You may want to reconsider your statement. Reflexes, sharp and alert seem to be important considerations to you. For me, I keep those things in place as an extenality to trading for two reasons: I put them in a health and wel being category and second they do not come up as factors in trading. What I mean by saying they are not factors is that they do not affect the bottom line. The categories that affect trading are: knowledge, skills and experience. They do vary as a function of age; the variation is a direct relationship as a function of time (age). You dwell on what you will be losing over time. The inverse relationship sort of thing. There is one caveat. It is the carpenter with 20 years experience, where he repeats the first year's experience 19 more times. In trader parlance that type of trader doen't ever get to find out what aging does; he simply isn't around anymore. Thank goodness you did not express any comments on competition. Competition in trading is a myth. I posted here before and asked a question of you, getting no response, I deleted the question. It wasn't anything to do with reflexes, sharpness or being alert. I just couldn't connect your comments on the P and L to your query. As a person trades (and he does grow older as well), his knowledge, skills and experience all improve. He must understand that his equity curve measures these things in concert. The P and L thread must be demonstrating this and you are missing it apparently from your ssessment that speaks of a level of performance in terms of total points (dollars) per day. If you see anyone posting and making th same level of points or dollars over time then he is showing poorer and poorer reflexes, sharpness and alertness. I will be 75 in 13 months. I was 40 about 35 years ago in 1973. I suppose the natural response to that is that I probably can't even remember what it I was like at the time, the time you currently feel you may be starting to lose it. You also speak of a "new industry"...lol.... Well I am not a person who is one who can tell you anything about the trading you do. I never did any of that, ever. Today's P and L that you read is also unfamiliar to me in terms of contemporary performance levels. 20 total points is 1,000 dollars on ES in a day. In another place, there is a comment on "advance warning" on market turns (FTT's). The move was 7 points on ES and the amount of warning was 2 minutes for taking profits (and reversing). Reflexes, being sharpe and being alert isn't any part of what was involved. You see an event...you have 2 minutes to make the reversal and it isn' on 1, 2, 5, or so contracts. One event out of the day's one a 7 point move on multiply contracts is where traders trade at any age using incresing knowledge, skills and experience that continues to accumulate. You may want to step back a little and look at what is there and how it is done to make money. It definitely is not what you are talking about for people wo are creating that T&S contract flow that is streaming down the page or on the DOM which is showing 5 levels above and belowgBBid/BAsk. It is not the people you are talking aboutwho are like you. Most people who come and go in trading never even get one look at the markets in their trading lives. Ticks and pennies... I don't think so.....
Patience is more important than knee-jerk reflexes in the long run, like jack said (or I believe that's what he alluded to) you will eventually "outgrow" scalping for ticks if you continue to develop your eye for your market(s) over the years.
As you grow older you realize that all the money can not replace the time. If you can really trade, you won't have to do this still when you are 40.
Look at Stallone. Over 60 and makes another Rocky movie. At the age of 34, he made the first Rocky movie. Then at age 40, he made the Rambo series. Too lazy to look up the exact dates, but he was galloping around on horses and pulling stunts in his 40s Im pretty sure. Next, look at Hank Greenberg and Donald Rumsfeld. Both of them are 70+, Hank is 80+. Their age doesnt stop them from doing business. Hank was fired and forcibly removed from his job and now starting all over again in his 80s. What a trooper. Look around you, America is no longer a young person's place. Average age is now 35+ and more people are not having kids. The only people left soon will either be the immigrants or the 35++ crowd.
Funny, how people in their twenties want to call 40 yrs. old as being old. Iam 39 and trust me if you are 22 now ,40 is just around the corner and will come real real quick. So quick it will make your head spin. But if you keep your diet in good shape and exercise regularly 40 will NOT feel much different than 20 !! At least in my case !! Ha empee, I say the odds are that I could smoke your a$$ in a 10k dude :eek: Let alone be able to have enough physical reaction to put in a daytrade !!! Not being presumptious but I have been running them since age 8 and have a PR time in the mid thirties. Hows that for being old and decrepit ?? Apologies in advance if you happen to also be a distance runner too. But my point is talking about people being decrepit at age 40 or 50 is really hilarious and totally ludicrous. Anyway, you have to excuse me now while I get my wife to assist me in putting my fingers on the keyboard to Buy some more QCOM Calls !
The group of guys I trade with in a Hotcomm room, include a number of ancient mofo's (myself included...49+). The sharpest guy in there is 73, just an amazing guy! He doesn't need the money, yet he treats trading as any other business he has been envolved in ...he makes sure he is a winner! A number of other guys in their 50's, all strictly traders and all successful. None of us are "scalpers", but definitely "day-traders'... best classification would be "intra-day swing traders" taking 2-5 trades per day. Attitude is everything. And it seems all of us eat "well" and continue to exercise dispite age, perhaps that slows the aging and compresses morbidity to the final hours of a life well lived. Aloha for now.
First off I read a little turning 40 isn't that bad in this thread & I beg to differ. For the first time in life you have amassed enough to begin being scared. What if I die on the plane? what will my wife do? My son. My dog. What's this thing called cancer I here about? Hey mom are you going crazy? You now own three houses in a vicious downturn. Should I make a will?; Get apartment insurance? The fearlessness which so grooves your every move in youth is replaced by a cynical eye. Music begins to suck really bad. I detest buys and sells for small amounts using big $. too much paperwork for too little profit and too many roundrtrips. I would call myself an " Active Trader " But really I am a day trader- I follow the market everyday. I do research every day. I plan scheme and cajole friends and relatives into stocks everyday. I probably Make 19-24 trades a qtr, trim winners a lot (maybe too much) and I'm 42 I think. (1964). On my 40th birthday my stepfather collapsed into his food plate and had to be taken out on a stretcher. No drugs that night! Then at 41 I had some strange urine problem. I was going all the time. Things like this just aren't good for the headspace. The good news is it wasn't cancer or diabetes,- some sort of infection, and consequently the loss of fluid combined with high stress has left me at my old playing weight in football 220! Down from 250. The question you ultimately have to ask yourself as a daytrader is am I making a steady income? And am I having fun? Do I legitimately care about anything? or am I just a glorified gamer with symbols and percentages swimming around my brain? To be always short term is to be shortsighted. Nothing beats a good 100% gainer.... and nothing beats the knowledge you can attain by studding the whole market not just fast moving flame outs. To confine your investing world to momentum is to label yourself incapable of leading- you will always be a follower and the ideas will never be yours. If money is all that matters perhaps you can live with that. I would think reflexes are the least of your worries...
first of all, 500-1000 a day NET at the end of the year, is not some average of daytraders, who post or don't post. Total BS. Second, the problem with aging is reflexes. For high speed trading, the extra 1/2 second (or more ) that it might take an old fart to respond is problematic.