The Pro's "je ne sais quoi"

[charliechan]

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 ?

simple. 'pro's' as you call them dont make simple punts on directional momentum in listed markets.

im sure if you sat 95 top tier investment bank/hedge fund traders down in front of a 10min usd/eur chart with rsi, macd and the other stuff most clowns use, trading through a bucket shop, they too would lose money.

equally, if you sat 95 trade2lose clowns down, gave them a huge list of customer orders to fill and told them they could keep the difference if they improved the price of an order (positive slippage if you like)then they may actually make some money. either that, or you need a damn good research department with industry contacts who will develop a strategy which is then passed to hedge fund trader to try and improve price (again)

understanding order flow is key for any professional. you need to know how to read it though and what tools to use to understand it. you will never understand that wasting your time reading 'lucky jims es journal' @trade2lose. (i only come here for laffs)

thats just looking at directional outright stuff. again, most 'pros' wouldnt even be allowed to take that risk on, instead favouring arb and hedging strategies that give a smoother and more certain equity curve. that sort of equity curve is of no interest to a typical clown because it doesnt have 'get rich quick' written all over it. (all that shines is not gold)


why not ask odt? he seems to know a lot (lol)

 

[charliechan]

I think being a salesman in an IB would be pretty cool, tbh. Just as much at the pointy end as the traders IMO.

f*ck that. trader, salesman, receptionist. it's all the rat race.

to me, trading is about freedom. living my life how and where i want to with out having to get up in the morning and pretend i give a sh*t about stuff that in the grand scheme of time doesnt matter sh*t.

ive only got one life and i dont want to spend it in an office or trying to impress a 25 yr old bimbo in a strip club for satisfaction.

 

[oildaytrader]

why not ask odt? he seems to know a lot (lol)

Yoo got the message ,O D T knows enough about these great fund managers .who are more clueless than noobs on forums about trading and investing.They get bonuses when pension funds lose money, the bonuses were for churning out commissions,lumbering investors with a worthless dot.com IPO where their counterparts at Goldies gave them a kickback like a rebate and lumbering a failed hedge fund to investors for another kickback from goldies.With these dastardly deeds , they call themselves traders at Goldies, the phuckheads know nothin.

And arab only hangs around here for those jigs , until he gets more jigs and he feels happy.His trading posts suck with 1 tick profits and 10 tick stops.

 

[Martinghoul]

Yoo got the message ,O D T knows enough about these great fund managers .who are more clueless than noobs on forums about trading and investing.They get bonuses when pension funds lose money, the bonuses were for churning out commissions,lumbering investors with a worthless dot.com IPO where their counterparts at Goldies gave them a kickback like a rebate and lumbering a failed hedge fund to investors for another kickback from goldies.With these dastardly deeds , they call themselves traders at Goldies, the phuckheads know nothin.

And you know all of this how exactly? You have read a lot of sh1te published by the press that gets paid to sensationalize and exaggerate. You've swallowed this bullsh1t hook, line and sinker, without a shred of critical thinking applied anywhere. Moreover, somehow you think your conclusions can be generalized to the entire industry. How do you figure that? Have you anointed yourself a leading expert on the fraud that is the asset management industry?

Like GJ, I take offense at this and I agree with him completely. You have decided to tar everyone, including me, with the same brush, for whatever reason and without the slightest justification. Let me apply your logic for demonstration. Some people posting on trading fora are total idiots. ODT often posts on T2W, therefore ODT is a total idiot. How 'bout them apples?

 

[DionysusToast]

Actually - mutual funds exist to extract commissions from their clients, to claim otherwise would be to claim they are charitable foundations. Then there's funds of funds - comissions + comissions.

If you have ever invested in a mutual fund, you will know that the company charges you $$$ regardless of their performance & their performance is abysmal.

Hedge funds are slightly different of course, they take a return on profits. If they have a very large losing year with a lot of profits to make up, they will wind down the fund.

The sole reason I got involved in trading was the amount of my money various funds had pissed up the wall over the years.

I agree with ODT on fund managers - they don't really care if their customers make any money, if you put up a diverse array of funds as an investment company, then of course some will make money some years & you will always have something with which to impress future clients.

 

[gooseman]

I agree with ODT on fund managers - they don't really care if their customers make any money,

pony

 

[GammaJammer]

Agree. Insulting AND plain wrong in many many cases.

 

[DionysusToast]

Agree. Insulting AND plain wrong in many many cases.

Cry me a fncking river...

Are they all pansies where you work ? FFS ...

 

[gooseman]

do you do whatever job you do badly just because you get paid?

 

[DionysusToast]

do you do whatever job you do badly just because you get paid?

Generally speaking, I will do whatever maximises my employers revenue stream whilst also ensuring my bonuses stay intact.

This is what you do in a job.

