I take back my bow Although I do read some books I prefer to use my real life experience and my observations of others around me to form opinions. After all I am assuming that's how some of these books you refer to were written in the first place, excluding those which are fictional of course. abc1
Thank you, especially for putting forward opposite (-ish) opinion to mine with out bashing me; it's appreciated. abc1
I find it offensive that you believe my livelihood and all that i have worked for is based on pure chance and that i am just one of the lucky 5 out of 100,000 people to turn heads more times than tails. The fact is that there are edges, just as you admit to in your first post, in order to take advantage of many of them requires large amounts of capital, hence the leverage that is necessary to consistently make money by either providing liquidity to the market or taking advantage of the inefficiencies of the market. The market will never be totally efficient, and in providing liquidity, or helping to make the market more efficient there is no need to flip a coin, pick a direction, or guess anything. Oppurtunities abound in all markets, with low risk of drawdown, while using much more than 4x leverage... how else would specialists or market makers consistently take money from the markets? I would agree though that from the perspective of trading retail, i was not successful, but failed miserably, many times, and it did seem as though I might as well go to the roulette wheel and bet it all on black. I see the thoughts in all of your statements, but I believe that your observations are your opinions based on what you know about the markets, which is obviously something you do not have a full grasp of.
I agree with alot of your post. To be fair I doubt anyone has a full grasp of the market. Far too much going on for one person to know that. What I am suggesting is that yes once the trade is on there is too much out of most people's control (stops/limits aside) for reasons I have listed above. However I do acknowledge that as opposed to flipping a coin, there is a lot of information available which can help to make a decision to place a trade. So I appreciate that it's more than flipping a coin and that there is a decent amount of knowledge that should really be absorbed before trading; just that outcome wise and from a philosophical point of view the results of both mirror each other. This is because you either win or lose (head or tail.) Obviously you can bet (invest) different amounts on each outcome which can change the results you have more one way or the other. Generally speaking, while one person can use all the tools available to them to open a position is it therefore skill when 1000s of others are determining the movement of the stock/index etc from the time you hold it to the time you release it. An informed gamble I am happy with but skill seems too big a word for trading in my eyes. abc1
Your point is that trading results(profits) will be distributed in a random bell curve pattern.....that in the 2nd and 3rd standard deviations are the ones making money....( would fit the idea that only 5% of people make money). I could agree with that....The difference is that that 5% percent group of winners are not random ,in fact most of them stay in the tails and the rest of the traders ,old and new, get chopped up between the mean and 1 standard deviation. What is your deviation?
Trading is ten percent luck, Twenty percent skill Fifteen percent concentrated power of will, Five percent pleasure, Fifty percent pain And a 100% reason to remember itâs a game! Thanks to Fort Minor for this one!
I was rude because the OP comes across to me as the worst kind of dumbass - the kind of dumbass who thinks he's really smart. He's just speaking ignorantly. He has no concept of the natural inefficiency of the market, and is unwilling to believe that price naturally gives clues to where it's going - he doesn't belive that, with thousands of participans all making decisions for their own reasons, the net effect on price can actually consisently be predictible. It just so clearly is to me and all the [experienced] traders I know, and the fact that the OP is standing there screaming that price alone isn't enough information to make money off of.... well, it makes him stupid... because he's not even open to that point of view. If he said "I think price doesn't give enough information to extract money from the markets consistently, but if someone can show me that their results are so probabalistically unlikely that their consistency is a 10 sigma event then I may be willing to reconsider... but it just seems too chaotic to me," I would explain why he is wrong, offer plenty of indisputable proof that would be about as close to scientifically valid as can offered - hell, I'd even teach the guy about my strategies (if you search through my posts, I'm always willing to help people and share my experiences and opinions). But the dude here is just standing there telling people the sky is orange when it's not. He's talking about the composition of the atmosphere, the way light reflects, and despite being shown photos of a blue sky and being made to look up, he still insists it's blue. He's reasonably articulate and more expressive than the average man, so I had to call him out on being a dumbass because an unsuspecting reader who knows little about trading might become convinced he's someone worth listening to. abc: I'm only being "rude" and "insulting" because you seem to have a totally closed mind. I'm as positive markets are inefficient (and will always be) as I am sure the sky is blue, and I'd be willing to teach you why if you want to listen... I can prove it mathematically, I can teach you about edges that are just so common sensical that there is no need for any theoretical academic disputes about whether or not they are "edges" because the concepts are based on simple, timeless, repeating human behavioral patterns. I'm so sure of this because I trade different stocks every day, and I trade purely off of price - I don't know shit about most the companies I trade, and I don't have to. Frequently I don't even know the sector of a stock and still make money in it. Anyway... markets are more inefficient if people believe they're efficient, so believe what you want... but to those who think money can't consistently be made with low risk and insurance against devastating losses from black swan evens, well dases - you're 100% wrong.
I will not argue that you never know where a trade will end up, that's where the "skill" lies. The entry is the easy part, getting out is what makes trading so difficult. I will never be able to predict outcomes, no one will. I can however "trade" the markets. Contrary to what many people here believe, "trading" is not buying a stock, putting a stop on it and hoping it doesn't get hit. Trading is playing the game that you describe in your posts. Sure, there is a gamble, but i test the waters, hit the other sides bids and offers, find the depth of the market, and "trade". There are not stop losses, and if you have a bunch of money, you can average down or put yor contingency hedge on and trade from red to green. Contrary to popular belief, professionals average in, not doing so would be picking a direction. So stating that trading is not a skill is stating that it can't be learned, and you are dead wrong on that one. The uncertainty part, picking a direction, you got dialed. Hopefully you'll lose some of your other opinions and exploit what the market presents.
Okay but dumbass is a little harsh. Perhaps ignorant or naive (in the literal way; not as a slam). You use volume too I'm assuming. Be interested to know what you consider your edge(s). Don't have to be specific but a general idea would be interesting to hear.