Are you talking intraday, swing, position? Thats the first thing we have to establish and no, broker records show that both retail and institutional traders are having trouble in this market. Just look at the daily wicks before and after Aug '07 on AUD/USD.
The guys you're talking to are either poor traders, newbies or just clueless IMO. 2008 has been a great trading year as far as opportunities both long and short. If someone isn't making $$$$ this year they might want to re-evaluate whether trading is for them and/or maybe look for a new profession.
Non trending markets are very hard to trade, there's no way around it. If you still don't want to wait, you may sell some options (with low leverage, please), and hope the market returns to the level you sold. Price is the same, and you profit a bit from time-decay. About the only way to profit now.
I'm going to agree 100% here. What is the problem here? Plenty of ways to make money trading intraday.
Which is exactly why I went to scalping. Tighter stops, no overnight exposure. No more wild swings in my equity. Btw, it took me 6 years to become profitable.
And that certainly has not been the case TODAY given the incredible rotation from one sector to the next. Try taking your eyes away from the ES for a moment and look at a sector . . . such as the Defense stocks ( LLL, LMT, GD, NOC, RTN, etc ) or the Oil Service or Oil & Nat-Gas Drilling Sector and Nat-Gas stocks. I'm amazed at how many people here on ET get so caught up in the indexes and how they tend to "chop" around, and yet there are equity sectors in the market that continually have some KILLER TRADING MOVES that are goldmines for both the day-trader scalper, as well as the position trader.
You can get all the leverage you want if you go prop. Taxes don't matter if you lose money. I like watching more stocks because I would rather take the easiest money available. Why try and squeeze a few points out of a rangebound ES when there is something else going straight up or down all day?
That's not true. Prop firms have a finite amount of leverage to offer their traders so you don't get "all the leverage you want". And, along with that leverage, comes the responsibility of not losing money for the firm. Taxes do matter if you're making money though so why pay 100% short-term capital gains for stocks when you can do 60/40 with index futures. Is it your goal to "lose money" in your trading? It's not mine nor do I lose overall. Obviously you haven't seen the market intraday recently. Intraday swings on the Dow futures are usually 100 - 300 points.
I should have said pro firm. 30-1 is plenty for me. If you need more, do something else I guess. I lost money at futures, I make money at stocks. I scalp mostly, and I find it very easy in stocks to buy on the bid and sell on the ask a lot of the time. I never was able to do this on futures, the market had to move through me. I pay much less on commission relative to the $ swings as well, so my cost of trading is just much lower. There is so much variety in stocks too, I just love it. I am slowly expanding my stocks i trade, and I love having great moves to trade every day.