100k to 200m in 10 years

[barjon]

DT is right. It is a probabilistic inevitability that some (very few) will make a killing out of trading. A very small percentage of those success stories are based on pure trading skill, but most others just luck.

Consider this: most traders start off their trading careers with a good initial run. Then, as they continue, they give it all back and more. It takes real trading skill to be consistently profitable.

The really skillful day traders are those who haven't had a single losing day for over several years. Not because they have a magical system, but because they are truly gifted traders.

Even some of the big success stories have a slice of luck in them.

You can't knock Darvas's method of How I made $2m on the Stock Exchange fame, for example, but he did have the good fortune to light on Charles Kent (inventors of filter tip cigarettes) and Polaroid (inventors of instant photographs) just as they shot off to the stratosphere. Most of his $2m came from them - but he did have the balls to ride the rocket.

jon

 

[amit1986]

why is it so many guys on this forum assume to be succesful you have to be a day-trader? in my opinion by far the greatest percentage of losers are day-traders. Sticking to the longer time frames is far easier, you'll have down days, but you'll be a winner over the long run...

I never said anything of the sort. I simply said that out of all the day traders in the world, some of the most successful ones are those that have not had a losing day in many years.

Of course it's possible to be successful trading off longer time frames, however, in my experience, I find that watching intraday momentum and not worrying about overall macroeconomic trends makes trading a lot more simpler.

When you introduce daily, weekly, or monthly charts, your analysis then has to include your opinion of a host of macroeconomic variables as they affect every market. But when you are trading off a one-minute chart, those variables are not important. So by focusing on intraday momentum trading, you've effectively eliminated the need to forecast macroeconomic trends and have reduced your risk several fold by eliminating overnight risk. On the other end of the coin, you've also eliminated your upside as most day traders won't be able to turn "100k to 200m in 10 years".

Thus, I find it easier to trade off lower time frames than higher ones.

 

[amit1986]

Even some of the big success stories have a slice of luck in them.

jon

Yes, perhaps. But if we quantify it, then would you agree that for any given successful day trader who's been at it for several years, it's about 2% luck and 98% skill?

 

[BSD]

I think most is between the ears, eg the Market Wizards didn't really talk much about methods - I mean when the exclusive 2 options are buy high, sell higher or buy low, sell high there isn't too much point is there - but what they did talk about was stuff like discipline, emotional control, patience, and mental attitude towards losing, with the clear message that success in markets is internal, not external. (New Market Wizards, page 410)

If people can't keep their weight down they can't really be expected to have the fortitude to cut losers and max winners to the hilt.

That's the main difference between the success stories and the rest, not only understanding what needs to be done which isn't rocket science in weight control any more than in trading, but actually doing it.

I also believe in luck, but maybe differently than others I also believe we can align the forces of the Universe behind us if we so wish.

Thoughts are things, and I suppose one could call the materialisation of your vision luck.

 

[Black Swan]

"it's skill that makes you profitable but luck that determines how much"I can't remember where I heard it but my observations are that this is indeed true.

DT

 

[barjon]

Yes, perhaps. But if we quantify it, then would you agree that for any given successful day trader who's been at it for several years, it's about 2% luck and 98% skill?

Yes, unfortunately the proportions are reversed whenever I dabble in it

jon

 

[Black Swan]

I never said anything of the sort. I simply said that out of all the day traders in the world, some of the most successful ones are those that have not had a losing day in many years.

Hi Amit, tbh I'd be surprised if successful (retail) day traders didn't lose 2 days out of five and accept that with a shrug of the shoulders as part of the gig..As for institutional day traders (scalpers?) I've no idea and wouldn't profess to know but if pushed I'd suggest they have losing days and weeks..

 

[Scotty2Cues]

Hi Amit, tbh I'd be surprised if successful (retail) day traders didn't lose 2 days out of five and accept that with a shrug of the shoulders as part of the gig..As for institutional day traders (scalpers?) I've no idea and wouldn't profess to know but if pushed I'd suggest they have losing days and weeks..

If you are a full time FX trader, and not making 100 quid a day (from a 10K account = 20% per month) give it up now, buy yerself a Mondeo and go cabbing, or buy a white van, put some ads in your local shop and hum along with the morons on TalkSport from 9-5..

isnt that a bit of a contradiction

 

[Black Swan]

isnt that a bit of a contradiction

Nope..

