This is absolutely true in life. ...but not in trading It's better to miss a opportunity than to have a bad trade. Every $ lost, takes $2 of profits to recover, so don't trade if you aren't reasonably convinced.
Opportunity is what really makes money in life ?... I agree to a large extent. The key is what do you do with this realization ?.... Do you keep taking shortcuts and easy ways to look for opportunities? Or do you sit around relax and wait for opportunities to find you ? You do neither. You work hard to you put yourself in as many situations as possible to receive or create the opportunities.
Coolweb, Your post has to do with making money then just making money in the stock market. And to go along with this here is my opinion: IMO People make money in this world by taking advantage of others and of situations. The strange thing is that this practice is pretty accepted throughout the world. ... Well the taking advantage of others is sometimes frowed on but if you can mask that with it to look like 'typical business practices' then its fine. And the taking advantage of opportunities is seen as first come first serve. Can you think of a situation where the above isnt true? I cant - The 18 year old working for mcdonalds making 6$ an hour. the company is taking advantage of this person so they can make more money - the 18 year old needs a job so its a opportunity for mcdonalds. When the 18 year old is working he 'steals' a hamburger during lunch. He takes this opportunity to stick it to the 'man'. - I just read yesterday about how someone in the U.K. took 10million£ from people saying he could get better exchange rates for currency exchange then what is listed. (Basically he took this opportunity and took this money from people - he didnt try to exchange any currency he spent the money). The sad thing is this must not be that frowned upon since he only got 4 1/2 years for it. - Hospitals and doctors often take advantage of people with their healthcare; people have a strong need to want to be healthy when they are sick (vulnerable) - there is great opportunity here;so they can charge an exorbant fee for their services. - Also yesterday I just read that the person in charge of Microsofts xbox devision sold 6million~(figure might be slightly off) worth of stock before news came out that microsoft would have to spend 1.12 billion on xbox repairs. So what does all this tell you? ... It tells me that it doesnt matter what you do to make money; if you invade another country, steal money from a little old grandma or take advantage of someone with cancer as long as you 'appear' to be doing the above in a politicaly correct way then the opportunity is yours for the taking. ... Quite Sad
That could be the saddest commentary I've ever seen on any board. Some people look at the glass half full or half empty. You don't even see the glass. People are paid what they are worth. They are not being taken advantage of in any way, shape, or form. It's supply and demand, plain and simple. If you want to get ahead in the world you have to prove your worth. I might pay you 200,000 per year if you could prove to me you were worth it because of the amount of business you could bring in. The name of the game is to develop SKILLS that are worth something. Flipping burgers is not skill that deserves to be paid a high income, but if that burger flipper decides he wants more out of life than a 7.00 an hour job he may work from within McDoinalds and become a store manager or regional manager, or possibly own his own store. Life is about people's desires, and the amount of work they are willing to put in to achieve those goals or desires..
All of your example are about amateurs not professionals. In 1991 we use to charge $3000 for a cell phone and $2.00 per minute and my partner and I got very rich but many cellular company's today still make 100's of millions. Your post should read how do you win the lottery not how to make $ in real life.
In regards to the OP's initial post..... it's very easy to explain, a rancher once told me this: "Making money is really a very easy thing to do. It's keeping the money that's the hard part." As I have found to be true here at ET over the year I have joined, there are many smart people out there. That's the problem, too many people think they're smarter than the market and in the end, well that's their undoing. Your post hits at a critical point, KISS principle. Every successful person I have ever met has told me that they really don't think of themselves as any smarter than the next guy. In fact when people get REALLY SUCCESSFUL they usually give the credit to the smart people they have working for them. The really successful people that I have come into contact with always say they like to hire people smarter than them. Why not? Get your money's worth. They all also say that the one biggest thing that set them apart from the herd is that they seized an opportunity and ran with it. It seems that once you have done this with some success, it just gets easier and easier to do. Risk/Reward. Just about any intelligent person (notice I didn't say educated) can give you that little element of the key to success, but only a few actually ever embrace it and finally get to balls to run with it. Opportunity is a very weary traveler. He knocks on many doors and finds very few people willing to let him in. Good Luck!
"success is where preparedness meets opportunity"....i think OPrah may have said this..Opportunity can hit you square in the head and you still wont make diddly squat unless you take the bull by the horns...alot more people had the chance to make money in the RE and Stock market and they just didn't...I love the post..you are square on the money...peace