already tell me alot about you which is you have no ideas about trading. my suggestion is don't trade. just put your money in a vanguard or fidelity target date fund. sorry to break the bad news, but you will lose your shirt and go home and cry to your spouse and say the market is rigged.
     
    #142     Apr 15, 2018
  3.  
    #143     Apr 15, 2018
  4. I open and close all my positions in 15 minutes.
    I trade options on futures.
    I trade 60 to 30 days.
    My target return varies between 26 and 47%.
    I am a master!
     
    #144     Apr 15, 2018
  5. 312

    312

    I'm in Montreal, happy to discuss in person
     
    #145     Apr 15, 2018
    wrbtrader likes this.
  6. 312

    312

    Military is nowhere near as comparable to corporate
     
    #146     Apr 15, 2018
  7. wrbtrader

    wrbtrader

    Depends of the job type and your location.
     
    #147     Apr 15, 2018
  8. trader99

    trader99

    While I agreed with you broadly, I would qualify that statement with "it depends" on the type of trading you do.

    Some trading requires lots of academic training as just the entrance fee. Rentech and other quant firms hire PhDs and other quantitative types and specifically said they don't want people with any trading or finance experience. Apparently, that has not hurt their performance. They don't want their prospective traders/researchers to be biased by Wall St traditional thinking. Out of the box thinking using scientific methods.

    I'm not saying that this is the only way to trade. It's one way to trade successfully.

    There are many others sucessful methods that don't require any formal education. Instincts. Screentime. Experience. Dan Zanger has a phenomenal track record and he's mostly self taught and learnt from the school of hardknocks.

    Then there are fundamental guys. Warren Buffett is not a quant and that has not stopped him from being successful.

    PTJ is a TA trader(or at least early on) and he has done well along with other Market Wizards.

    So, there are lots of nuances. Just like the market has a lot of nuances.

    Having said, I do agreed broadly that being successful and getting high paying Corporate salaries is definitely NOT necessarily a good preparation for being a daytrader or a trader in general. Those are very distinctly different domains.
     
    #148     Apr 15, 2018
    wrbtrader likes this.
  9. 312

    312

    Serving your country is more important than serving some corporation's interests
     
    #149     Apr 15, 2018
  10. Strongly agree. The US should require two years of mandatory military service at age 18, preferably in a backwards country like Bangladesh. If this was implemented, you'd have very few people protesting in the streets of America. We really live in a bubble here :)
     
    #150     Apr 16, 2018
    312 likes this.