Forums like this have always been populated by a bunch of people who are high on hope and hype but very, very short on real trading experience. Forums like this also rely on "educators" and system salesman peddling their products to the neophyte. The whole trading scene is like a gold rush where virtually no one finds gold and the only people who make money are those Ru no. G the saloons and brothels and selling supplies to the suckers.
Citiboy12 is a realist and clearly knows what he is talking about. That is a very rare gift on a trading forum. No one wants there dreams shattered. No one wants to admit the survivors are there mostly from luck. It's a fair bet that Ed Seykota is no longer Trend trading futures JW Henry shut up shop, many other long standing CTAs are losing clients and money. Returns from surviving hedge funds are mostly mediocre and you may as well simply invest in an asset allo action strategy for a small percentage of the risk. The names which the faithful keep on draggi g up are doing little better than index tracking ETFs. It's largely a scam. These people have a tremendous run of luck for a number of years and then close down their funds when they lose 60%. And then start up new ones. Educators Snakoil salesman and crooks abound in all corners of the market and prey on retail suckers. Hedge fund managers prey on Institutional investors., rip them off with huge fees and then eventually crash and burn. It's all very very funny but only those who have been in the markets for 30 years have an I klong of what I am talking about. The rest of the fools still believe all the hype and bullshit and sheer stupid bollox
Predators...some preliminary case studies 1. Jordan Belfort - very very crude and obvious example as a case study but preyed off of his staff (nearly all self-employed) and his clients (pump and dump) and now the gullible for his sales seminars. 2. Steve Cohen - insider trading (but his employee went to prison). Slightly more refined than Belfort see... 3. Buffet - very refined (due to his folksy exterior)- https://www.seattletimes.com/busine...how-a-warren-buffett-empire-preys-on-the-poor There are literally so many that I could write a book. The more obvious ones usually get into more trouble.
I left investment banking aged 34 and made a fortune flipping IPOs. There was no skill involved and very little work. That was in 1992. I spent many years living in Switzerland skiing every day in the winter and hiking in the summer. I would flip IPOs as soon as they started trading and often put the sell orders on by mobile phone from my snowboard. From about 2003 I wasted a great deal of time backtesting trading strategies and looking on on forums. It was for a few years that I realised forums were puss and wind and populated mostly by fools. I am aware that I will win few friends with my comments. Most people just don't want to face reality I made a great deal of money when the dice were heavily loaded in my favour. That's how you make money. I was a legal version of Bobby Axelrod in a small way. We had 30 traders and in good years turned over 1bn USD. Sadly those days are long gone.
My god Cityboy12 it's a rare treat to meet someone who actually knows what he is talking about in a trading forum. But no one will want to listen to you. People here are mostly in a dumb trance. From which they will one day awake.. When they have wasted years of their life. And when they have blown themselves up.
A little dated but here is one from MIT... http://news.mit.edu/2012/end-of-life-financial-study-0803 It looks about the same in the UK.... 65+... https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...inancial-wealth-by-individual-characteristics The facts are there, most people are going to die close to broke and using the OPs logic everything they pursued was a bad trade. I don't agree with that, it seems like a sorry take on the experience of life. As other have said one could take many business ventures and plug them into his matrix and get the same results. The markets don't have an exclusivity on the loss of time and money. Personally I have never met a profitable or failed trader, or a broker, who gave it up to become a Doctor. But maybe the OP scientific approach has led him to see that as a repeatable trade/dream.
I am far from numbering my thoughts. I know for truth and from experience that thanks to trading we get a possibility to access the life we never had access before. I also know that in order to keep this good-luck result and make it permanent we were called to a long work of study, practicing and, most of all, to recognize and release all our weaknesses. In yoga there are eight stages, in other practices some other stages, but basically it's always the same and it teaches that in order to get enlightenment you must practice at a certain point pratyahara - withdrawal from all exterior disturbances, then it's followed by dharana, concentration, and those stages are exactly the ones you must accomplish in order to be successful in trading. But very few are ready - people are attached to their egos, most even can not realize where they begin and where the ideas which the world imprinted in them are. This is "very helpful" for trading. So my answer is no, if it was a question. Absolutely no. More - trading is the new mastery, designed to make a little bit better if not totally free from weaknesses the human race. And then, certainly, it already was written many times..one of the most recent is "Johnathan Livingstone, the Seagull" by Richard Bach: those who did not dare to fly away will ferociously attack Livingstones, searching for some kind of indulgence for their lack of luck or courage or determination. And I know, here, on Elite Trader, there are few Livingstones. But they are always few, one day it will change.
Thanks for the acknowledgement. I agree about the 'names'. 1. Ed Sekoyta is washed up now, I believe, and teaches to trade 2. Cohen (watch the video above) was never good as a trader in the first place but traded off of insider information. He never went to jail though (but his employees did). I did some research about the 'names' in the past and found little substance. I forgot about my research regarding the hedge fund 'churn' and survivorship bias. Most hedge funds fail and get rolled into other funds... The industry as a whole is in structural decline.... Anyway, I am open to any questions.