Good speech, that was before my time, here is another by Steve Jobs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc
I know that you are one of the few on this site who knows what he is talking about, (as evidenced by the dark book thread) so i dont want to question you much but you could find any number of stocks which trended down all day today, that is not an easy opportunity. Easy opportunity is when there is volume where you can fidn yourself in the middle but still profitable, this has become a lot tougher than 2005-2007
Yes I agree with what you're saying. It certainly has become harder but I know many traders who are still consistently profitable. Maybe you made 400k last year and you're on track to make 250k this year... but there's still opportunity. That's just the nature of this business. No one is expecting a steady paycheck! We had fantastic opportunity in the financial crisis... before that the oil bubble. This year has been mostly a story of declining volatility, but if you trade stocks that have news or earnings you should be ok. A lot of the guys I hear saying they can't make it are pure momentum players. It helps to have some different tools in your toolbox. Lots of mid size traders made 10K+ a day there for a while in AIG though... so again I say the opportunity is there. Personally, I find things that trend in one direction very difficult to trade. I'd rather have swings and volatility and good order flow on the tape. (and being in a stock with a specialist who isn't a total prick helps (after this week I'm thinking about the V guyas I write this lol))
I agree completely with you. My point to the thread was letting the newer guys know that this market is the worst we have seen in the past few years. It's tough out there if you aren't already really good at what you do. I have no doubt that if I entered this market for the first time there's no way I could make a living.
That's a good attitude, keep grinding with the low risk plays to give yourself the chance to trade during better times.
That's the beauty of this j*b..."hanging in there" means being at home with loved ones, not answering to anyone, and still making more than any of your peers.
Dustin, Are you a 100 percent daytrader? Personally when I used to daytrade for a living, I could only make good money daytrading during volatile times and the rest of the time it was a struggle just to scratch out rent money, etc. Looking back I wish I would have done some swing trading as that would have really helped me during those tough low volatility upmoves the market goes through for sometimes years. Anyway I think swing trading could have helped smooth out my equity curve.
Dustin I couldn't agree more. The period from say mid Aug to mid Sept saw the market open up a bit but for the most part really good setups have been far and few between. I've done okay because I can be very patient and learned the hard way long ago not to force trades. But I sure wouldn't want to be starting now. Although a newbie that survives this market should do extremely well once things open up again. I'm hoping things may open up a bit after today. We'll see. What hurts the most is that there have been extended periods of time this year where you just can't afford to take a big loss because you might not get an opportunity that day to make it back. Pretty much forces you to play defense.
Yes this is my only income since 1998. I do some longer term trades in my retirement accounts but can't say I have much of a nack for it.