Whether it is 98 or 99.5% who fail is irrelevant. The purpose here is to show that while the odds of becoming a consistently profitable trader are long they are not as bad as they might appear to the casual observer. 1) Half (or more) of those that wash out start (and end) with some FOREX bucket shop. By not being among that half your 2% chance of making it jumps to 4%. Not bad considering all you had to do to double your chances was decide not to be an asshole. 2) Of the remaining half at least half of those have never had a real success in their lives nor are they likely to knock it out of the park ever. If you are not among this group you double your chances again. You go from 4% to 8%. 3) Of the remaining 25% at least half are inept at building relationships of any kind. Many came from dysfunctional families and instead of getting a grip and overcoming that disability they embraced it and it means there are self centered, needy etc. When they finally get into a conversation here or in a chat or wherever with real traders they ask inane questions showing they doubt anyone is telling the truth, let their fear and discouragement color everything they say and end up with zero relationships. When they finally have a question to ask that counts they have no one to turn to. They resent that they get no help and come off like they are entitled to our time and attention. Bingo ... do not be one of them, double your chances and now your at 16%. 4) Of the troops that are left some simply do not have talent for this, others do not study as hard as they should and yet others simply let life distract them. I will not try to put a number on these failings but we know it is a fair number of those that try anything difficult. I am still a struggling trader yet at the point where I learn more in a week than I did in a month. My guess is before the end of this year I will be consistent enough to take a big breath and relax. Even then I will not have begun to yet make real money but my risk of ruin will continue to drop considerably. And, since the key is to get good enough to survive for the years it takes to become a seasoned pro, that is an important milestone. Real traders make serious money taking on reasonable levels of risk. That is the goal. My purpose here is not to portray trading as easy. I suspect for most the odds do not get much better than 1 in 5. Far from a lock yet not an out bet. Do not listen to those who say it cannot be done yet understand it will take everything you have to get it done. And remember, not being an asshole sure helps. But, as we all know, that is not quite as easy as it sounds.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/03/business/la-fi-amateur-currency-trading-20110403 According to this article, 98% of traders lose annual. Of the 615K accounts, 605K accounts lose More than 90% of small traders lose. They just lose!!
Small Traders trade less risk capital (POOR), but big head!! Small traders (POOR) vs the house (RICH) According to the history, the rich will always fucked the poors. Always have, always will. It just small traders are too big head to understand.
"We Are Traders - A tribute to all those trading the markets" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwKYjZ_8EcE I don't think it's meant to be funny but had me laughing...
Excellent point that one. Here's an idea, on Friday afternoon write up a sheet entitled 'What I Learnt This Week". Then read that 2-3 times a week, so in 4 weeks you'll be reading 4 sheets of paper, 8 weeks it will be 8 etc. Doing that really helped me and it highlighted reoccurring problems that had to be stamped out.
emg-congratulations! you are in #3 so what? living in general is not good for you either. 100% will die from it. can you do us a favor, make your story short,just STFU and shoot yourself?
like i said many times, in the world of ET, more than 90% are winners. Therefore, i must balance. Those that claim successful traders, i will say more than 90% of small traders lose. They just lose. your #3 will goes to those all those ET members that are winners. That include bob11 who claim to be winner. Everybody is a winner in ET
listen..once i did show you one statement for whole year from one of my actual corporate accounts..if you having a problem believing in those results-it's your problem. get this through your head-it's your problem and the money that i've made-they are in my pockets. now-you tell me-who is the winner here? you can keep blabbing about losers or fake statements all day long..but once again the money-they are in my pockets already.