Can I ask how many of you actually make a living trading?
This question has been asked so many times!
You should know that you are unlikely to be able to tell what is true and what is false from any one of us unless you have personal experience of trading, yourself.
In the job that you are leaving you knew what was BS and what was not, didn't you? This is the same-
For me, my targets are to be able to help my kids with something that they want to do, or holidays. Making a living out of it? That means regular income or, at least, making money in big enough dollops to keep me going for a while. If I had to worry about living from it the worry would put me off trading.
You should know that you are unlikely to be able to tell what is true and what is false from any one of us unless you have personal experience of trading, yourself.
In the job that you are leaving you knew what was BS and what was not, didn't you? This is the same-
For me, my targets are to be able to help my kids with something that they want to do, or holidays. Making a living out of it? That means regular income or, at least, making money in big enough dollops to keep me going for a while. If I had to worry about living from it the worry would put me off trading.
GammaJammer
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Well I do ok, but I suspect you meant as a retail trader right? Rather than working for a firm...
tar
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Mr. Charts
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I've been making a living from trading since giving up my dental practice to trade 10 years ago.
I always think if I can do it, anyone can.
It's not rocket science.
Richard
You are different.
Tightrope walking is not rocket science, either.
Making a living from this is very difficult. Getting income from from it, which is what I do, is easier, especially when other income, from pensions, etc is involved.
Richard, as a teacher, don't you get exasperated at times, because your readers don't get what you are trying to put across? I've read a lot of your posts. I've got a lot of good out of it, stuff that even a mug like me can understand. Not all of it, though, and it must seem straightforward to you!
Remember the old adage. If it was that easy, everyone would be doing it!
rathcoole_exile
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rathcoole_exile
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yes but Richard, you have me as a friend, guide and mentor ... :whistling :whistling
Waterfield
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Rocket science isn't too hard...especially if the lads from topgear can send a car flying.
Mr. Charts
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You are different.
Tightrope walking is not rocket science, either.
Making a living from this is very difficult. Getting income from from it, which is what I do, is easier, especially when other income, from pensions, etc is involved.
Richard, as a teacher, don't you get exasperated at times, because your readers don't get what you are trying to put across? I've read a lot of your posts. I've got a lot of good out of it, stuff that even a mug like me can understand. Not all of it, though, and it must seem straightforward to you!
Remember the old adage. If it was that easy, everyone would be doing it!
This post deserves a proper answer. In a few days, perhaps.
Richard
Mr. Charts
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TraderNumber7
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Making a Living? Or, becoming a Highly Successful Full-Time Professional Trader? There is a massive difference. Some merely want to supplement their existing income and that is considered success. Others want to build and manage several billion dollars of their own capital and that too is considered success. But, the two should not be confused with equal success or having requirements that are in any way exactingly similar. Ultra High Performance Trading comes at a price and that price is paid out in blood, sweat, tears and time - not to mention money. But, if all you want to do is pay a light bill at the end of the month, then sure - this is not rocket science.
Your question is a good one, as it denotes where your head is at, relative to the business. You obviously are thinking about Trading as more than just a hobby and that's why you ask the question - you surmise that if enough people answer in the affirmative, that you too, can cut your own path to independence.
The psychology of your question (if it is genuine) suggests that you are also a long-range thinker, and long-range thinking people, need stability in their lives. That's the hard part about answering your question after having read between the lines. Making money as a Trader can be done by a Monkey in a Lab. Anyone can take a mouse, click on a graphical icon and exact a trade that nets a profit. That is not Trading and that won't yield long-term stability as a Trader. It can take a while to get up to speed here, so the stability that you seek, might not be there for years (on average - some do it faster) - and that is the cold hard truth about getting up to speed in this business. Now, here is how I think about Trading and the Business of Trading.
Any human being, absent some physical and/or mental limitation, can physically fly a fixed wing aircraft. The actual physical act of flying is not difficult at all. Just put your hands on the yoke or stick and boom, just like that, you are "flying" the aircraft. However, that's not what being a Pilot is all about, and that is certainly not what being an Aviator, is all about.
The difference between being someone who can fly the aircraft and one who can Pilot the aircraft, is the difference between day and night, because being Pilot means developing the capacity to make correct decisions all the time and/or being able to correct poor decisions once they are detected - all the time - failure is not an option. The Pilot has to think his/her way through every single contingency and consider every reasonable option, to guarantee a successful flight and this process is begins long before the Pilot ever leaves the ground.
Likewise, the Trader has to develop the capacity to do more than merely toggle switches and press buttons on their Trading Platform. The Trader, must develop the capacity to think his/her way through every single Trade Profile, no different than a Pilot has to have the capacity to think their way through a Flight Plan Profile. No difference at all, in fact. A Pilot has to deal with in-flight emergencies. The Trader has to deal with in-trade emergencies. The Pilot might sometimes have to apply corrective actions to stabilize the aircraft, where the Trader might have to apply corrective actions to stabilize the trade.
When you go study the Government's accidents reports on aviation, what you find is that most accidents were not caused by a singular event that the Pilot could not adjust to. Unfortunately, what you find all too often is a Pilot who compounded his/her error by either never properly adjusting for the first error, or by making improper adjustments to the first or previous error(s), thus compounding error upon error, which eventually put BOTH Pilot and Aircraft into an unrecoverable flight condition. Likewise, to many Traders do the same and end up turning their positions into unrecoverable trades.
So, you ask the question whether or not you can make a living as a Trader.
