Hey guys, thought about this question for some time and want to pose it out to the board. You know how rock stars have a lifestyle consisting of drugs, sex, music? What's a trader's lifestyle like? Is it any different than a full-time investors? BnB
Burping, farting, wearing rumpled clothes, living in your car ala Cramer, regular guy stuff, gotta pay for women. These are the successful ones. The losers promote books on et, appear on cnn with porn stars and heed advice from the local Rabbi.
"What's a trader's lifestyle like?" Then you have your before and after traders. Armani and Rolex replaced with introspective "poems from prison".
car on the left is real probability traders with their own edge............one on the right is your typical Jack Hershey "hand holders" car.
one day you are on top of the world then the next day you want to jump off a bridge. a rock star does'nt die in a day whereas a trader could. also the ulcers!
The TRADER is the same weird guy as before. But the WIFE is now different: "Why can't you get a regular job?" "I don't trust you to be at home alone while I go out and work." "What are you doing to my cat during the day?" "The neighbors are complaining that you run around in your boxers all day, or worse." "Are you sure what you are doing is legal?"
full-time trader at home or for a firm? working 24/7, or working 8-7? having a family, or single? first year trading, or long-time trader? if you're for a firm in (a major) city, many younger traders go out after work. more older ones go home. lots of questions more than what's the lifestyle...some people handle adversity and drawdowns well, some don't.
All traders are aspiring investors. You are never comfortable as a trader until you have enough to be a financially free investor. Until you can hoard enough profits to live off the interest, dividends or rental income. Trading profits at that point become pure gravy and you can start living it up. But before that trading on its own is a crap lifestyle. Even the greatest trader of all time had interest (annuity) income to fall back on but it took him a few blowups to figure it out.