Last night I was watching on tv a profile of a world class poker player. He doesn't consider what he does gambling but said that poker players who are "gamblers" are usually the losers. Perhaps the same could be said of traders.
electricsavant - lol....the spouse sure is a major supporting part of our endeavor... in my world...what i tell her is that i spent the past years developing the world's greatest race car (trading system)...now i happen to be also the assigned driver..so these days....am developing my driving skills to drive this awesome machine...am also lucky like you she still got the faith in this fool....
ES, Before I answer the question, "Is trading gambling?", I have a question for you. In your system, what is the required margin necessary to maintain all open positions, at the 20pip level you have set, considering a worst case market scenario. Where the market gives little or no "flow" from the initial entry level to that worst case level. Regards, Dave
tradwinds - yes..thats my point all along...the opinion of the winners is what counts than the rest of us.... imagine...assuming the bunch of us here are market losers...that we have just agreed the market these days are just simply AWFUL!!!! that we are not making money because of this or that.... and since the bunch of us losers agree with that...is it true? is it reality? is it the truth? but what if in fact..in reality for those market wizards...market is doing just fine all along..... thats we are just a bunch of sour grapes losers blaming the market for our poor performance....
indeed... whats the truth though?... lets demonstrate this... see you in the Journal... Good trading to ALL of you no matter which path you take... Thank you Michael B.
ahh Wd.. You did read....Thank you. I will answer your question, but first tell me when the EUR/USD and the USD/CHF has done this. Or even better eliminate the crosses and the exotics from the list of thirty to create a merged flat line. The end of the world might cause this. But I stand on the premise that every action has a reaction..(I left out equal to help) A straight line drop does not last long enough for a flow imbalance to happen. Your question is your answer...a formula for dropping to zero however. The up to infinity has to be a dynamic approach that reduces yield without the injection of more capital. The balance can be found according to the rate. You will be asking me to predict how long something goes up, and my answer is nothing goes up forever. However, in the "scale of things", it can be accounted for in a reasonable non gambling way. If I allow questions of this nature to be a basis for a hypothesis, then am I allowed to put forth questions in this manner too? Michael B. The basis for blow up and the time it takes, can overcome the lack of flow itself or the chart would look like this...(remember the trade size and the other side of this trade is profiting along the way reagardless) Wd what is possible is not what we should be looking at. we just need to extract flow. The time it take to do this is KEY | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | End of world....
What about the attitude that trading necessarily entails taking risks -- otherwise, it's not considered trading? One of the market wizard interviews, I think it was Bill Lipshutz (sp?), held a kind of suspicious view of even what the FX market makers at big banks would do, making their money on just the spread or piggybacking off a big order -- should that even be considered trading? It doesn't represent my opinion, but something to consider while we're at it.
1) lets say we are traders in an auction... Is the auctioneer taking any risk? 2) Lets say you a gambler and have a side bet on...I will wait 30 days to double my money...or I can take a chance of having it now...which path do I take? Folks, this can go on forever....I again would like to thank WD for taking this seriously...Illiquid you points are taken however and thanks...You are helping me to NOT be closed minded... Michael B. P.S. Tangible vs. Pipe Dream is the point..(an earlier poster brought this out..) The nature of the instrument is another reply that is related.
We can arrange the philosphical into a Pivot Point Template: Gambling Attittude Pivot Mechanical Calculated Now where are you midpoints? are you undecided. Contact the Moderator to change your vote... Michael B. P.S. There are variance or degrees in gambling, I suppose...What path you take is your choice. I plan on demonstrating support(see pivot point calculator above) for those of you that prefer your trading to be "not gambling"...
Just trying to take an alternate view on things -- as in, real trading must embrace that element of gambling or chance taking, otherwise it's not trading. The specialist who knows where everyone's bidding and the location of all the stops -- is he actually trading, or just moving merchandise and hitching a ride when he can?