People who collect the dividends are profitable , in an ideal market stock-holder should get compensated , but we don't have ideal markets , still healthy dividend payments will make you rich long term.
If your holding a basket of stocks that fluctuatie and u have to keep your money in them to get paid a dividend, how do you make out so well? Some of them will devalue as you hold them, offsetting your dividends... I'd much rather be a trader?
Prostitutes working in legal brothels face almost none of those risks. The biggest risks associated with prostitution stem from its illegality in most places. Remove that nonessential factor and almost all the risks fade away. Legal brothel prostitutes get a guaranteed income for their services, just like workers in other legal industries. It's more than a stretch to compare that to trading. Not even the world's best trader is guaranteed a win on every trade or even in every trading session. Not everyone is a trader.
Prostitues are still trading their time, sex for money. Just as the illegal operator might trade his liberty for jail time.
I've seen plenty of buy and hold people who collected dividends and averaged in good stocks , they all did well , but the fast traders come and go.
If were talking about investing, that's a whole different thing. I thought we were talking about SHORT TERM trading to make a living. I believe in keeping things fairly simple when it comes to investing, but UNIQUE comes to mind with the short term stuff. Investing with simplicity for me...buy in recessions/deep corrections and sell with a scaling out method depending on inflation...collect dividends on the way! Obviously, the average person has a much better chance investing for the long term rather than short term timing the market.
The most important, and the word that tells the real story, is marked in red. The "If" is a conclusion that is made in hindsight. And also a possibility but not the choice you made. If not you would be millionaire. So the posting is pure nonsense. If I would have done what Buffett did... but I didn't! If I would have bought Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Oracle ... in their early stage... I would have been a billionaire. Maybe richer than Buffett. But I didn't! Unfortunately only reality counts, and reality is that you did not do what you tell now was the best thing to do and I did not become billionaire. So your statement of non profitability as retailtrader is not proven. On top of that it is meaningless. You should see what your possibilities are. I know that I make in trading at least 100 times more money then in my previous job. And that's all that counts for me. The title of this thread is a real SURF statement. And this is indeed a troll thread.
This is sophistry. You're using trading in its most generic meaning to include all exchanges. In this website, trading means speculation : the acquisition of considerable risk for the opportunity (but not the guarantee) of considerable gain. Can we now end this silly equivalence of trading (as we mean it here) to prostitution or any other service industry?