Is it really possible to make money in this trading lark?

Wow, this threads still going....good work guys.

Great post Longshot..............
Your da man.!

Longshot,
You remind me of a doctor who is trying to make a diagnosis by simply listening to the patient through a very bad telephone connection...that is you are giving a prescriptive opinion (SHOULD) based on no objective information other than your ability to to match A to A and hope that this is indeed the case......

If you accept that people come in all different shapes /sizes and ability levels then it might be clear that the next deduction to make is that the experience of 'learning' to trade may be significantly different for each of them....as a conseqence if you take yourself as a typical case basis from which to derive an opinion you may be wildly in error...unfortunately this is a very common manner in which people do reach conclusions and it can be self fulfilling...if you approach the process with the mindset that it's going to be very hard then chances are it will be hard.... if you don't take a view ,simply do it then again it may be hard , or it may be relatively simple depending on you....but at least the difficulty encountered was tangible and not a result of preconceived notions not based upon fact....are you getting anything to take away?

You see I am not concerned with who is out there selling whatever anymore than I am concened with people who wish to close their mind with opinion before they even have any facts upon which to base an opinion...an open mind ...evaluate....if it is not verifiable....just put it to one side until it is.....that way I SHOULDN'T have to do anything other than keep evaluating what is in front of me....try it sometime you might find it refreshing in clearing the BULL.....regards to George....

Cheers

Waffle, he's still right

It is not the doubters, it is the way they doubt.

No trader is compelled to risk a set percentage of their trading capital at any point in time, it is a simple matter of choice. Some traders are content risking the princely amount of 1-2% of their capital on any given trade which would equate to £500 to £50,000 of their capital; others are quite comfortable and happy to risk 10% - that is their choice, it is their money. The fact that an individual risks 10% does not in any way make that person a gambler or carefree trader, our risk tolerance levels are different. The markets are made up of all sorts of traders using diverse methods and strategies and it is the end result that counts.

The flip side of the coin is simply that I do not see why I need to have £50,000 in my trading account if all I intend to risk is £500, what am I expecting, interest payments from the spread betting company or broker? I put my trades on based on the capital I have available and do not hang around waiting for hell to freeze over. But I do not call those that risk less - incompetent or losers; it is their choice and their capital. However, if I were looking for mediocre returns, I could get them without doing the work myself.

Market participants are there for different reasons, and I have heard some say that it is simply because they love the business. Okay, I do not have a problem with that but I am not in the markets for that, I trade because I LOVE MAKING MONEY; it enables me to avoid doing the things I do not want to do. Is that a crime? Most of those that say that it is not for the money use that lame excuse because they cannot and will not make any.

Someone says something or shows a chart and they lambast the person for it, what a good show. If that time were spent researching they might make money and their lives would be fulfilled instead of remaining empty vacuums. Do not despair as long as you are alive (oops! I am not sure you are), there is hope that you will see the light.

Got..perhaps you were his teacher...?

Actually the above was facetitious so let me put it in a way you might understand using an example DBP gave recently in relation to skiing......

If you don't ski then go try it..and as you wobble your tentative way down the slope I suggest you raise your head from your navel ,because when a 4 year old who's barely had skis on for 5 mins comes past you looking like Franz Klammer you might just wish to ask the question WHY ?

Waffle?...I like mine with Maple syrup

Chump,

How do you expect him to understand that?

Strange how the divergence method I posted made 200 points plus again today.

mmmm, been told it doesn't work??? been told the Dow doesn't move 200 points intraday.

I will have to get on to IB and Sierrachart and tell them that there is something wrong with their data.

Anley
You haven't answered the question as to how you arrive at your 1% is this just another trading aphorism you keep quoting.

As I have said I work out my risk properly according to Kelly's value based on my actual performance to-date.
The optimum amount you should risk per trade depends on the win/lose and risk/reward ratios of the system you are trading, it is calculated using Kellys formula
Kv = P – (1-P)/Wl

see also http://hquotes.com.historical-stock.../simulator.html
to make things easier.

It is not about how much money you can make it is about making your money work efficiently.


Sorry longshot the maths say otherwise and I could risk a maximum of 79%, the above chart is based on the net results of 80 actual trades 1 per day over 4 months.

If you read my post properly you will notice that I said that I risk 10% of this amount, you or Anley have a safty factor of 10 in what you risk per trade? My trading are probably safer.

Quite right I do not know how you trade if you do at all, that is the point, you have never said anything of value.
All that newbies will achieve by risking 1% is to lose money slower.