 

[Scotty2Cues]

Nope..

maybe not a contradiction then but are you saying those successful retail traders who have losing days should do something else or if you only make 5-15% per month then you should do something else

i give up, I dont know....

 

[BSD]

Lol !

Feeling bloated? British men weigh a stone heavier than they did in 1986
Men are eating more and exercising less, creating 'a ticking time bomb' for their health, says the British Heart Foundation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/dec/27/bloated-men-stone-heavier-1986

Same in Germany.

No discipline or self control.

If it doesn't work there, why should trading be different.

 

[DionysusToast]

Even some of the big success stories have a slice of luck in them.

You can't knock Darvas's method of How I made $2m on the Stock Exchange fame, for example, but he did have the good fortune to light on Charles Kent (inventors of filter tip cigarettes) and Polaroid (inventors of instant photographs) just as they shot off to the stratosphere. Most of his $2m came from them - but he did have the balls to ride the rocket.

jon

Darvas was investigated over his claims to have made $2 million and sadly, the outcome is unclear as the Attorny General pulled the plug on the case as it wasn't in the public interest.

It seems that Darvas omitted a lot of his losing trades in his $2 million claim and he didn't make any money by investing the proceeds from his book sales.

It would appear then that it is fairly likely the Darvas stuff is just a lot of nonsense.

 

[Black Swan]

Lol !

Feeling bloated? British men weigh a stone heavier than they did in 1986
Men are eating more and exercising less, creating 'a ticking time bomb' for their health, says the British Heart Foundation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/dec/27/bloated-men-stone-heavier-1986

Same in Germany.

No discipline or self control.

If it doesn't work there, why should trading be different.

Middleweights were always the boxers most blokes identifed with, (11-11 1/2 stone) as it was the average weight of a normal bloke..now the average bloke's weight is 12.5 -13 stone and it's happened in the blink of an eye. Women, the average dress size was 10 in the 1990's, now it's 14..it's fookin grim mate..Lack of self discipline/self respect, poor parental examples, 5hite processed food/diet, bad education..?

Tell ya what I'm staggered at how much folk drink too, imho there's a huge under current of unidenitfied alcoholism in the UK. Seems nothing for a bird to have a bottle of wine in the evening most evenings, or a bloke 6 cans, there's an extra 2000 calories right there irrespective of the levels of addiction it suggests. Yet so many folk think they've got their drinking "under control"...

 

[BSD]

I swear the minute this toast guy opens his big mouth nothing but negative and misleading drivel appears.

For months, How I Made $2,000,000 in the Stock Market by Dancer Nick Darvas has been high on bestseller lists (120,000 copies sold). Last week the New York attorney general threw the book at Darvas. His story, charged the state, is "unqualifiedly false." It could find "ascertainable" profits of only $216,000. Darvas and Publisher Bernard Mazel, head of American Research Council, an investment-advisory service, were ordered to come in and prove that the dancer had indeed made a market killing. The action was the first to be taken under a broadened state law that bans fraud or misrepresentation in giving investment advice.

State investigators granted that they had not been able to track down all of the dancer's brokerage accounts—and he had them in Manhattan, Panama and Switzerland—so he could have made all of the money he said he did. In one account alone, he reportedly made the amount the state listed as his total "ascertainable" profit. In Paris, Darvas called the charges false, a "cynically irresponsible action, book burning by publicity." As soon as he gets a copy of the complaint, he said, he will explain all.


Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,873372,00.html#ixzz19JY2WYbO

What on earth is so hard to understand about a perfectly good, simple and robust method with great risk / reward ratios making him great money.

Besides it really isn't about how much he made, it's about the method and r/r that are perfectly viable.

Unbelievable how deluded and in deep denial one can be.

 

[DionysusToast]

BSD - there's a word you might not have come across.

The word is "Patsy".

I would venture that to this point, you are still unaware who the patsy is.

 

[BSD]

The lights go low at Manhattan's garish Latin Quarter nightclub. Onto the stage glides a slim-hipped, broad-shouldered man in white tie and tails. He grasps his partner, a stunning redhead in black tights, whirls her over his head on one arm, hurls her dramatically in a split-legged fall to the floor. The dance team is Nicholas Darvas and his half-sister, Julia, one of the top acts in the U.S. What the tired businessmen watching the show do not realize is that Hungarian-born Nicholas Darvas, 39, is a better moneyman than most of them; he is a top'stock-market speculator who has parlayed his considerable weekly income ($3,500 currently) into a fortune of more than $2,000,000.

