Question is are you successful at it? The only universal barometer of success or failure in life is the size of ones paycheck i.e. if you are successful show them your paycheck or ask them how much they make if, you are not its time to look for another job.
This is sort of funny, but when I was a kid, and a really naive one at that, my friend's dad was a Chicago mobster Southern California transplant.. I didn't know what the mob was, I thought Elliott Ness shot them all from watching the tv show... that guy was not going to answer a question about what he did for a living.. he always just would do a little belly laugh cough or something and change the subject... This subject comes up a lot.. we should figure out how to have some fun with it.. maybe we can get a long list of really funny fake occupations or something.. "I'm looking at franchising out indoor swap meets in Hawaii" "Electronic surveillance, I can tell if you wad or fold" "I'm a stalker, so far it's just a part time hobby thingy but you came along..."
crazy huh? Depends how one measures success. I know its hard to think otherwise considering the pounding we get from every angle to keep up with the joneses and get ours. Does a picture really speak a thousand words?
This is not true and very naive'. When ever money is thought of as being "easy" to the owner it brings resentment from others. if you work your way up to the big bucks--most will respect you. if you make lots of money in an easy or misunderstood way such as trading--most will resent you--the same as if you inherited it, etc. Sleepy
They laugh because so many day traders fail. 90% or whatever is a number I see a lot. A LOT of people try day trading and a lot of people fail. A lot of people just go in thinking its easy money and they don't have a strategy. When I tell somebody who asks me that I'm an investor (i'm not a daytrader), probably 75% of the time daytrading comes up in the conversation somehow. "Yeah, my uncle used to do that, but not anymore." "Yeah my neighbor lost his entire savings doing that." SO many people do it or have tried it. I was at a family reunion recently and met my cousins new girlfriend. She asked me what I do and I said, "stock and options investor." She asked me to teach her about options because she was too scared to trade them, but traded stocks. Even she, a 29 year old nurse, daytraded from time to time with a five hundred dollar account at etrade (of course). Its like pot, almost everybody has tried it once or twice but only a small percentage of the public do it everyday. The fact that you are successful and have a plan probably automatically puts you ahead of 50% or more of the public who tries it. You can't watch one hour of a network television show without seeing an etrade ad. I am always surprised at the amount of people that I meet that have tried daytrading. So... when someone learns you daytrade, they immediately think back to hearing that their uncle failed at it, or that their neighbor lost everything, or maybe even that they couldn't do it successfully. They immediately think, maybe subconsciously maybe not, that if they or someone they knew or heard about couldn't do it, then you can't either. Thats why they role their eyes.
It's exactly the same reason that they roll their eyes when you tell them that there are people who can make a living as professional gamblers. They can't accept that someone could understand how to play a game of odds and come out ahead, because they are basically too stupid to understand anything about even the simplest of odds anyways. They don't have a damn clue about the mechanism with which Vegas makes its money - they only know that if you go there you will lose cash. That's about how far their tiny little brains are able to reason. Therefore, when you try to explain anything about trading or probability to these people, their eyes just glaze over and they only hear "trading = gambling = Las Vegas = lose your money". Personally, I like to use a conversation like this as a litmus test for a person's intelligence... if you give me the "oh, so it's gambling" routine, you get immediately dumped in my personal moron bin. Way too many people have ended up there. Remember folks - we live in world where a robber once walked up to a convenience store clerk and pulled out a gun, telling her to hand over the cigarettes behind the counter... when she asked him to provide proof of ID, he pulled out his real driver's license and gave it to her. True story - they caught the retard a few hours later. If people are stupid enough to do that, how can you really expect them to understand anything about trading?
While trading may be 'boring and a grind'. Personally it is anything but to me. The lifestyle it provides is anything but a grind. Ask the letter carrier, teacher, plumber etc if they can at a moments notice take off for a month long vacation or simply refuse to get out of bed. Their boss would most likely tell them to not bother coming back. That, my friend is a grind.
As soon as your born they make you feel small, By giving you no time instead of it all, Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all, A working class hero is something to be, A working class hero is something to be. They hurt you at home and they hit you at school, They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool, Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules, A working class hero is something to be, A working class hero is something to be. When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years, Then they expect you to pick a career, When you can't really function you're so full of fear, A working class hero is something to be, A working class hero is something to be. Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV, And you think you're so clever and classless and free, But you're still fucking peasents as far as I can see, A working class hero is something to be, A working class hero is something to be. There's room at the top they are telling you still, But first you must learn how to smile as you kill, If you want to be like the folks on the hill, A working class hero is something to be. A working class hero is something to be. If you want to be a hero well just follow me, If you want to be a hero well just follow me. J. Lennon
no offense my brother, but ANYONE with capital can do what you state. and trading is by far the RISKIEST and LEAST LIKELY way to gain vast sums of capital--particullarly the kind of trading that allows you take off for a month or more or not get out of bed prior to having enough funds. what you describe is any entrepreneur--make your money first--then play in the market--- otherwise without intial wealth or OPM from understanding investors--- you will FAIL prior to making it.