Let me tell u a secret. The house (HFT, Banks, Brokerages, Hedge Funds) are making money and are profitable. U should join them to become a successful traders. Otherwise, post this quote on your fridge: More than 90% of small traders lose. They just lose!!
i concur it is a good idea to post something of that nature on your fridge or even better yet.... on your multiple trading monitors.... however, to date, there is no one as yet could footnote that there is actually a study that shows.... either 90% or 95% or more traders who could not win in the markets. but the general consent seems to agree with what you said though. my own concern is.... never, never, never place a long or a short unless all the three conditions according to my own trading plan, all agree on the same long or short, which many times it takes up to 2 hrs for those signals to agree on the same course of action. but since i only am capable of following 3 markets at one time.... normally i would only be able to trade some 12 round trip a day per my trading plan. cheers.
Hmm, but many of them seem to go bust every now and then, the larger ones requiring rather large bailouts. Can you explain this phenomenon?
cboe in the 80's noticed that 95% of 1st time seat holder/renter traders busted out witin the 1st year..only noted ,never published
True, but presumably the closer the stop, the higher the prob of being taken out of bad trades too! Have you thought of a tighter stop, but reentering the trade if it goes back in your favour? But what if you already know you are going to experience 9 or more losers in a row before you start trading your system? Btw, I regularly have streaks of 5 or more losers. I think your issue is that you can't stand losing, hence all the talk of very wide stops. My issue is winning trades. They cause me much anxiety because i don't like to leave money on the table and i don't like retracements.
TARP. The government will always protect the house. After all, aren't the house is a special interest group?
But there are plenty of hedge funds that go bust every year which i'm sure no one would say they are "small traders" that are not bailed out. Come to think of it, Lehman Bros weren't bailed out either!
they go bust either not getting new businesses or lack of hiring quality traders. Lehman almost got bailed out, but the fed rather chose AIG. All those former successful lehman traders either work for another house or open a HFT firm. The number of new HFT firms after Lehman bro went bankrupt triple!
These former lehman guys can't be that good otherwise lehman wouldn't have gone bust!! Applies to other firms, notably hedge funds that have gone bust. As for HFT firms, I wouldn't be surprised if they all go bust in the future and "need" to be bailed out. Same thing applies to the other firms who were bailed out. If these guys are that good, what do you need a bailout for?