If one works out the amount properly you can see how to improve things or where one is going wrong.

Why do you say trading is hard, you must be doing something wrong.
Love to see a chart of your trades

An opinion based on no objective information? Are you kidding me? Im not the one pitching 400,000% percent returns in 6 months, 79% per position and risking 100 pips for a 25 pip target. There has been plenty of "objective" information posted here, objectively BAD information and when I point it out, you lose it and start coming up with silly stories about how I remind you of a doc with a bad phone connection.

Once again, you dont bother to address any of the points I make, and instead run off on even more tangents.

So let me get this straight, your saying that doing something is only difficult if you assume it IS difficult and therefore will BE difficult? Ok I get it... suppose you want to be the next Michael Jordan and you are a 5'1, 250lb white dude. Lets assume you approach this very positively and assume it wont be hard. Is this going to help you achieve your goals? Of course not
Can we drop this silly psychology lesson and deal with reality?? Let me clue you in here. You can be 100% optimistic and believe that trading will be easy all you want, and the fact of the matter will be, its going to be very difficult becaue it IS difficult. You are playing in the most competitive sport in the world when you enter the trading arena. Your "opinion" is not relevant. Trading is difficult, period, and history proves this to be true.

Here is some reality for you:
1) Approximately 90% of fund managers cant even beat the market over the long term.
2) These guys work 80 hours a week trying to beat the averages
3) These guys have millions in capital available to them for market research
4) These guys have MIT PHD statistics majors crunching numbers on millions of dollars worth of super computers day and night.
5) These guys have rooms full of programmers simulating every idea they can come up with instantly.

Yet most of them cant beat the market over the long haul and you are going to sit there and try to tell me that its only difficult because I think it is, or because people have varying skills????

Can I laugh to death now?? Anyone who still holds onto the fantasy that trading is easy is someone who has no clue what they are talking about and simply doesnt have the experience to know better.

I am not closing my mind with opinion before I have the facts. The fact is, people have provided facts on this board already that hugely contradict the objective reality of the situation. Shooting down silly trading myths is not equivalent to closing your mind and having a baseless opinion. I do not have an OPINION, I have a well reasoned and fully supported position.

I can prove beyond any doubt that showing a chart with a whole 5 signals on it is STATISTICALLY WORTHLESS and proves nothing either way, which begs the question, why post it in the first place unless you have something to prove?

Sorry to pop people trading fantasies, but this industry really needs a huge dose of reality. Too many people come into this game and are TAKEN day after day after day because of this gobble-dee-guuk story telling. I feel sorry for them. I cant tell you how many people I know who have lost 10,000, 50,000, 200,000+ trying to trade. Their life savings gone, because they believed this silly stuff and were not prepared to trade for real.

Longshot & Anley,

The gauntlet has been thrown, all you have to do (which so far you have failed to) is post something to back up your arguments. Then we will have an idea of what you are saying, or could it be that you do not have anything to show us as you have not traded in the last 6 months or so? At least we have tried to show the newbies what we truly believe and how we do it.

We would prefer to give ourselves a fighting chance rather than die a slow death losing 1% a day until the broker phones to make a margin call.

Amazing, now he is claiming a 91% win rate. Bravo, we all believe you now
Dont you just love guys who claim silly things like, "one trade a day, for 80 days, and 91% win rate AFTER THE FACT" ??? Then posts hindsight charts showing where he made his trades. How many times have I seen THAT before???

Tell ya what, with a 91% win rate, it should be trivial to prove us all wrong.

For the next few days, why dont you call out your trades AS YOU ENTER THEM, and we can check the timestamps and prices. Then call out your EXITS as your enter them too. The prices better match very very closely.

With a 91% rate, it will become very very obvious if you are indeed achieving this in no time.

Go ahead, shut us all up, all us stupid experienced traders who know better.

POST your signals in real time and it will become very obvious, very quickly, if you have a 91% win rate in the next fews days.

Go for it.


Because trading has been proven to be hard, thats why. Your little fantasies are just that, and I wager you will NOT post any of your 91% win rate system live for any period of time because they only exist in hindsight. Anyone can mark a graph and claim they entered here and exited here, blah blah. Go ahead, prove us wrong. It would take little effort on your part, so why not rub our faces in it? Lets see if you can get 9/10 on the next 10 trades. Lets go super trader.





I fully expect SILENCE on this trading challenge from this point on
Make my day...prove me wrong This should be fun. Watch him run now, so typical.