I made this note to show the real differences in trading approaches. Do you agree? (I realize there’s more to it, but I’m trying to keep it simple)
You're overcomplicating it with 7th-grade algebra gibberish. Retail vs. Pro comes down to one simple equation... Retail = own real money = X Pro = OPM + salary + commish = Y Y = cannot lose own money, make own money on other people losing their own monies, other people winning their own monies, or not doing anything at all, because of said Pro's salary. X = Can lose own money. Y > X is the answer. End of line.
It's an oversimplification, as pretty much any blanket statement would be. OPM: Relatively early on, most pros have skin in the game in the form of deferred comp, fund investments etc. If you suck you will eventually get fired, unless you are a PR genius. Capacity: The real headache that OPM adds is capacity requirements. It's much easier to make good returns on tiny amount of capital and get's exponentially harder as you have to deploy more. Most pros that fail fail because they bite off way more than they can chew. Commissions: You are mistaking professional traders with brokers. Professional traders do not get paid commissions, though professional commission schedules are much friendlier. You might try to make markets and get paid the spread (easy to say, hard to do). Skill: It's much easier to learn a skill when you are getting paid and getting instruction by the smart people. It's true about trading and it's true about almost every other profession out there. Try teaching yourself how to make wedding cakes by watching youtube videos - chances are most people would fail as miserably as they fail in learning how to trade profitably.
Just wanted to show that price action is the derivative of news and fundamentals, and that technical indicators are the derivative of price action, hence for the visualization. I realize the calculus is simple, but I did not want to make this too hard.
When they Y still had the job of Pro. Once Y loses the pro job and tries to become X, Y <= X is the answer.
Now you are telling me. Back in 2013, I tried to learn option trading by watching youtube videos (tastytrade for one) too.