One of the best pit scalpers I ever saw didn’t finish high school (TMI), 30 Yr. Bond Pit. One might also opine that a “smart” assessment of daytrading might conclude that a more selective swing trading strategy could achieve a better outcome for an independent trader in a world of expensive ECN speed investments and HF algorithms.
I watched the video once. Did this video have a direct effect on you in the transition of of your trading to a consistent successful trading scheme that you still use profitably?
No, no impact as I knew already 25 years ago what he is saying. So I developped my trading in the early 90's already following what he is telling now. He brought it under words like I would never be able to do so. I was apparently born with out-of-the-box thinking and with good analytical skills. For me it feels natural, I cannot think in the box. Got it from my father who also bumped into big discussions with people who think differently. He made good money with it. I made more because I was lucky that in daytrading it brings much more money in. You should be good in something that generates lots of money. In some sports worldchampions can hardly survive financially while in other disciplines sportsmen make the same money in weeks or months. Study this video good as there is a lot of wisdom and unknown (at least for the majority) knowledge in it. People who have noithing to tell never receive airtime on TED. And the speaker has an impressive list of educations.
Thanks for posting this video. I have been thinking about it since you first posted it. Mark Douglas has said in his first book that the hardest thing for a trader to do is to follow his own system. In putting this to some intense thinking in "getting out of the box" I have come up with an idea that I believe will protect me from myself in reacting emotionally to a quick market move instead of letting my system play out. I am 4 weeks into the "Earn2trade Gauntlet" 60 day test (there are a couple of threads out there on this and I think you might have responded on one of them) and I am averaging over $400 per day loss trading Crude Oil. I am going to put this to the test tomorrow and we will see the last 5 weeks of the test go a little better.
Look at the Forbes richest traders list - the only trader to make the list that could even be considered a day trader is James Simons, although most of his $ was made from swing/positional in his Medallion fund before he got into intra-day arb & front running large orders. Nearly all of the independent traders that became billionaires are swing, trend, or macro traders such as Jesse Livermore, George Soros, Stanley Drukenmiller, Paul Tudor Jones, Ray Dalio, Bruce Kovner, etc.
Sooo...what's your point? The goal for me wasn't to become a billionaire. Even I am not deluded enough to know that's a slim chance. Therefore why does this list matter? Seriously, you give out statistic. But it's what I called "stupid" statistics that doesn't have any use.
Thank you. I read through a couple of Schwager's books. I don't think his main characters disclosed their trading time frames but I could infer that quite a few of the traders traded very short time frames - intraday?
This is the secret : Do not attempt to improve the trading success rate ! Just aim for about 60% trading accuracy. BUT!!! Be 100% calm and alert. how do people improve trading accuracy ? They study which days are better for trading. They put more and more indicators. They read more and more books, surf for more info from internets. They subscribe to more news. They look for better economic calenders. They back test with tons and tons of historical data. They read more and more trading related forums.
He tried to mix up his guest trading styles - but NO, I don’t think it’s fair to say that the majority of his guests traded very short timeframes.