Very well said, couldnt agree with you more!! Hell Uber is already testing out driverless cars in arizona, think of how many 20-30k per year low skilled labour that alone eliminates within 5 years? How many people who operate a machine for a living are done within 10 years? There is going to be no reason to hold on too human operators. There is simply no argument anymore from people who say we need low skilled immigrants to take jobs other people dont want, because those jobs arent even going to exist a decade from now. We have a major problem in 10-20 years, there isnt going to be jobs for half the people already here, we are already going to need to figure out how to pay for 50% of the population, i love the term "peak employment." ("Ive heard the term peak oil, but not peak employment, peak employment will probably happen quicker) Hell i know i probably wont have a job in ten years, i wanted to be at the area in my career as a trader at this point where id be a long term investor, but hit some hiccups along the way, but realistically A.I, and bots will screw all short term traders out of a job eventually, its already happening, its just a matter of time till the game is over. You used to be able to trade a simple opening range breakout and make alot of money, now you need to know your shit, and you need to read the news and be on top of information before the day begins, because being informed, and being on the right symbols is now crucial to proper trading decisions. Our job is incredibly complex, so what chance does a guy driving a taxi, or working on an assembly line have?
Totally agree with you there, and the trucking industry is even worse. The number one job in many states I read was trucking. Now maybe it will be a while until the trucks drive themselves from Point A to Point B, but since many long haul routes seem to have 2 drivers that switch, its very easy to imagine only one driver in the very near future while the computer takes care of driving the highway portion, and just leaving the city stuff to the human. This is where we disagree though. No matter how much information I read, it still doesn't help me figure out which way the market will go. When I'm sure it should be going up, but it starts going down, it creates this disconnect from not being able to trade what is happening. I am one of those guys who believes price is all you need. Markets go up on bad news, and down on good news, so really, news isn't all that important. It is true that the short time frames are done though. The aglos create too much noise, but when you zoom out far enough, all these patterns still repeat. I think the hardest part is knowing you will be wrong often, and still not being scared to take the next trade.
Very thought provoking post. I agree with you on all counts. This is the very reason why Universal Basic Income is beginning to appear in various media outlets. The "machines" will (and are) becoming the future reality. It will be the developer and his team of bots reaping in the dough while the "great unwashed masses" are left out to dry. I agree with your assessment of the markets as well. The machines just buy it all the way up, sell it all the way down (I'm generalizing obviously, but you get the jist). The "error" that came from humans (the emotions of the marketplace) has disappeared (except on a few days per year in the overnight markets when it appears that people are making decisions for a change). Compare how things traded in 2000 when we were in a similar vertical ascent to now. It was "inefficient", momentum made people do stupid things and the pulse of the market reflected that reality. Now the charts might "look" similar, but they don't "trade" similar.
Very good question indeed! Has any economist, politician, conservative think tank, presidential candidate, banker, billionaire, conservative journalist, tea party leader, conservative governor, conservative scholar, book writer, conservative web site, etc. in the US ever seriously mentioned/ discussed/ debated/ published this very topic yet? It should be the highest priority topic/issue! Isn't it? Many small countries very much rely on tourism industry for their major national incomes.
Yeah on breaking news mid day, it used to be especially when it was a good short, that you atleast got a solid bounce in there somewhere where you could get into a short and risk very little, to figure out if you were right or wrong. Now it seems like if some news breaks, and a stock is going to go in that direction the whole day, they just grind it into dust, down down down down down, never a big enough pullback that justifies the R:R, so you either need to interpret the information the way the market is going too, or you are going to get buried, cause you are either shorting the dead lows, or buying the dead highs, or you jump on the train and it keeps going, there isnt alot of room like there used to be where a stock provided alot of chop after a news event and alot of time to get into a good R:R trade regadless of whether you were wrong or right. Now days your right or your dead, and there isnt alot of in between, hell i could provide numerous examples just this week on large cap stocks where your just on the wrong side of the algo, and you know it and so its just going to grind you into dust, thats how the market works now, its a 55-60% proposition at best most times, and you just got to have the confidence your right, as opposed to the ability you can trade your way out of it. You used to be able to average into positions wait for an inevitable bounce and work out of something bad but now its just down down down down, or ip up up up if something is going crazy.
I agree with that in a sense, i mean i dont know everysingle thing about every single stock or trade i make but i have a general understanding, where as i used to just look at something like Trade-Ideas and if stock XYZ was a breakout im buying, those days are gone. 90% of my money i make comes from shorting alot of midcap, and smallcap, and penny stocks, and leveraged ETF's, so having some grasp on the fundamentals is key, like i know if a stock is up 400% just because they announced phase 1 trials on some use less drug, thats not going to be enough to warrant the stock price, also the only stocks i buy are ones i feel like i have a good enough grasp on how the market feels about them that i know they are going to get bought by institutional investors, basically if i was to define it i buy breakouts on good companies, and short ridiculous moves on garbage. That doesnt mean i know the fundamentals of these companies, but i atleast have enough information to where i understand where they sit, and what people think of them. So im not saying i know everything about them, i just know where they stand, or on shorts how bad they are hemoragghing cash and will need to raise money, and i am decent at interpreting what the new information means.
I would like to contrast this article you mentioned... (here is the link that works) http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/01/mark...could-dramatically-change-doing-business.html With this article I read which was posted here at ET just today. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...t-workers-after-they-train-h-1b-replacements/ Now I really don't have any stats on this, and I don't want to knock immigrants because I am one from a few decades ago, but I've seen many references now to this H1B Visa's being improperly used by all the big tech companies, like Google and Microsoft as a way to save on labour since they know they can pay an immigrant half of what a US worker would make, and they also know this immigrant has no options. They can't leave the company because their application for residency is toast, and no they are almost a prisoner. If this is wide spread enough, then shame on Google and Microsoft and any US company who is doing this. The reason Trump won, and I believe the only reason, is because he was supposedly fighting for America. Whether this is true or not I don't know, and I'm sure the primary goal is to enrich himself and his friends, but if at least of secondary importance was to keep jobs in America, and not just keep American companies doing well by using cheap labour, then this will be a very good thing for many generations. (not that there is much hope for the next generation mind you). I feel I'm quite liberal and forward thinking, but unfortunately right now, it seems to me like its the "us or them" mentality. For the American company, the "us" isn't the workers or citizens, its their elite friends. It seems like its bad business these days to be protectionist, but if you don't look after yourself first, who else will? (clearly the rich have no problem with this) So if I think of myself as the common working person, then this is who needs protection right now. I'd love for the world to be a wonderful place, but not at my expense because if or when I need help, I doubt the world will be as generous to me. Edit: For the record, I do think his Muslim ban is a bit much and completely inappropriately enacted, but as much as multicultural everyone wants the world to be, the minute you put yourself into the shoes of these IT guys who lost their jobs to H1B visa immigrant, under the pretense that these visa's are supposedly for finding skilled labour that doesn't exist in the country, then you have every right to enter the "us vs. them" mentality. When your future and ability to provide for yourself is threatened, the desire to help other people around the world have a better life goes down the toilet, no matter what your skin color is or what religion you follow. Every human is the same in this situation.
Fair enough, and for what you do it makes sense. I just trade the index futures, so a whole different ball of wax it seems.