Let me tell you that capital is not the most important part of a successful trader. you need to equip you self with knowledge, lots of it. turn the charts sideways, upside down, go behind the charts to find answers. question everything and trying to find logic and solutions. work them over and over. its all hard work. as a big operator in the markets, even i cannot predict the markets. markets are too big with lots of emotions and actions. i would advise anyone stop trying to add positions when you are wrong. its absolutely disastrous kind of trading and can be termed as gambling. do not gamble your life away.. discipline and knowledge of the markets will only make you successful , capital is not the first requirement. i am basing this on the kind of trading we do, which can be easily replicated which much less capital.
May I ask what would be the limiting factors for the growth of traders like your style (Spreading? Intra-day?)?
I must admit surprise that this thread has gone on so long, and while I don't mean to disparage anyone, there is a certain "circus has come to town" quality about threads like this, with the rubes lining up to pay their ten cents to see the daring young men on the flying trapeze and the high wire, wanting so much to do the same thing, having no idea of the years of training and experience it takes to accomplish these feats. First, there is a world of difference between working for someone else and trading other people's money and working for oneself and trading one's own. I shouldn't have to enumerate these differences. Second, without a thoroughly-tested and consistently-profitable trading plan, trading 10,000 hours or whatever is little different from trading one hour 10,000 times. One may as well sign up for an email alert service and spend the rest of his time playing outside. He probably wouldn't do any worse and he'd be thinner. Whether Max Fabulous uses stops or not and where those stops, if used, are is of no importance whatsoever to the retail trader. What is important is what the retail trader learns by conducting his own testing with stops and stop placement in order to find out what's right for him. But most retail traders won't do this because it involves work rather than shortcuts. It all depends on whether or not one really wants to be successful and, if so, what he's willing to do to achieve that success. For most traders, the answer to the first question appears to be not really and the answer to the second question appears to be not much.
+1 Trading is just hard work. Most people just think fame and riches will come their way if they just wish hard enough.
Hi, limiting factors of growth would be holding on to positions for a longer time frame , be it profit or loss need to be booked very soon as the size of the position is large its all done intraday. we dont not do spreading kind of trading and no doubling down on a loss or adding to it. All of it, loss and profit calculated before entering a position, will not wait a couple of more ticks, will exit at my fixed price.
s0mmi - great thread/topic. I was wondering if you're able to comment on what spread strategy(ies) you see being traded most frequently? Are these guys into pairs/calendar spreads? Or are inter's more common? Are they trading the near months or further out on the curve? If you've already mentioned it and I missed it, I apologize in advance. Thanks, and best of luck to you - sounds like you've got a nice arrangement there.
Not to usurp from s0mmi, but it very much depends on the mkts, innit? In Ozzie, there are things that everyone and their mother trades, such as the 10y Oz-US spread. Personally, I have always been fond of spreading the Ozzie STIRs (IRs) vs Eurodollars and CAD STIRs (BAs).