What percentage of people on ET trade???

Given the cynicism and attacking nature of nearly every post I wonder how many people on ET make even 6 trades per month...or about 1 a week???

next Poll will be how long before they delete this poll...in seconds.

 

ET posts are often a classic case of the similar famous movie lines from the movie Cool Hand Luke where they said “…What we’ve got here is…. failure to communicate…” by both the prison warden (Strother Martin) and later in the movie by Luke (Paul Newman). This “Cynicism” happens on a large number of ET threads because of the variety of the types of traders expressing their opinions. Also, mixed in with experienced traders posting, are newbie traders who toss out trading tidbits after tidbit to enliven these trading conversations.

The failure to communicate often comes when an experienced trader of one type tells an experienced trader of another type that they can do $#%%^& with their opinions. I have found that if I fail to include in my ET response that I am an automated stock swing trader who trades stocks on daily and 130 minute charts I risk being raked over the coals for my thoughts. This raking may be from an SP500 E-Mini day trader who has a completely different market prospective and trading method than mine that is an entirely valid method of trading. Both of us have successful trading methods but compared to each other they are radically different which draws out these “attacking” responses.

Then we have newbie’s who constantly toss out long quotes from Gurus and Trading Authors. These communications burn the ears of experienced traders who pulverize these newbie’s for not putting in years of screen time, like they have done, to really learn how prices move and trading works. These experienced traders know that each Guru or Trading Author offers a very specific style of trading and the odds that the newbie can trade that very specific style are slim to none. Not to mention the shysters among these Gurus and Trading Authors.

Then how can ET improve this dismal record of communications confrontations between traders and want to be traders. Here are some suggestions:
- Register trading info and place it below our logon ID. ET already shows us sponsors below their ID’s. IMHO knowing a traders style will help to diffuse some of the responses between traders on ET. We could make up trading styles like “Day trader Commodities”, “Day Trade Index Futures” or “Swing Trader Stocks” and place it below our ID’s.
- Add a welcome to Newbie’s in the Trading Thread. IMHO if we warn the newbie’s what topics most often draw negative responses from experienced traders this will help to cut down on many of the long drawn out conversations that I have seen repeat themselves countless times in the last few years. IMO the moderators could put a simple list like this together in no time and make their jobs much easier.

 

I never trade.

 

Nicely done

 

This is a fantastic post. But I would disagree on your very last sentence. Moderators have tried to help folks out informing them the best way to start and continue a thread. About 1/3 of the time, I get a nasty PM. Another 1/3, the poster doesn't listen - because his INTENT is to troll/spam as much as possible, therefore he gets off on the negative responses. The last 1/3 of the time has a 50/50 chance of either working, or getting no response at all.

 

+1

 

the price of fame !

 

I thank you and the other contributors for your kind comments. I completely agree with the percentages you listed. That is an excellent insight in to the types of traders and groups of traders that a moderator such as you has to deal with. I agree that trying to change any trader’s opinion is next to impossible in most threads. Your point is well taken. But let me explore another idea I had.

There is one excellent communication technique that is currently used by experienced traders that I have seen work wonders during many ET threads. That technique is to reference a previously closed thread that thrashed out the exact same topic currently under discussion. That way the same topic does not have to be discussed again and again unless it adds a new perspective.

What ET might do is set up a forum called the “Classics”. This would be a non updateable set of closed previous threads that have become ‘Classics’ because these hold universal trading discussions that are timeless. These would become standard reference items for a moderator. The moderator would then just ask the question of a new threads participants “Are you discussing the same thing that is in classic thread 6 on …..” this might be a more non invasive method of commenting that would not draw as many poor responses (yes, there will always be a few). A simple method to determine how classic a thread currently is and was is to track the activity on the classic thread (views). Non viewed classic would get dropped from the classic forum.

A “Classic” forum could also serve as an education place for newbie’s. IMO Newbie’s always have the most voracious appetite for all trading knowledge, where experienced traders are looking for specific topics of interest.

 

you need to distinguish paper/sim/demo/tiny account trading from "doing serious trades with real money."

Someone was bouncing around here (Traderum, likely cold/c-kid) that was bragging about $50K-150K trades and making 5% a day. Turns out it was all demo.

 

We know. But you do start a lot of meandering threads.