The Pro's "je ne sais quoi"

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The old saw is that 95% of amateur traders are unprofitable. Presumably this isn't the case with Pro traders under normal circumstances - or they wouldn't remain employed.

So what do the Pros do/not do or know, different to the amateur? Is one possibility that the very freedom enjoyed by amateurs (eg. no house rules / no supervising boss / trade whatever you like) is their downfall? Or, like amateur pilots/golfers/painters/authors - are some people just not cut out for the job?

So what are the lessons that 95% should learn from the Pros ?
 
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The majority of pros are not trying to make money

Secondly, the majority of people are obviously ****wits. Salespeople seek them out, employers try to avoid hiring them...
 
The old saw is that 95% of amateur traders are unprofitable. Presumably this isn't the case with Pro traders under normal circumstances - or they wouldn't remain employed.

So what do the Pros do/not do or know, different to the amateur? Is one possibility that the very freedom enjoyed by amateurs (eg. no house rules / no supervising boss / trade whatever you like) is their downfall? Or, like amateur pilots/golfers/painters/authors - are some people just not cut out for the job?

So what are the lessons that 95% should learn from the Pros ?

8 to 10 years for medicine skills, knowledge and experience , zero experience, knowledge and skills for shark tank livelihood.Just jump in the shark tank and earn a living from gambling red/black all day.

First get the knowledge , experience and skills to trade.
 
First you've got to define what a "pro" is. The traders that are in the media etc have a completely different task then that of the majority of retail traders. It's a different kettle o fish.
 
First you've got to define what a "pro" is. The traders that are in the media etc have a completely different task then that of the majority of retail traders. It's a different kettle o fish.

Ok. What I have in mind is the guy working for an organisation and trading where, I assume, you only keep your job if you're any good at it. IE they just make money day in day out overall - never see them on the media and unless you work in the environment you never get to meet them or hear about them. It's a bit like how the military are portrayed on the screen as opposed to what it's really like. I suppose what really interests me is: is there a fundamental difference between the Pro and amateur - I might be successful in my own little way but it's really only a bit of pocket money; could I do it big time? I'd like to think so but the pressures etc must be very different - I only answer to myself - and some things seem possible until you actually try them and find you're not quite up to it (a contrarian view in our popular psycho-culture but let's be realistic).

From what I've seen of life, there are people in all walks who are very good at what they do because they have something extra - the "je ne sais quoi" and they are possibly at the stage where probably no one else can teach them much; they are the leaders - is this the case with trading? And what is it that they have?
 
Have you read "Liar's Poker"? It would seem to me that the dealers and the salesmen are two separate parts. A dealer has to offload some rubbish that he has and tells his salesman to phone around the fund managers. As long as the salesman is capable then the dealer is safe!

We should not bother about the pros, just get on with making our crusts.

Good trading.
 
It's simple, a person who is really dishonest or unethical can get absolutely filthy rich in trading.Use of insider info ,HFT , selling fraudulent derivatives with withheld material information and fraudulent dot com ipos can be be a pros only trading skills.
 
http://www.atrader.com/articles34.html


A well known currency trader made $250,000 each day for his bank for 8 years. He now runs a fund worth $300m and probably earns $15m a year from currency fund management.

http://www.hathersage.com/hathersage/pr/080221.html

http://www.hathersage.com/programs/index.html

"1998: Volume 7, No. 3
The Mind of a Trader: The Most Profitable Trading Tool of All
By Alpesh B. Patel

"You made how much?" I screamed down the phone to the calm voice on the other side of the Atlantic. Tapping away at my calculator, I continued in disbelief, "but that means you earned for Salomon Brothers an average of $250,000 each and every single trading day for eight years!" I resisted the urge to faint, or swear.

I had spoken to many successful traders, but the conversation with Bill Lipschutz, with whom I had had the above conversation, former global head of foreign exchange and managing director at Salomon Brothers, stuck in my mind for the size of his trading successes.

This was my point of arrival, after having spoken and interviewed, even cross-examined and interrogated, the world's leading traders. The original quest was to find what, if anything, they had in common despite their differences. I did not want the trite and over-used "cut your losses short, set stop-losses, etc., etc." type of insight. Traders know to cut their losses short, they want to know they are cutting it short and not cutting a potential profit short. Too often the trite rule has missed the real difficult issue.

Nor did I want advice which only the professional trader could use or understand. I wanted to discover something for professional and private traders alike. I wanted to rip out and hold in my hand for close inspection the very heart of trading success.

Any conclusions would be irresistibly and irrefutably strong (as well as hopefully being insightful and original ) because it would relate to trading itself, not just one product, or technique or tool or country. I was not disappointed.

The common element that linked them all, and separated them from their less successful colleagues was their frame of mind; their attitudes to trading, to losses, to open positions, to profits, to success and failure. Indeed, they redefined success and failure itself. Their perspective was unlike that exhibited by any less successful traders. They had a way of viewing trading such that if you were to force them to trade according to a particular system, they would still be more profitable than their colleagues using the same system. They added a value to any potentially profitable trading technique and tool to turn it into a superior profit maker.

A list of the main traits these leading traders exemplified follows:

Opportunity Knocks the Door Down

Since kindergarten each of us is taught to grab opportunities for they do not knock twice. It is precisely that type of advice, which is so useful in other walks of life, but detrimental in trading.

