Psst. You are not part of the conversation. You made running your mouth your life pursuit and I am fine with that as far as I am concerned. That's all for you. Now back into your corner big boy.
New post about how one could see everyone's PnL at the new firm. And all their real-time positions too. https://churningandburning.com/2023/08/full-transparency.html
So true, the psychological game may be the biggest factor in trading. Did your TSLA friend give up after that day?
He stuck through it the rest of the year. Then he pivoted to another financial sector and moved on. Seems happier now.
If you want another profession, where you have to be a sick f*ck, look at sports betting. I just finished reading Billy Walters' new book, Gambler: Secrets from a Life at Risk. That dude had a gene missing. Complete gambling addict and screwup until his forties when he moved to Vegas and got lucky with the Computer Group (Michael Kent). They pioneered using computerized statistical analysis with sports. Made hundreds of millions. But for the majorities of wannabe full time traders or sports bettors, it's better to figure out if you have an edge and cut it short if you don't.
Peter, Thanks for sharing your experience, this is a remarkable story. I had read Victor's books and seen the emphasis on trading education there and also some apparent association with trading coach Brett Steenbarger. Your description of the years' long struggling that went on was surprising. Also very disappointing if Steenbarger tried but wasn't able to help the guys (not sure if that's true) since I had read and enjoyed two of his coaching/psychology books as well. A particularly striking passage was this part: 'You could ask him whatever and he didn’t bullshit you. “Tuco, can I ask you something? What happened to all the profitable guys in TGP that Victor wrote about? Like Mister Momentum and Maverick? “ “Yeahhhhhhh they’re all gone.” Tuco explained to us that all those guys left. Some had transitioned to other trading firms. A couple of them had started their own hedge fund. Some had even moved on from prop trading entirely. Tuco divulged that all of them, including himself, peaked in 2008 when stocks were extremely volatile, and then they all just ran into a much tougher market in 2009 and onward. You could no longer just slam into a distressed financial stock, get in the money right away with a tight stop, and make insane 10-1 risk-reward trades. They went from making $5k a day to struggling to make anything at all. The firm had to make major adjustments to the current market conditions. Nowadays, you have to take pain. He repeated that phrase a lot. It means you have to trade with the appropriate risk and accept drawdowns to know when your trade is clearly wrong. It fucking sucks, bro. He said that a lot too. Then he said that’s just what you have to do to make money–you do whatever it takes or you exit the business. At that moment, it was starting to dawn on all of us: it sure sounded like we read a book about a trading firm’s fleeting glory days and had decided to join said firm after the glory days ended.'
What's so striking? Market dynamics change. We are in unprecedented times. Complete takeover by algorithms and historic central bank balance sheet expansion and government spending. What do you think happens to volatility?
He didn't work regularly with us but Steenbarger would do guest lectures. We had guest lectures from "known people" in the trading industry once the Joint Venture started.