Monevman Darvas' methods would raise the eyebrows of most Wall Streeters. Instead of studying what Wall Street calls the fundamentals—price-earning ratios and dividends—he judges public enthusiasm, a method that works best in volatile markets. "In my dancing I know how to judge an audience," he says. "It is instinctive. The same way with the stock market. You have to find out what the public wants and go along with it. You can't fight the tape, or the public."

Mental Charts. Darvas' system is tailored to his job. Since he has to do trading from wherever he is dancing (he recently completed an Asian tour) he ignores tips, financial stories and brokers' letters, has never been in a broker's office. Basically, his approach is that of a chartist: he watches price and volume. But the only charts he keeps are in his head. He studies the weekly stock tables in Barren's, receives a nightly wire from his broker giving the high, low and closing of stocks he is following, as well as the Dow-Jones averages. When a stock makes a good advance on strong volume, he begins watching it, buys when he feels that informed buyers are getting in. For example, when he was playing in Calcutta, he noticed E. L. Bruce moving up in the stock tables. Suddenly, on 35,000 shares it moved from 16 to 50. He bought in at 51, though he knew nothing about the company, and "I didn't care what they made." (They make hardwood flooring.) He sold out at 171 six weeks later.

Darvas places his buy orders for levels that he considers breakout points on the upside. At the same time, he places a stop-loss sell order just below his buy order, so that if the stock does not move straight up after he buys, he will be sold out and his loss cut. "I have no ego in the stock market," he says. "If I make a mistake I admit it immediately and get out fast." Darvas thinks his system is the height of conservatism. Says he: "If you could play roulette with the assurance that whenever you bet $100 you could get out for $98 if you lost your bet, wouldn't you call that good odds?" If he has a big profit in a stock, he puts the stop-loss order just below the level at which a sliding stock should meet support. He bought Universal Controls at 18, sold it at 83 on the way down after it had hit 102. "I never bought a stock at the low or sold one at the high in my life," says Darvas. "I am satisfied to be along for most of the ride."


Continued: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,865930,00.html#ixzz19JZl9k4p
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,865930,00.html

 

[counter_violent]

Middleweights were always the boxers most blokes identifed with, (11-11 1/2 stone) as it was the average weight of a normal bloke..now the average bloke's weight is 12.5 -13 stone and it's happened in the blink of an eye. Women, the average dress size was 10 in the 1990's, now it's 14..it's fookin grim mate..Lack of self discipline/self respect, poor parental examples, 5hite processed food/diet, bad education..?

Tell ya what I'm staggered at how much folk drink too, imho there's a huge under current of unidenitfied alcoholism in the UK. Seems nothing for a bird to have a bottle of wine in the evening most evenings, or a bloke 6 cans, there's an extra 2000 calories right there irrespective of the levels of addiction it suggests. Yet so many folk think they've got their drinking "under control"...

We can blame the supermarkets for the drink problem...far too cheep and whats worse, the social fabric of the community is being undermined when public houses are going out of business every day. The role of the pub was to promote responsible drinking across all ages...now it's just a bloody free for all. Cheep booze at home...I mean wtf is that all about !

 

[BSD]

Middleweights were always the boxers most blokes identifed with, (11-11 1/2 stone) as it was the average weight of a normal bloke..now the average bloke's weight is 12.5 -13 stone and it's happened in the blink of an eye. Women, the average dress size was 10 in the 1990's, now it's 14..it's fookin grim mate..Lack of self discipline/self respect, poor parental examples, 5hite processed food/diet, bad education..?

S'truth !

 

[BSD]

The role of the pub was to promote responsible drinking across all ages...now it's just a bloody free for all.

Wonder why pubs are dying actually, isn't it much more fun to go out drinking with others, girls, etc etc ???

 

[Hilarymannah]

We can blame the supermarkets for the drink problem...far too cheep and whats worse, the social fabric of the community is being undermined when public houses are going out of business every day. The role of the pub was to promote responsible drinking across all ages...now it's just a bloody free for all. Cheep booze at home...I mean wtf is that all about !

LOL,...you'll definately have to do some research bud',... "blaming supermarkets for the drinking problem",....fkin' clueless,.and I won't bother repeating the rest,... come on don't be lazy,.. look a bit deeper!!