Thanks for giving us feedback. I kind of suspected that this is what happened to most old timers, they moved on from trading and making money in other ways. Enjoy the good life...
Similarly to @EricP I am a follower on the site, but do not contribute as much (if at all lately). I am sure that most who have ventured on this journey and have lasted a few years know that this is a very difficult business to get into and those that are successful at it know that you need to keep on reinventing yourself to make this business a profitable one. Besides reinventing, diversification is absolutely necessary (and I am talking about just within this business); I, for example, have always been an intraday trader, but have had the need to learn position trading and using options. These are all different beasts and need to be handled accordingly and so the work that goes into this business is never ending. Over the years, I have seen some very good/successful traders here that have been very helpful and the audience that took the advice were very grateful and respectful for the most part. However, as the nature of this business became more difficult, the success rate and the "I see the light" for newer traders decreased and those that were successful had to dig deeper. The frustration and work rate for both sides had to increase and this caused and inverse relationship with the patience one had. Newer traders that came in with high hopes and dreams saw very little in terms of their returns after investing so much time, emotion and money and that, for some (maybe a lot) turned into deeper frustration, which then was vented out here on ET. Now, successful traders had to "prove" themselves to be legit. Proof of their method, trading logs and PnLs were being asked for to validate their positions. Then there was the "your method" doesn't work, or we want to see a longer history of a PnL etc. On top of that, the bashing got more consistent and meaner and with time that became a norm on ET. There was no real reason for a good trader to have to take this on when they were helping others on here for FREE. Besides, one has to continue building their business, enjoying their family and whatever they call fun and that consumes most hours of the available 24. In saying all this, I get a little nostalgic about the old days, when one trader rooted for the other and ET members came in to cushion bad days for new traders with solutions and encouragement and when we all understood that our chance against the "big boys" was slim, even when we all banded together and so we stood together as one. Wishing everyone the best.
I am fairly new around here so really do not know how things were in the good old days. However, there are still plenty of kind souls around willing to answer questions and help out here and there to us newbies. So, if you have some free time, please hang around, some of us will appreciate your coaching and we do not need you to prove that you are legit by asking you to post a copy of your 2016 federal tax return on ET. Regards,
Most old timers are dead or got tired of this place. In fact, many started disappearing when social media like twitter, stocktwits and facebook showed up online. I just don't think its a coincidence that when those social formats appeared...many of the active old timers left this place. I use to talk about it a lot after those social formats showed up...many of us predicted the old timers will go elsewhere. In fact, Baron temporarily put links to twitter with all message posts here so that members can share a link for the message post to others outside the forum. I think it lasted a few months until Baron got ride of it. Sure, some probably quit trading, moved on to greener pastures and a few just blew up their account and some just croaked (dead). Lets not even forget that some resigned themselves to just be lurkers after actively posting at this forum. You know which ones are the lurkers now because they'll show up to say they're still breathing after someone posts their user names and wonder what happen to them (e.g. lescor, Dustin).
Here is one trader,who came and left soon after,yes he decided to leave. It is the gems like him that it was/is/will be worth it to come to this website. Every newbie should read this very carefully to avoid losses,when trading capital gets depleted to zero there won't be any threads asking what happened to them. https://www.elitetrader.com/et/thre...itable-with-the-es.286440/page-8#post-4031520
Less trading due to automation and more watching intellectual material. Have to do something with my time.....
Anyone know what happened to redneck out of interest? He was a prolific poster and stopped quite abruptly about a year or so ago. Just curious. He wasn't even someone whose posts I followed or anything, but he was hard to miss, lol