3 Possibilities I can think of off the top of my head while eating Burger King for dinner : 1. They are lying, and want attention, or some other idiotic reason. 2. They have really lost it and don't want others to experience the pain they have experienced. 3. They want to take others down with them or at the very least hear stories of others failing to make themselves feel not alone. What do ya think? EDIT: I just thought of another: 4. They are freaking loco!!!
What scares me most is that most of them are long time lurkers who comes out of their woodwork to share their sad sob stories with us. And, no explanation as to what the hell they did... I done lost.. I quit. .and I must now tell you to feel better about me.
with the assumption that the posts are legit ... the same thing that motivates winners to NOT share - the desire for others not to follow? possibly some confessional aspect as well. maybe a bit of a need to be told it will be okay. the glory? if you can't become a legendary trader, at least you can be a legend. like martin short said in The Three Amigos, "Infamous is when you're more than famous, you're IN-famous." dunno. probably different reasons for each person. why don't ALL losers share? if 85-95% of all traders lose, we should see about 45,000 ET'ers posting losses. why do ANY winners share? take care omni
Yeah, that has happened to me, I ask them questions and then they refuse to answer, I had someone block me because they refused to answer my questions about their strategy they used or anything specific as to why they failed. It doesn't make sense really, I think that those that really failed and don't want to say, did some really stupid stuff to lose their money, like lose it all in a few trades after putting it all on the line or something. To last a few years in this game and just quit out of the blue, .... either they were destined to fail from the beginning and got lucky, or they had an advantage, and didn't take the time to have backup systems or learn other markets or anything like that, in which case, they were still destined to fail. Like me, I got my ass kicked in Futures, but now I'm doing very well (at least from what I believe and where I came from) right now with equity trading, but when I was trading futures, it was like hell. I only screwed around with Forex for a tiny bit even before futures, but now I have been demo trading Forex for awhile now for longer term trades and I have been doing very well on it to my suprise, and in the future I will eventually return to Futures to give it a shot, maybe if I one day join a firm where they allow you to trade Futures and Stocks I will give it a go. So I think those that put in an effort to be aware that what they are doing today, could end up not working ever again possibly, and plan for that and have multiple strategies, and possibly multiple markets that they have experience with, it just makes yourself less subjective to changes and can keep you around longer. I at least believe that. Some people PM me and say I'm stupid for learning multiple markets, that I should just learn one and stick to it, but fact is, if one day something happens to that market and I can no longer scalp equities like I do now, or commissions for some reason increase or some rules or wacky stuff, I have a backup that can keep me in the game hopefully.
I read 2 of those threads, and "Is my career over" was different than "I lost $400,000". I had to plow through 50 pages with a lot of it being "dogpiling" (i.e. "How could you be so dumb?") in the career-over thread, but I re-learned about common mistakes that I thought I was past, and when I made a series of 'em I wrote it up as a "dumb and dumber" post so I'd NEVER forget again. So I learned something. Since I don't believe in dogpiling, I won't comment on the $400,000-lost thread....
Well put amtrack. And for that we thank the people that have shared their problems rather than just trying to make themselves feel better.
I'll tell you why I shared.... I just felt so vulnerable and needed a venue to vent. I also wanted to know if losing so much in so little time would keep me from getting a prop position.....I never did get a definitive answer on that but I suppose it doesn't matter....If I lose all my money I'll have to go out and build up another stake and try all over again. I also wanted to get some perspective from other traders. When they looked at my situation a lot of them had a lot of fun bludgeoning me to death with their insults and derisions. I have no respect for people like that. It is bad enough to hurl stones at a man when he is down.....but to hurl stones at a man who is down and who had just humbled himself by opening his life experience to the world is really pathetic. Humility should never be rewarded with a spear....but your typical trader will always offer such a reward. It's a shame that I share this profession with such animals...I'm almost embarrassed to call myself a trader....maybe I'll say speculator from now on... The worst part of my relating my experiences on this website was hearing from people who most clearly never put a trade on in his/her life. It was irritating to hear what I was doing wrong from someone who simply had read a few books on money management and "how to succeed trading the markets." Do they think I haven't read such books myself before putting money on the line? Who hasn't? I think the lessons you read in books only make sense and "click" when you've learned them the "hard way." This is why I wouldn't wish a career in trading on my worst enemy: there will most definitely be agony, and lots of pain before you find consistent profitability. I acknowledge that I have a great deal to learn about hte markets but am very happy to have had the experience of losing before I actually started making big $$$. Imagine building my account up to $400k and then posting a message on this board "i've lost 400k the last 2 months i'm quitting"? That would be horrible and something I'd really have to take time to recover from. And so, as odd as it may seem, I take my experience with losses as a blessing. Obviously a blessing very well disguised... I truly believe that in the end persistence is key. I don't believe I'll ever give up. I may die broke but I won't die broken....
Well said. The problem is the "Mob" mentality which dominates this forum at times. Its a great shame because it keeps the silent majority silent, cheating us all of of intelligent debate and further growth. After all why would anyone want to risk getting a thrashing when there is generally little to be gained? As in the case of the "I lost $400k" thread, a few people where very quick to call the poor guy a liar and an idiot. However, had the amount in question been $20k then there would have been little doubt as to whether his story was true. Why? Because $400k, to MOST, is a huge amount of money and in their opinion only an idiot would lose it in two months. They ignored the fact that A) $400k is pocket change to some and B) a gambling problem was disclosed which, in my opinion, underpins his entire story. Hardly surprising but it shows a severe lack of reasoning ability on their part.