Many traders, armed with their trading plan or strategy, will often hastily and prematurely enter a trade. Their decision is often driven by fear; the fear of the missed opportunity. Their mind will be screaming, "quick get on the trade, you're going to miss it, so what if all your criteria for entering a trade have not been met? Most of them have, so get on the trade. The big traders wouldn't hang around."

The inevitable result is that the trade will not be profitable or as profitable as it would have been had the trader waited for the precise moment to strike.

In trading, the fear of the missed opportunity leads to many avoidable losses. And the game of trading is as much about avoiding losses as about capturing profits. The leading traders have a different perspective on opportunity. Counter-intuitively they know opportunity knocks once, twice and then kicks the door down. They know that if this trade does not feel absolutely perfect, there will be another one along in a short while. That knowledge alleviates and over-rides any fear. That knowledge is the key to unlocking greater profits by waiting for all the trade entry criteria to be met and not cutting corners.

Bill Lipschutz summed it up when he said, "Out of 250 trades in a year, it comes down to five, three of those will be wrong and you will lose a fortune and two will be right and you will make a fortune; for the other 245 trades-you should have been sitting on your hands."
 
From what I've seen of life, there are people in all walks who are very good at what they do because they have something extra - the "je ne sais quoi" and they are possibly at the stage where probably no one else can teach them much; they are the leaders - is this the case with trading? And what is it that they have?
It's about the optimal combination of risk-seeking and risk-aversion... People who are successful in a professional environment have just the right mix.
 
Well I don't know the answer but if we just compare a professional prop trader in a bank, hedgefund or prop firm (we'll call them pros) with an average joe at home:

The pro has the advantages of:

It is not his money he is trading. He is salaried, so the pressure to make money each and every week and emotional ties are less imo.

He is likely to get training from an already successful trader at the firm. Maybe more than one. And he is surrounded by these people, rather than having to learn or get feedback from bulletin boards, books by traders who never made it or snakeoil salesmen.

He will have someone making sure he doesn't exceed the risk limits, so that he can't easily blow up, and has good money management.

His account will be larger, so he doesn't need to risk a large % of his capital, and is unlikely to be thinking dangerous thoughts (or therefore feel the pressure) such as turning 1000 into 1m.

He has to justify his actions to someone, and will be surrounded by other traders, which will also improve discipline.

He may have access to better information whether that be order flows, bloomberg, reuters, squawk or whatever. In general his trading platform/setup is better than your typical home trader, which may include spreads, costs etc.

What advantages does the home retail trader have?
 
the fact that he doesn't have to trade all the time, there isn't someone looking over his shoulder all the time, he can trade whatever he wants, there are more ineffiencies available for the small trader...i don't think the pros advantage is so clear cut.

an important point could be that if you get yourself into the situation where you are a "pro" you would need to have certain attributes that got you there, they don't guarantee success but they make it more likely. another thing is that is already mentioned is if its work there is a kind of discipline in approach and justification of trades that makes success more likely. altho it could be pure ignorance rather than a failure of discipline causing most people to fail. i think the same thing applies to pros and amateurs alike tho, most people probablly shouldn't bother. most people who attempt to become "pros" in one aspect or another are just the same as amateurs in that after a few years they got fired, equivalent to amateur going bust.
 
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As a former "pro", I can assure you that those people are susceptible to the very same mistakes that everyone else makes (cut winners too soon, run losses too far, overtrading, etc.).

Most traders at banks are market-makers, they make their money from clients crossing their spread. It's as simple as that.

Spot traders also make money by jamming stop loss orders, and front running limit orders. Again, nothing too scientific.

Does this answer the question?
 
As a former "pro", I can assure you that those people are susceptible to the very same mistakes that everyone else makes (cut winners too soon, run losses too far, overtrading, etc.).

Most traders at banks are market-makers, they make their money from clients crossing their spread. It's as simple as that.

Spot traders also make money by jamming stop loss orders, and front running limit orders. Again, nothing too scientific.

Does this answer the question?

They make money through dishonest means .They are not real traders but sales office clerks pinching profits .
 
The manager of a trading floor in Barclays capital works on Elliot wave and lagging and failing technical analysis, most of which has zero edge.
 
this is just horsesh1t-can one of the mods please have a word with this muppet. just more and more drivel every day

I met these dumb ass s5hits , they all claim to be traders .I enquired and they admitted being in the sales office or client services.Traders my ass.
 
oildaytrader is the reason I lost interest in t2w, the fact he is allowed to keep spewing unamusing bullsh1t degrades the site.
 
I met these dumb ass s5hits , they all claim to be traders .I enquired and they admitted being in the sales office or client services.Traders my ass.

This comment is the usual sh1t that ODT spews.

So, let's think about what he is saying. He met some people who worked for a bank who claimed they were traders. He then asked them in more detail what they did, and it turned out they were salespeople.

Therefore oildaytrader's conclusion is what? There are no traders at banks because the two people he met were in sales? Is that it? And by extension, all "traders" are just thieves?

Oildaytrader, you are a f*cking moron of the lowest calibre.
 
This comment is the usual sh1t that ODT spews.

So, let's think about what he is saying. He met some people who worked for a bank who claimed they were traders. He then asked them in more detail what they did, and it turned out they were salespeople.

Therefore oildaytrader's conclusion is what? There are no traders at banks because the two people he met were in sales? Is that it? And by extension, all "traders" are just thieves?

Oildaytrader, you are a f*cking moron of the lowest calibre.


The last time I was called such things was by a dumb ass thief in in suit, he was a city trader mugging old widow's pensions , charities and orphans .
 
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