There's a good thread by a guy called neke on elitetrader that shows the reality of trying to make these sorts of profits long term. He did great for a year or two then had a massive drawdown this year before pulling most if it back. I think he's still down on the year though. Not many people would have stuck it out.
i check that every week, he had a 40+% drawdown and ended the year -22%, not surprising when you see he tried to turn '410k into 4 million'
Do you have a link to the thread? I had a quick look for it but not a member of the forum so can't search...
Scotty2Cues
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kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk
kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk
dont blow it all at once...
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Scotty2Cues
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why would someone even bother to try, is it along similar lines to seeing how many cream crackers you can eat in 1 hour
Scotty2Cues
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do you consistently make 20%+ per month?, if so I think that would make a great journal...
id like to see how someone cosistently makes £100 per day with a £10k account...
Or maybe not - I couldn't find them on the list?
Carlos is into telecoms. I don't think Bill is a trader. Warren is more of an investor.
So far as UK is concerned Lakshmi is into steel, Roman - oil and Duke - property.
So according to the list, some of the best traders at T2W haven't been consistently successful for more than 17 years (using 113.84% per year system). For UK it's less than 15 years of consistent profits.
PS Mind you 113.84% is only 6.53% per month. So some of the most successful members may appear on the list soon (with their 10% or more consistent monthly profits)
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I follow Neke for amusement, the guy has "Balls", anyone who can lose $116k (30% of account) on A SINGLE TRADE is ....well.......
He has being doing the journal for 4 years now, and although he says he has withdrawn cash over that time if you work out his compounded return it works out at about 37% per annum (91k to 320k), not bad.
I would say he is not really very disciplined, he varys his strategy constantly, averages down, his biggest weekly loser is nearly always double his biggest winner!, etc...
but someone who can throw away 30% of their 400k account on a single trade and not bat an eyelash, well that takes some emotional control...
Lodian1019
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Quite a decent thread, both the Neke one, and this one been an interesting read.
I guess the ones who have been around a bit longer than the rest of us have seen a dozen "new" guys/girls who are going to make there first million in a year.I personally aim high, i reckon I'll be a millionare by the time I am 28. (19 now)
Merry Christmas all
Lodian
I guess the ones who have been around a bit longer than the rest of us have seen a dozen "new" guys/girls who are going to make there first million in a year.I personally aim high, i reckon I'll be a millionare by the time I am 28. (19 now)
Merry Christmas all
Lodian
Hotch
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2300
I think everyone has probably thought they could trade their way to a million at some point after they started. Those that have been around a while realise the difficulty in even coming close to that never mind this 200 million nonsense. Walking on the moon, scoring the goal that wins the world cup, winning the Monaco GP, winning the euromillions, these are all things that can be done because we see people doing them. What are the chances any of us can? Virtually zero, just like the millionaire trader stuff.
... F*cking stupid.
He lost that much on one trade yet his max drawdown for the year has been 40-ish % ???
I can't accept this... not because I think I will be a millionaire this time next week but because it doesn't make sense. If someone is consistently profitable, doesn't withdraw from the account and compounds profits the account will grow exponentially until liquidity becomes an issue. This is fact, not fairytale. And you don't have to be making 20% a day for this to happen lol even just a 10k account making 1% per week compounded would be a pretty tidy sum after ten years.
The reason this doesn't happen often is because people withdraw funds to live or whatever. You're either a profitable trader or you're not... If you are then the sky is the limit and if you're not then the speed of your financial death will be decided by your risk management.
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No need to be patronising, I'm not stupid. Some questions for you...
Are you a profitable trader?
How long for?
Do you take profit out monthly, yearly or whatever?
What would happen if you added all the profit you had taken and compounded it?
There are some decent traders on here who make a nice little % return every month to live off... I wonder if some of them would like to turn up and throw some calculations in? Dinos, Wackypete, splitlink, Black Swan... Would any of you care to throw some figures in here.. ? There are more too.