I don't know of many businesses on this planet that exist for the benefit of the customers to be honest. Of course, you could argue that customers need to be happy or they wont come back.

This is true in some cases but by no means in all. For instance, on the tourist drag anywhere in Central London you can have cafe's selling sh1te food with all your customers pissed off at the staffs attitude and poor service yet be full and profitable every day.

Meet the average commission only 'financial consultant' pushing Mutual Funds from Friends Provident and the like and you will be dealing with someone who has no clue about investing. The Mutual Fund companies know their products are pushed aggresively and they provide very large lump-sum commissions (with clawbacks if a customer walks away) as opposed to monthly commissions on term schemes precisely because they know salesmen p1ss the money up the wall and don't care to service their customers. This is the front end of the Mutual Fund industry - I know, I have plenty of friends in the business and they still get offended when called 'salesmen', none of them are driven by customer satisfaction, just by finding new 'customers' and there are PLENTY.

 

[gooseman]

Generally speaking, I will do whatever maximises my employers revenue stream whilst also ensuring my bonuses stay intact.

This is what you do in a job.

I don't know of many businesses on this planet that exist for the benefit of the customers to be honest. Of course, you could argue that customers need to be happy or they wont come back.

This is true in some cases but by no means in all. For instance, on the tourist drag anywhere in Central London you can have cafe's selling sh1te food with all your customers pissed off at the staffs attitude and poor service yet be full and profitable every day.

Meet the average commission only 'financial consultant' pushing Mutual Funds from Friends Provident and the like and you will be dealing with someone who has no clue about investing. The Mutual Fund companies know their products are pushed aggresively and they provide very large lump-sum commissions (with clawbacks if a customer walks away) as opposed to monthly commissions on term schemes precisely because they know salesmen p1ss the money up the wall and don't care to service their customers. This is the front end of the Mutual Fund industry - I know, I have plenty of friends in the business and they still get offended when called 'salesmen', none of them are driven by customer satisfaction, just by finding new 'customers' and there are PLENTY.

you're talking about sales-not trading.

 

[DionysusToast]

I'm talking about business.

The business of Mutual Fund companies is to extract commissions from punters. Their business is not to make a profit from trading.

Good job really, 'cause they'd be royally screwed if they had to be profitable from trading.

 

[MrGecko]

f*ck that. trader, salesman, receptionist. it's all the rat race.

to me, trading is about freedom. living my life how and where i want to with out having to get up in the morning and pretend i give a sh*t about stuff that in the grand scheme of time doesnt matter sh*t.

ive only got one life and i dont want to spend it in an office or trying to impress a 25 yr old bimbo in a strip club for satisfaction.

Well, each to their own mate. I think it would be a challenge and I'd be good at it.

Fact of the matter though is that most of the people here didn't make the right decisions to put themselves in a position to do these jobs, me included. And I think that shows up pretty clearly on this thread.

 

[GammaJammer]

Well, each to their own mate. I think it would be a challenge and I'd be good at it..

Which part G - the bimbo part? You'd be awesome.

Fact of the matter though is that most of the people here didn't make the right decisions to put themselves in a position to do these jobs, me included. And I think that shows up pretty clearly on this thread.

Oh I dunno. I freely admit there was an enormous slice of luck in how I came to be in my first job. I just think that my still being employed in a shrinking industry 17 years later means I'm not getting it wrong ALL the time...

 

[meanreversion]

Some good posts there GammaJammer, but can I ask.. do your employers mind you posting on sites like this during the day, I assume you're at work?

(Also, please don't bother writing detailed posts to ODT, it's a bit like a blunt pencil..)

 

[meanreversion]

Only gays can't ignore O D T.

Utter gibberish with random homophobia thrown in for good measure --- any moderators out there care to comment on why ODT is allowed to pollute this website?

 

[Martinghoul]

Oh I dunno. I freely admit there was an enormous slice of luck in how I came to be in my first job. I just think that my still being employed in a shrinking industry 17 years later means I'm not getting it wrong ALL the time...

100% in agreement with this, I am...

 

[robster970]

This is aimed at GJ and Martinghoul (and Arabian if he's around).

Is a good retailer as competent a trader as a good institutional and is it account/size/tools/facilities that differentiate?

Or is something else going on for the good institutionals?

 

[shortsell]

This is aimed at GJ and Martinghoul (and Arabian if he's around).

Is a good retailer as competent a trader as a good institutional and is it account/size/tools/facilities that differentiate?

Or is something else going on for the good institutionals?

is kobe bryant as good a player as ronaldo?

 

[robster970]

is kobe bryant as good a player as ronaldo?

I know it is a different game but as sportsmen both ronaldo and kobe bryant probably share similar qualities as professional sportsmen. What I was asking was about a degree of competence I suppose.

or are you saying that the games are so wildly different that you cannot draw a parallel or comparisson?