Trading vs Investing

Discussion in 'Trading' started by FCXoptions, Jan 3, 2013.

How many think they would have done better investing than trading their account?

  1. Yes long term I have been much more successful

    7 vote(s)
    38.9%
  2. No I am awesome at trading

    7 vote(s)
    38.9%
  3. I suck at both

    1 vote(s)
    5.6%
  4. I don't know

    3 vote(s)
    16.7%
  1. How many of you all think you could have done better if you had just invested long term instead of trying to trade your account? I am just kind of curious.
     
  2. emg

    emg


    let me make it easier for ya;


    if u begin your trading career as a "SMALL TRADER," u will lose. u, as a small trader, will have a better chance of winning on investing.



    More than 90% of small traders lose! They just lose!!



    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-...-seen-profiting-at-small-firm-expense-1-.html


    [​IMG]
     
  3. I knew that was coming lol
     
  4. 2-2-0-1. :confused:
     
  5. From what i`ve observed,you are doing a lot of studies on markets in general.How do you think money are making in trading?Curious to hear your opinion.
     
  6. So sick of seeing this statistic being thrown around.

    Statistics are like women; mirrors of purest virtue and truth, or like whores to use as one pleases. ~Theodor Billroth
     
  7. deucy28

    deucy28

    Better ? Does quality of life rate for inclusion in this question ?

    I could make this a longer statement with respect to what a few others I have (to varying extents) made converts of to swing style of pair trading, but I'll just say in general their attitudes appear to be consistent with mine: A relaxed style with near assurance of gains, all be it erratic extent of those gains, makes for acceptable level of merit in this approach as having been practiced for the last few years.

    I am the only one of the group I referred to that trades exclusively pair trading. (We all apply the same swing style I advocate.) I noticed the "relaxed" manner of doing this has made an impact on these guys (and a gal) with comments of particularly appreciating that aspect of it. We all know how to be more aggressive with it should there be an occasional desire to "dial it up" once in a while.

    Enjoying consistent gains with relative safety and agnostic to market direction counts as "betterment" to me rather than investing with worry.
     
  8. if you are doing ok as a trader

    best to sweep that account, you have to anyway to pay taxes and then a little more to invest in a mutual fund

    just like you had a real job

    I make a higer return in my trading account

    but every year it becomes a smaller percentage of my total net worth

    (and some days, my index fund beats the hell out of me)

    I think, "I could have made more money today with my feet propped up watchning cnbc and the market go up."

    it was a lot easier in the past, because you could just go 50/50

    50 in bonds 50 in stocks

    not sure the future is going to be that easy

    that's why when you hear old people worrying

    it's always nice to have that trading account

    especially if you trade forex like I do, and the worry is the value of a dollar

    In my opinion, no conservative money manager can manage money anymore without some kind of currency component. Whether that takes the form of commodities, currencies, or prescious metals. Or for that matter, just some money allocated to short term trading. Most of these big moves that are going to get you in your slow conservative account, can first be picked up in the fast trading account, thereby lessening the blow.
     
  9. No way I would have done better investing, recall that the stock market hasnt exactly done very well in the past decade, in fact its literally gone nowhere since 2000. I started trading about 7 years ago, with a very small capital trading extremely risky derivatives (index warrants), blew up twice before I finally found my "edge". I made roughly 900k with only 20k capital in about 5 years before my edge was finally exhausted ~2 years ago.

    So I transitioned to trading another derivative - equity index futures. Now there wasnt any market inefficiency in these markets to be exploited, but I did ok the first year because there was huge volatility, and perhaps I was lucky, who knows?

    The past year has been quite a disaster for me though, I barely beat the SPX, what this means is that I wasted an entire year doing nothing productive, hundreds of hours in front of my computer and nothing to show for it. This is most likely my cue to quit this thing now (before I start losing money in 2013).

    I think its possible for small traders to beat the market but you will need a true edge to do that, and no I dont think its possible to beat the market in the long run, because no edge lasts forever.
     
  10.  
    #10     Jan 4, 2013