I'm not dreaming, it's very simple calculations - If you are profitable enough to take money from your account on a regular basis then you a profitable enough to compound until liquidity is an issue. This is simply a fact, I'm not saying anyone can do it or that it's easy, I'm just saying that it's black & white you're profitable or you're not and if you are, provided you don't take money from the account then you can make serious cash.
Meh, Merry Christmas anyway
BSD
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I guess the reason most fail at becoming net profitable in the first place and then getting rich is because they lack emotional control.
I mean the mechanics of trading ain't rocket science, buy low, sell high, or buy high, sell higher, that's the only options you have.
Couple that with cutting your losers short and letting your winners run and you're set.
Yet most fail.
Why ?
It's like weight control, everyone knows what needs to be done, but most don't succeed at implementing because of lack of emotional control and discipline.
"An Analysis Of The Profiles And Motivations Of Habitual Commodity Speculators
The focus of this study is the habitual speculator in commodity futures markets. Responses to a 73 question survey were collected directly from retail commodity brokers with offices in Alabama. Each questionnaire recorded information on an individual commodity client who had traded for an extended period of time. The typical trader studied is a married, white male, age 52. He is affluent and well educated. He is a self-employed business owner who can recover from financial setbacks. He is a politically right wing conservative involved in the political process. He assumes a good deal of risk in most phases of his life. He is both an aggressive investor and an active gambler. This trader does not consider preservation of his commodity capital to be a very high trading priority. As a result, he rarely uses stop loss orders. He wins more frequently than he loses (over 51% of the time) but is an overall net loser in dollar terms. In spite of recurring trading losses, he has never made any substantial change in his basic trading style. To this trader, whether he won or lost on a particular trade is more important than the size of the win or loss. Thus he consistently cuts his profits short while letting his losses run. He also worries more about missing a move in the market by being on the sidelines than about losing by being on the wrong side of a market move; i.e., being in the action is more important than the financial consequences. Participating brokers confirmed that for the majority of the speculators studied, the primary motivation for continuous trading is the recreational utility derived largely from having a market position."
http://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/uiucao/14768.html
People know what they should do, yet do the opposite, let their losers run, cut their winners short.
Contrast that with Dan Zanger, the guy isn't any cleverer than the rest of us, but doesn't care about winning percentages, instead focuses on great risk / reward ratios, understands that compounding is the real key to big wealth, he has great discipline, and doesn't take money personally.
The info is all out there, one just needs to do it.
I mean the mechanics of trading ain't rocket science, buy low, sell high, or buy high, sell higher, that's the only options you have.
Couple that with cutting your losers short and letting your winners run and you're set.
Yet most fail.
Why ?
It's like weight control, everyone knows what needs to be done, but most don't succeed at implementing because of lack of emotional control and discipline.
"An Analysis Of The Profiles And Motivations Of Habitual Commodity Speculators
The focus of this study is the habitual speculator in commodity futures markets. Responses to a 73 question survey were collected directly from retail commodity brokers with offices in Alabama. Each questionnaire recorded information on an individual commodity client who had traded for an extended period of time. The typical trader studied is a married, white male, age 52. He is affluent and well educated. He is a self-employed business owner who can recover from financial setbacks. He is a politically right wing conservative involved in the political process. He assumes a good deal of risk in most phases of his life. He is both an aggressive investor and an active gambler. This trader does not consider preservation of his commodity capital to be a very high trading priority. As a result, he rarely uses stop loss orders. He wins more frequently than he loses (over 51% of the time) but is an overall net loser in dollar terms. In spite of recurring trading losses, he has never made any substantial change in his basic trading style. To this trader, whether he won or lost on a particular trade is more important than the size of the win or loss. Thus he consistently cuts his profits short while letting his losses run. He also worries more about missing a move in the market by being on the sidelines than about losing by being on the wrong side of a market move; i.e., being in the action is more important than the financial consequences. Participating brokers confirmed that for the majority of the speculators studied, the primary motivation for continuous trading is the recreational utility derived largely from having a market position."
http://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/uiucao/14768.html
People know what they should do, yet do the opposite, let their losers run, cut their winners short.
