Why do traders fail?

It's 12 noon EST.

I am sure you are done with your day, NoDoji.

Can you show us your trades today so we can try to analyze and learn from it?

 

Yes they can.

 

Maybe it's the color of the first short then. Should be red instead of green.

 

Summary is highlighted but Trades tab is showing.

 

Excellent answer Wide Tailz.

Now replace the $3 by the word spread (and/or commissions) and you will understand why the overwhelming majority of traders lose in the long run.


PS: Here is my original question...

Tradester123, suppose we play a Head or Tail game with a perfectly balanced coin.

The rules are very simple: If Tails comes up you win $100, otherwise you lose $100.

But.

You have to pay me $3 just to play this game, each time you flip the coin.

In the long run, do you think you will make money playing/betting that way?

As you can see, very simple question.

 

This is nearly proven beyond doubt in this excellent blog. Not even $3, just $1 of spread will do it.

 

It's a minus sum game.

 

fail most of the people trying to become traders

 

Flipping perfectly balanced coin is not connected with external circumstances, that's why you can't influence it. MATH DOESN'T TAKE INTO ACCOUNT EXTERNAL CIRCUMSTANCES. It works in the closed circle. Circle which is limited to given data. If you have more data, circle is expanding and our prediction becoming more and more accurate.

That is the main problem of application probability theory to our reality and especially to trading (tecnhical analysis)

 

There are no problems with probability theory. The theory is not about perfectly balanced coins. It is about topology of probability spaces. Just with its understanding by people. Shannon used it to beat the casinos because he understood it.