Looks like you were right. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showpost.php?p=3510256&postcount=219 quote: "Only way I can make a dime over the course of time is averaging down indices on pullbacks."
Oh please, clown. You have nothing to bet with. It's a paradox. I have nothing to gain as you're a broke mofo.
Calling "trades" ahead of time in a delayed, no timestamp verified message board is amusing at best. Look at the long-running threads here where the same few guys churn thru fresh new aliases for themselves year after year, posting "trade" calls that accomplish nothing at all. 1,000s of "live trade" posts but 0 P&L Thread posts. Why? You're a smart guy, you can connect the short line between those dots. ** The trading world in general has shrunken and contracted greatly since 2008. The dual pressures involved were drained liquidity from middle class and upper middle class workers along with proliferation of HFTs. Real inflation and real unemployment / under-employment have taken their tolls on disposable income. Aspiring traders today do not have the discretionary capital to trade with that existed in the past, because making ends meet with stagnant wages and rising inflation squeezes them dry. That resulted in a net drain of new active traders coming in to replace those who are shutting down. Why volume has waned, why markets have become much thinner than ever in the history of electronic trading. There are no waves of "newbies" getting started in trading. Those threads that pop up here saying "hi I'm new, blah blah" are just the same lifeless troll stirring up the same bored lifers in here. Aliases constantly change, individuals remain the same. Existing retail traders today are people who are making it to some degree, on the verge of making it or hanging in there towards the end of their rope. Penny stocks, options trading and FX trading are fringe markets still popular among the dwindling population of traders who remain because those arenas require least amount of capital and part-time attention to play. Remaining active traders don't buy ebooks, they don't blindly sign up for $6,000 - $9,000 trade advisory programs that promise them +1,000 ticks per contract weekly gains if they just follow the room's scalp-trade calls. Today's existing trader either has an edge and needs to refine their own emotional control or they lost their edge due to HFT driven changes inside thinner markets and seek to bolster that with simple solutions. You read about HFTs going several years without a daily loss, and billions of dollars pulled from the markets by a concentrated few big players. That money comes from a legion of traders who often don't get a chance to experience enough wins to keep them in the game after losses. I have heard from many traders out there who were once profitable but now get chopped to pieces even when they have the market's direction right. I have talked to brokers who confide that traders are losing money at accelerated rates and empty accounts far outstrip new accounts being opened. That contraction drains thru the entire industry. Why big brokers have dwindling reserves, why attrition is taking place and why you will see a number of futures and stock brokers cease to exist in the coming years ahead. Behind the scenes there is a mad scramble between too many brokers in existence frantically seeking the fewer and fewer active traders to fund accounts. Message boards like this one are affected, too. Look at all the prior posts from pro traders in years past. Where are those guys? Not present. Look at all of the current threads common theme. "Trading is impossible" and "everyone loses" and "you can't trade" and "they are a fraud" and "this site is depressing" etc. Look at the most active posters. Either same alias that has been here for years, or the same guys on their umpteenth alias pretending to be someone different this time. If you could really see just how few actual posters are here across this entire site, you'd be shocked. So to answer your question directly after setting the stage, no. "Vendors" aren't making money here in reality, because their is no real audience to market within. Someone said you personally make low seven-figures per year trading volatility. Great... for your sake, I hope that is true. Now let me ask you some questions. Why are you, a million dollar annual earner, in here arguing and bickering non-stop with other aliases about who does / does not do whatever? If you think you are saving the masses from buying ebooks or following Al Brooks second-hand stuff for free, rest assured there are no masses left to save. The HFTs already sucked them dry. Riskarb => atticus => umpteenth alias since then is supposedly a big-money trader. Again, I hope so for his sake because I like what I know of him. But why is someone so successful in this profession spending day after night for years on end in here, bickering with countless other aliases, "calling them out" for at least the past eight years that I've been here? Now pretend you are a successful investor or trader with no prior experience in ET, go thru the current threads with fresh eyes and ask yourself what your first impressions of this site AND its participants would be. Honestly now, reread this thread in its entirety, read a bunch of other threads with your wife, non-trading friend, business partner, etc and ask them what they think of the general mentality and maturity levels expressed here. We already know the answer to that, don't we? ** Bottom line? This is a habitual place to come and "talk shop". What's left of here and BMT and FX Factory are about the only places existing traders can communicate about markets and trading. I'd opine the people posting here are bored shitless and/or desperate for company in this profession. DB ain't making much money from ebooks. Donna ain't even trying to make money. Why is she here after all this? Who knows... have you ever figured out what motivates female behavior? [lol] So here we have supposedly million-dollar traders constantly bickering with supposed failed traders and frauds. In each case the same handful of habitual posters degrade the same endless conversation to grade school level, or lower. And that sums up the scene here, in blatantly honest fashion. This post is rather long-winded but that's ok because it is my last. I've come and gone from this site for the past eight years, because it was the highest traffic forum to keep abreast of markets, trading and news. But here today in 2014, I don't see much if any of that left inside. Unless one enjoys wasting their time following the latest schoolyard dukefest between the same few posters in just about every thread, there is little else of interest or value. Nobody is "saving" newbies from vendors because newbies no longer exist. Vendors are not getting rich from "newbies" here for that same reason. Unless you are bored to tears and desperate for any semblance of "trader talk" with the same recycled posters behind ever-changing aliases, it simply ain't worth the time wasted from what's left of your life here on earth But hey... it's your time to invest or waste as you see fit. You can enjoy the freedom of lifestyle that your millions of annual profits permit, or you can keep on parrying with people who mean nothing to you at all. We all have our choices to make in life
Its a good question. I just came in from participating in "swim across the sound" charity event ( dead tired) , at the pool waiting for the egg grill to heat up and decided to read u guys as there is no TV...yet out here. But rest assured, once I could get the burgers on there was no more posting on my part. Anyway, trading made me , so playing here now and then is common sense to a degree.
Ahh yes, the bottom-line from a vendor who failed to pass the combine in hopes of $50K in funding. I have posted dozens of blotters to my threads. You post a couple of three and low four figure days on sim. My journal at 10x risk was all posted in r/t and marketable. A six-month journal with a gain >30% and risk under 3%. Everyone knows my prior aliases, including you, and I've never started a new nick to hide my public calls. I did 1500% over three years on collective2. I never mentioned that account until it was mentioned here (by another member). It was opened solely to win a wager. You're some hick stuck in the low-rent rust-belt talking about HFT like it's first-hand knowledge. I'd be surprised if you've ever held employment at anything but a job at the local Sears. I call ppl out because I like to f*ck with people. You're here looking to hook a fish while "prestaging" your clairvoyance on satellite... while looking for fifty large in outside funding. Oh, and sellindexvol is a friend... and I have personally logged into his accounts and seen his runs. And yes, he earns low seven figures per year. Shit, I have screenshots of it, but it's photoshopped, right?