Many of the transients are thinly-capitalized premium-sellers (including the 'iron condor' crowd). The markets like to escort them to the exit periodically.
Trading is a lonely game. Posting on forums, interacting with online members, help to relieve that problem. As long as members keep out of online quarrels, it is a healthy social exercise.
Right, but you're making my point in the first post I submitted to this thread. Maybe they blew up, maybe they moved on to another interest altogether.... who knows? It's all just a guess unless the person comes back and states why they left, but most don't do that. Hey if a few members here and there decide to go post elsewhere exclusively, that's fine. They have a right to find the best fit for them, just like they have a right to find a gym they like, or the best neighborhood for their kids, or whatever. I don't take it personal if somebody decides to align themselves with another site.
your posting is utterly stupid. from +99% of the posters you probably don't know: their real name if they really trade what they trade size of their account if they are profitable or not etc... but apparently you have a magic ball. can you tell us where you get the info to come to your conclusions? many posters on ET suffer from the same disease. statements based on thin air.
Hey, wrb, "became so ill...the latter felt it wasn't worth putting their health at risk because of the stress associated with hanging out online at trader forums.". I don't understand this, you might be right, I guess you may know some who feel this way, but for me I could care less what anyone says, I throw stuff out there and if folks listen great, if they don't whatever. I never really understood the emotional effect that some words on a completely anonymous internet board could have on someone who has to show a massive degree of self control on a daily basis, but I guess everyone is different. As far as participants, and participation, one thing I found out while being an introducing broker was, most people cannot trade, no matter how inexpensive the RT cost, people still could not trade. All you have to do is look at Retail FOREX, and see how many market makers have gone the way of the Dinosaur, there just is not enough volume to keep them going. The dotcom was the heyday of trading boards, then after PDT, futures and FOREX. This went on until all of the Drs, Lawyers, Accountants, Tech guys etc. blew up. Some were obviously able to get by for a while, and who knows some of these may have been the "old members" but, and this is theory, profit, break-even, loss, year after year just did not cut it. The word "undercapitalized" always comes to my mind, people trying to make a 300k salary on a 100k account, no one wanted to hear that if you were at 20% year after year, you would be doing well. Remember Hitman? One of the best threads here ever, but, not even in the hall of fame. Also blew up, great content, just not a great trader. Now here is a piece of irony, Cabletrader banned, but TRO still here, still branding and scamming. Also as much as people hated Surf, I read his stuff when I was bored, just to get a different view, but he always seemed to rub folks the wrong way, so there is that. At any rate, this is my view of most boards today, not to ever be confused with reality. The Ever Waxing Nostalgic VIPER
Sorry about that...sometimes (lately) I have had trouble expressing specifically what I want to say due to other issues. When I made that statement that some became so ill...I didn't want to imply that this forum made them ill. I meant to imply that they had personal issues involving their health and that it was recommended to them to stay away from the markets (including trading forums). We've had a few members that eventually spoke about their mental health problems and that ET along with other things related to the markets was not a healthy environment for them and they became stressed here at the forum as if the arguments, personal attacks was causing a physical reaction in them. I would have never thought that possible until I've met people last year in the hospital from cancer patients, stroke patients, people that lost a limb for whatever reasons...many couldn't hold a long conversation and often they would then tell you they were "exhausted" after only talking for 5 minutes. I've seen how stress impacts one's health and recovery. Yes, I remember Hitman and others. I also remember others like Lescor and many more. Although Lescor announced to the forum why he was leaving...he still felt compelled to return to explain why he left years earlier because rumors started that he had blown up. I think he only returned briefly for a few posts was just to tell folks everything is OK because apparently some members here are good friends of his...a few he personally knows. I'm sure if he didn't know anybody here, he would care less what they were thinking about him while he was gone. I guess it depends on why someone joined this forum and whom do they personally know because it impacts on how they leave the forum. I myself came here because of a few close personally friends...a few still are members here. People I've actually had barbecues with, shared a case of beer with and worked out with at the gym or traded with a couple of guys in a shared office space. Everybody has a different reason for joining...personally my reason was for social reasons to stay in contact with some after I moved to another country.
To me, at least, there seems to be a dearth of high quality on-point trading discussion for the past few years. And when there is a really good thread going with multiple members exchanging quality trade-craft information - it seems to get constantly sniped at and eventually derailed by crackpots and trolls. My sense (reinforced by my own client feedback) is that serious active trading Members with worthwhile professional trading experience just seem to get overwhelmed by the unregulated noise and worn down to the point of exasperation. There's no doubt that the professional trading community has contracted in size, but on the other hand I don't think that the number of successful traders has necessarily dropped off the face of the earth per se either - they choose not to participate here, or they participate on another forum where the trading discussion is more focused on quality trading craft content and crackpots are simply not tolerated. I've had a number of members from that other forum hire me, and they tell me that they won't post over there unless they have something relevant and trade-craft oriented. It's a mindset that is reinforced by that website's management. I am a longtime sponsor on ET, and I peruse the forums several times per week. I like ET and I am a big fan of Baron and the principles this website as founded on. But there is no doubt in my mind that there's not much worthwhile trade-craft related material being posted the past few years - to put it another way, my visits to the ET forums are typically a brief perusal these days. I'll illustrate my point another way - I've had almost 200 clients with serious trading backgrounds hire me for my consulting services since 2008, and I can count on one hand the number who actively posted on ET before they hired me. I've asked why and the answer is discouraging. Ask one of the few really well respected posters how many people are following him versus how many of those followers actually post material. It's not an encouraging ratio. Just my 2 cents.
Any reason not to post the name of that other forum? Baron's pretty open when it comes to sharing anything here, including that.