When I think of it, it took me about 200 trades and 4K to find my edge. I discovered I had one when my equity began to go up. At first I was a bit surprised and I ask myself what did I do ? Then I realize that it was probably the knowledge/experience brought by months of practice. If you add some patience and discipline (that means hard work on yourself), you've got it. That sounds so common... I'm sorry if that doesn't help. As Commisso said ----> this is my truth.
Technically, the futures market is a zero-sum game. So, yeah, for every loser their is a winner. However, it isn't that simple. Many people will hedge other investments with futures. Someone who hedges is offsetting some risk in other investments. So, even if they lose money in their futures position, they may not view this as the same type of loss as a "speculator" would. Many companies will become more attractive investments when they hedge their risks. For instance, if a company does something with copper, it will take a futures position in copper to prevent against the risk of an increase in raw copper supplies. Althought the price of copper may go down and they lose money in their future's position, they never intended to use it as a speculative investment to begin with. The company looks more attractive since it has paid money to lower its risk profile. This is why many markets that are considered zero-sum are really not technically a zero-sum game. It is only a zero-sum game if everyone plays to win -- but many participants merely play to pay for reduced risk -- which means the rules change.
aphie -- Very concise summary. Thank you. That one has been bugging me for a while. So it is possible for astute traders to make good money as long as we have mutual fund and pension companies hedging their stock portfolios in the futures market.