Sounds to me like you are walking away from the table without calling my bet. No hero you. There is another possible reason why I won't show my statement in public. It makes people like you who attack without cause or proof pay with real money to prove you are right or to pay with loss of reputation when you walk away. Either way, you pay a price for your actions. That's a good thing. This just comes down to what you value most. Your money or your reputation. As Baretta used to say, "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time."
I can't speak to other people's motivations, but I can speak to mine. I decided when I was a child that I would: 1. Come to the US (I always felt like I was born in the wrong country.) 2. Make my first million before I was 25. 3. Spend the rest of my life changing the world. Step 1 took years, and several tries. My first attempt was when I ran away from home at 14. Eventually, I made it here with a scholarship to go to grad school. 2. Step 2 is about 10 years behind schedule. I quite my job about 7 years ago, and tried to "day-trade my way to financial freedom." But I was very half-assed about it, and basically ended up going back to work within a year. But now I have the tools, the capital, and - most importantly - the determination to succeed. I've spent the last 9 months steadily figuring out patterns in markets - each better than the last. And now I'm ready to let my computer act on those (I don't stare at a screen all day; my computer does that for me.) I don't know if I will succeed, but, if I fail, I will simply go back to work and try again in a few years. Maybe I feel entitled. I'm smart. Extraordinarily smart by any measure. And I figure that, if there are profits to be made in the markets, I can make them.
Because, in hindsight, there is enough price movement everyday to satisfy the greediest mind. The amateur ceases to be an amateur when he figures out how to convert a small piece of that movement into actual cash that can be spent. Most continue with their original hindsight "easy money" delusion for a lifetime, though.
People are gullible, they see infomercials on TV, seeing some slick vendor selling some software where people are happy using some "foolproof" software waiting for either a green or red to buy or sell. People daydreaming "finally their pot of gold float their way," IMAGINE yourself making hundreds or thousands in a couple of hours or you can stay working your dull 9 to 5 job, cut to some poor smuck sitting at his desk with stacks of papers on his desk and the boss is yelling at him. IMAGINE buying that big house, that sports car, everyone patting you on the back, cut to same poor smuck sitting in bumper to bumper traffic smelling in fumes. IMAGINE sitting on the beach sucking down another pina colada while your hooter girl rubbing her bod against you, cut back to same poor smuck at his house trailer with bills piling up, wife is screaming "Hamburger helper again?". People envision delusions of grandeur thinking this can be so easy if I just buy that software. The reality of course, if you want to acquire all that, it is very possible, but expect to work years at gaining the knowledge to do so. It is funny, by the time you finally get very good at this craft, what you think you wanted all along, you don't. You have to put in an incredible amount of hours, you have to have an infinite amount of passion for doing the nearly impossible. And when you start, what you think is the most important is nowhere near what is at the end. You have to turn into Mr. Spock, trade logical in an illogical world of emotions. You don't trade price, you trade an illusion of what people are thinking. Day trading is a very tough way to make profits, sitting here behind the screen, just waiting for your patterns. And whether you manually trade or automate or both, you are always tweaking to make it better. Long hours has to be in your blood, not a whole lot of time sitting on the beach when you are running another backtest. And any great piece of software or method is never going to be sold. And why mess with the bs of selling to the public, dealing with gullible people for a lousy 5 or 10 grand when you can make that in a month, week, day or an hour? The old line "I just want to give back", what a crock of crap, give back? give back to who? Most vendors just want to stick it to the gullible to help pay back their losses. You want to give back, mentor 2/3 people for a year and expect nothing in return. 99% of the vendors out here will never show brokerage statements, cause they want you to dream about "IMAGINE". Happy New Year All.
Maybe people think that way....... because it's human nature! People have a desire and need to be optimistic, look at the market rebound since earlier this year, despite the fact that are economy is not necessarily healthier and now carries a higher debt load. Nothing to look into that much in my opinion. People want to believe, without that, life becomes simply boring after age 20 something. Don't forget also, people do get rich quick in day trading. Go buy a book about futures exchanges before the electronic explosion and read about actual people making millions of dollars from nothing after learning to be a floor trader within sometimes months of being a clerk or mail room employee.
Howard don't let underwhelmed overwhelm or distract you. I never argue with my 10 year old either . . . he is unarmed. If individuals are too lazy to search your posts to clarify your intentions, stick them on ignore with the rest of the elementary kids.
To return to the Opie's post, people believe that daytrading will get them rich quick because that is obviously true. Imagine looking at a one-minute chart of the entire day. Scaled to two or three times the average daily range in price and compressed in time so that the entire day fills the screen. The price action for each day seems in retrospect to be perfectly predictable, beautiful, even, in a wickedly amusing way. And it IS predictable. The only hard part is seeing the obvious in real time. So trading gets you poor quick until you get it.