Contrast that with Dan Zanger, the guy isn't any cleverer than the rest of us, but doesn't care about winning percentages, instead focuses on great risk / reward ratios, understands that compounding is the real key to big wealth, he has great discipline, and doesn't take money personally.
The info is all out there, one just needs to do it.
BSD
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Another MAJOR reason most fail is they don't get the success relevant facts and overcomplicate instead of keeping it simple.
By contrast all good traders I know have kept it shockingly simple, have been great adherents of KISS, including Dan Zanger.
This is another hedge fund trader here stating what's really only obvious if you think about it:
D70
most "strategies" come from book reading, self served research, self served marked views and finally, others.
Dont be fooled into thinking that "experienced" traders have anything extra. A lot of them employ the simplest strategy you could imagine.
It's only logical.
Harvard did a rather well known complexity experiment where two groups of students had to come up with explanations to simple problems. The first group got the correct evaluation from the professors, ie if they had come up with a logical and rational explanation they received a "correct", if not they got a "wrong", while the second group got random evaluations, so that even if they were right they might have received a "wrong" and vice versa.
The first groups solutions were all admirably simple, while the second groups explanations became increasingly complex as they tried desperately to fit theory around inexplicable fact.
That's what you see on boards, those without success think trading is rocket science and waste their entire career in the market chasing a non existent holy grail
Contrast that with Dan Zanger and his simple chart patterns or people like Larry Hite who made the MAN group into the giant they are become filthy rich by trading trend following systems with all of 2 parameters lol.
A simple, robust system, and discipline in cutting losses and letting winners run as long as they do is all thats needed once one grasps that this is just a probability game in a market that is merely the sum of it's participants actions and not an elusive entity dancing to the tune of some great invisible conductor, that's all that's needed, and deep down everyone knows that, but after a few losses the majority will give up on their method and go right back to chasing some non-existent holy grail again.
Thats why most fail, they can't handle losing, which is part and parcel of trading, they can't let winners run, they simply need to be right more than they want to make money.
By contrast all good traders I know have kept it shockingly simple, have been great adherents of KISS, including Dan Zanger.
This is another hedge fund trader here stating what's really only obvious if you think about it:
D70
most "strategies" come from book reading, self served research, self served marked views and finally, others.
Dont be fooled into thinking that "experienced" traders have anything extra. A lot of them employ the simplest strategy you could imagine.
It's only logical.
Harvard did a rather well known complexity experiment where two groups of students had to come up with explanations to simple problems. The first group got the correct evaluation from the professors, ie if they had come up with a logical and rational explanation they received a "correct", if not they got a "wrong", while the second group got random evaluations, so that even if they were right they might have received a "wrong" and vice versa.
The first groups solutions were all admirably simple, while the second groups explanations became increasingly complex as they tried desperately to fit theory around inexplicable fact.
That's what you see on boards, those without success think trading is rocket science and waste their entire career in the market chasing a non existent holy grail
Contrast that with Dan Zanger and his simple chart patterns or people like Larry Hite who made the MAN group into the giant they are become filthy rich by trading trend following systems with all of 2 parameters lol.
A simple, robust system, and discipline in cutting losses and letting winners run as long as they do is all thats needed once one grasps that this is just a probability game in a market that is merely the sum of it's participants actions and not an elusive entity dancing to the tune of some great invisible conductor, that's all that's needed, and deep down everyone knows that, but after a few losses the majority will give up on their method and go right back to chasing some non-existent holy grail again.
Thats why most fail, they can't handle losing, which is part and parcel of trading, they can't let winners run, they simply need to be right more than they want to make money.
