You simply don't get it do you, seriously, you just can't seem to grasp simple concepts like risk, reward, return, and performance, all very basic elements of any financial investment not just trading. Saying you made 140k from trading last year means absolutely nothing in this context, it's as meaningless as your competition idea of 'let's see who makes the most money from trading'. And saying "I'm not going to make a bet that I dont know Im going to win" is just further evidence of your lack of trading savvy (if any more were needed!), you don't even understand the basic concept of trading itself! I assumed you knew what you were doing until I read these posts of yours, you've just lost any credibility as far trading is concerned.
Ok here, here I'll give you some more specifics ok I keep $100,000 in the account. The maximum drawdown I've had has been $8400.
Here is what you don't seem to grasp. Sharpe Ratios, upswing vs downswing doesnt pay the mortgage, doesnt put your kids through college and doesnt put food on the table. The banker doesnt care if your $1000 account has grown to $2000 this year and you've never had a drawdown of more then 10%....that doesnt help you much. Brandon
Maybe the States is much cheaper than the UK, I don't know. But how does $140k pay the mortgage and put your kids through college. Hell over the water I thought you even paid for your health care even if you were poor!
no sweat, man. your welcome to your opinion, and i see your point--however, knowing tim, i disagree with you. it's no big deal, its what makes things interesting. best, surf
Ok, you obviously don't understand the point I was making. There are industry standard ways of presenting and discussing trading performance, pretty much every experienced trader knows that just quoting dollar figures in the context you did is meaningless, I thought a self-proclaimed trader and mentor would know basic stuff like this but evidently I was wrong. Don't worry about it, the punters will probably never notice
I think that the averge family earns something like $30/40K a year. In terms of health care we have our good points and bad points, one very bad point is that when you have insurance, most people will run out when the shit really hits the fan. That's exactly what happened to me and it cost me millions. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=148006&highlight
you also have to consider that your "profits every week" for 8 months does not mean you were ever a successful trader. You may have been somewhat fortunate by trends in your instruments, etc. etc. I consider a "successful" trader as someone who has been pretty profitable for at least a few years." You may simply have been the recipient of being one of the lucky few among a large population of world traders. If you have 200,000 traders, you are going to get at least a few hundred who were randomly "profitable" for an 8 month period and confused it with having "arrived" as a trader.