Its impossible to be profitable in trading as a retail trader

Discussion in 'Trading' started by quant983, Apr 21, 2016.

  1. quant983

    quant983

    I read somewhere that trading books have caused possibly the largest wealth transfer in history. Boy, were they right. I have self taught myself technical analysis, fundamental analysis and price action. I have read hundreds of books on the subject. And over the years of trading NONE of them have been even close to profitable. Their only edge is that they just happen to time their trades in either strong bull or bear markets.

    Believe me I have backtested countless strategies from candlesticks to MACDs to price action to FX correlations to Presidential Elections to Order book correlations to even solar and lunar cycles at one point. And guess what. None of them give you any kind of edge whatsoever because that information is already public and whoever disclosed it in the first place is probably rich by now with his or her book sales.

    correlations that occur are only temporary. Quants and Hedge funds try to scalp this inefficiency. But even then, this can never be a consistently profitable strategy as competition increases to try to capitalize on this inefficiency. Eventually, this inefficiency is simply evaporated. And oh look: Hedge funds are dropping like flies if you read the news now because of so much competition. The market can stay irrational for longer than you can stay liquid. And those who can stay liquid already have a ton of capital to win through sheer trial and error alone. Thats why 99% of retail traders consistently fail. They just don’t have the capital to win through trial and error.

    As a closing statement, I would like to reveal a little secret. If you buy today and sell tomorrow, you have a 50/50 chance it will either go up or down. This is true for virtually every stock, index or forex out there. Go ahead and backtest it yourself if you want. (Boy, are those 1% of profitable traders laughing their guts out right now!)

    Now that I look back, if I just followed the buy and hold strategy with most of my trades I would have been a millionaire within 5 years.
     
  2. K-Pia

    K-Pia

    What is written on cathedral building is far less than is sufficient to build one.

    I agree that deep pocket is an edge.
    The one that can average down,
    And let his profit run is fine.

    But Retail traders can trade Forex.
    I don't but an error would be benign.
    As there are mini lot. Or micro futures.
    Luck has it's influence. But there is more.
    You can take calculated risks as well as
    Find evidences and weight them,
    For or against a conclusion.

    Luck only is Gambling.
    Gambling & Continuous Games
    Is a certain blow up for the Gambler.

    In the long run, your little secret is true.
    But I believe one can find conditions,
    In which that probability is biased.
    Yeah .. The devil is in the details.

    If everyone would have...
    They would have been...

    Good Luck
     
    Last edited: Apr 21, 2016
  3. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not possible. If it were impossible, how did I almost catch the bottom today, and know exactly where to get out of my long at the high of the day? I also scratched the ones in the middle of the range which were all bad. And every day is similar.
     
    Last edited: Apr 21, 2016
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  4. K-Pia

    K-Pia

    Because you're Spiderman.
     
  5. Sadly no, I'm just an average male.
     
  6. K-Pia

    K-Pia

    Your chart looks like a cobweb ;)
     
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  7. wrbtrader

    wrbtrader

    You say retail not making money, quants not making money, hedge funds not making money...

    Who do you think is making the money ?

    By the way, twice broker's client statement summaries have been posted at this forum over the years...about 90% are failing accordingly to those documents...not 99% eventhough it only represents two brokers.

    Yeah, in hindsight, buy and hold could have made you a millionaire. Therefore, will there be a reason to stop you now so that you're a millionaire 5 years from now. My point, start investing tomorrow and laugh at us in 5 years. :sneaky:
     
  8. newwurldmn

    newwurldmn

    TROLL THREAD!
     
  9. Hold positions representative of the longer term trends underlying the U.S. economy and equity markets. The growing workforce and workforce productivity, shareholder incentives, innovation, liquidity, lender of last resort, stable debt and currency, firmly put the odds in one's favor. Small / mid cap value has shown the highest decile alpha premium of all stock universes * over 90 year sample. It's never too late to start.

    * https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kToqLWLISRk4n4YnSzv1hT5kBN54l5CvhwGgDwJKPJI/edit?usp=sharing
    https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-_nQTfZG1aoIduZuvqCgJws3_ja_zHCuz4h6zLadUoo/edit?usp=sharing

    James
    Director of Quantitative research
    XXX
     
  10. nxt7

    nxt7

    Sweet Jesus, what on earth is even going on in that chart
     
    #10     Apr 21, 2016
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