If you accept the market is unpredictable , and trading is a zero sum game with negative expectancy after costs (commissions , slippage, hgt, etc.), and accept the human brain and the individual with all his weaknesses is not wired to trading the markets , no wonder why 95% lose. Why is psychology so important for traders? Most importantly, the human brain is wired such that the average person is inclined to trade poorly without ever understanding why. Psychology matters more to traders than to perhaps any other income producing activity. Ignore this at risk of your own financial peril. http://www.iitm.com/Blue-Print-Peak-101-Combo-info-aug-2010.html We ran 46 profitable automated systems simultaneously , why so many systems?Each of the 46 systems has losing periods and draw downs , overall they performed quite well.Some of these systems fail regularly , the other systems make up for the losses of the failure. The human mind is not capable of operating so many strategies simultaneously , and daily the markets call for multiple set ups and systems to trade profitably. http://www.iitm.com/articles/Interview-with-Van-Tharp.htm Most people are not successful when it comes to trading. Why? I can answer that question on a number of levels. At the most basic level, people must trade by processing information. Unfortunately, we're not very efficient information processors. We have a lot of biases that enter into trading decisions.
Many years ago I traded with the largest futures broker on fx.My bid price was never filled until the offer price went below my bid price.Many bids at my price were filled , that tells you the broker was hitting you with a hidden spread on futures.If the price went below my bid , broker's hft took the opposing trade at 1 pip above and filled me at one pip below. Why do you see bid and offer at the same price? There is no free lunch , the game is rigged.Accept these zero spreads etc as marketing gimmicks. The Big Lie Exposed: Wall Street as Institutionalized Fraud The scandal is perfectly understandable in light of a fundamental truth that nobody wants to accept: Wall Street itself is nothing but a grand Ponzi scam. Wall Street is institutionalized fraud sanctioned by government and blindly accepted by society. http://www.zimbio.com/Wall+Street+F...130/Lie+Exposed+Wall+Street+Institutionalized
Well I can only base my evidence on what I have have experienced seen. But I have been a proprietary trader trading futures contracts intra day as my sole source of income for nearly 10 years. I've worked with dozens, if not hundreds of other guys doing the same. Ive gone 20 day stretches without having a losing day and last year I didn't have a down month. I don't say that to boast, that's not me. But I hope it gives some sort of boost to those of you that believe you're doomed to failure as some people would have you believe. BUT, there are caveats. Firstly its DAM hard, there are no short cuts, you have to watch and watch and learn and learn from people that actually know what they are doing. I was lucky enough to work on a trading floor and learned from those around me. Secondly, the answers are not where most people look... the latest technical indicator, or trading buzz word, or "popular" market, is all rubbish (in my opinion) I and many other people make their money from finding inefficiencies in the market. Watching the order flow. Learning to read algos in the market depth etc and often the best opportunities are in markets most people don't look at. Thirdly, you should not be trading live unless you KNOW you can grind out at least a couple of hundred dollars a day and have proven that on the sim for at least a month. I've worked at places where you weren't allowed to trade live until you could prove you can make 4k a month on the sim. Most people fail because they play on a sim for a week, think they have cracked it and then destroy their account over the next 3-4 months. Its after 3-4 months that you start getting a rough idea of what the *** you are meant to be doing. Fact is 95% of people will do the exact opposite of what I just said, and thats the 90 - 95% of people that fail.
The bigger time frame you trade. the more likely you will win but you just need to be patient. And frankly speaking, and any one can be that patient. That's part of the reason why a lot of traders lose money.
Cool ! Your line touched my heart as these are the brokers and liquidity providers that are taking much of the money made. But there are some traders also who are taking some share from this complex market.