The answer is in whether or not you can learn to become a strategic thinker who has the capacity to engage in tactical decision making, all based on historical and empirical evidence (data) that you are willing to research and validate on your own. If you can learn to set aside most of your emotional urges and make strategic minded decisions based on logic and reason, with clarity of thought, then I would say that the answer to your question is a resounding "Yes You Can."
Just remember, the survivors in this business are those who develop some kind of systematic process for approaching the markets. Not many people out here, fly by the seat of their pants and last for very long. Whether you become a Technical Trader or a Fundamental Trader or a Hybrid Trader (a little of both), you will never be fully able to optimize your trading and thus your revenue potential, unless and until you develop a systematized approach to what you do in the markets.
This is a great place to make a living, but it is also a very serious minded place for those of us that do make a living working the markets and your MIND should be no less serious about what you are stepping into here. There is a lot more I can say about Newbie Start-Ups in this business, but I think I've given you some righteous things to think about that should ground you long enough to find out whether or not you are serious about this venture.
This is a business. This is not a game and this is definitely NOT gambling. Take it seriously by educating yourself and taking responsibility for your own success and your own failures. There will be a serious ramp-up period, the learning curve is very steep here for those wishing to become Professional Full-Time Traders. You can do it, but you first need to convince yourself that YOU CAN do it and that you SHOULD do it. You need to LOVE study, hard work, tons of research, analysis & testing. Above all else, you NEED to be or learn to become someone who is capable of Thinking Outside the Box of Conventional Wisdom. You need to develop good and reliable sources of information related to the news that will impact your market and your instrument.
Any good Pilot, knows his/her aircraft inside and out. They know the aircraft systems and can rip them off in their sleep. Good and effective Pilots know their procedures and can riddle them off at will. As a Professional Full-Time Trader, you need to know your markets and your instruments just as well. You need to know what drives the "Price" of your instrument. You need to know the boundaries of "Price" that your instrument likes to obey. You need to understand the historicity of your instrument and your market, to be able to detect the expected behavior of your instrument, but also to be able to detect when the instrument is behaving abnormally.
Operating a high-performance aircraft is NO different than Trading a high-performance market. Make no mistake about it - YOU are in command of your Trading, but NOT the market. No different than a Pilot is in command of his/her aircraft, but NOT the weather. You can do this, but you should start asking yourself whether or not you really WANT to do this and if so, how BAD do you really want it.
You need to love this stuff - in order to have the Right Stuff. All the best and I wish you nothing but outstanding success in whatever you do in life!
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trader_dante
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I like your post but I wanted to add my 2 cents.
I love trading. One of the other loves of my life is breakdancing.
Like trading though, there is something intangible that seperates those that can do the spectacular from those that can't. And as much as we like to say it's discipline and self-control and all the rest of it, I've come to realise that whilst those things can help, they are not the answer.
Check out this brief clip. This is the word record for a move called a 1990. (No it is not looped, I've seen him do it live right infront of me).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRsx4WQZkaQ&feature=related
No one I have ever seen can get close to this.
Some can get many, many turns but why can't they go the extra mile?
I've seen this guy teach people exactly how he does the move in painstaking detail.
A very good friend of mine has been training for many years now and still can't get more than a couple of turns.
Why can't my friend get this?
He has the discipline to train each and every day for many, many hours. This guy doesn't have a job. His life is to master these moves. This is how extremely seriously he takes it.
He has the perseverance to keep doing it. He will get one turn and fall down. Get up and do it again. And just keep doing it until his body cannot anymore.
He sleeps on it. He thinks hard about what he did, he reviews it in his head and he tries it again.
He talks to those who can get quite a few turns and who also have the technique but he just can't do it.
So what is it with Cico?
The build of the body and how that translates into physics?
Luck that only he is blessed with?
And what the f*ck has this got to do with trading?
Well, when I was in prop I came in with other grads and I saw tons come in too.
Why did almost no one make it?
- They used the exact same tools.
- They traded the exact same markets.
- They had the exact same training.
I used to ask my friend there why he could make money when no one else could. And he honestly couldn't tell me. He would just look at me and say "I don't know man - you can watch me trade if you like. Maybe I just get out quicker when I am wrong. I don't know. I think maybe because I watch the ladder carefully. I don't know. I think it might be because I am very cautious. I just don't know."
If only that were true. But for every one of him there was twenty others wathing the ladder for ten hours per day. Twenty others that got out quick when it went offside. And twenty others that left after a year in the hole.
So all those cliches...you need perserverance. You need discipline. You need good emotional control.
Sure you do. But they are not the answer. They are an aid. Just like you need good balance to ride a bike but having good balance doesn't mean you can ride a bike.
The really strange thing about a lot of this stuff is that nothing tangible seperates us as humans. I am the same height and weight as other bboys that can do the moves I can't. Perhaps you can see nothing that seperates you from the guy that makes millions who sits next to you.
After all, you only have to guess up or down and get out, right?
Ultimately, I think the biggest step for new and aspiring traders is understanding that there is a huge difference between what one wants to do and what one is good at doing.
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rathcoole_exile
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tbh TD that sounds like the biggest crock of **** i've ever heard
i can see your point but think it is completely wrong...
first point, almost 50% of performance in anything is psychological (not discipline or what you mention), your mind can make you believe in anything so it can be a serious problem. And its apparent in your answer, people get really confused when they see someone do something that in theory they should be able to do but can't do in practice, they attribute it to anything or just say its "talent". In some cases, that may be right...a dwarf isn't going to play in the NBA, a man with no legs isn't going start for Man Utd but in the vast majority of cases it just isn't relevant.
It is difficult to prove this though, personally, i have experienced a massive difference when i have separated myself from thinking that people were somehow different or had talent, in school and in sports. I have seen other people do it. It is also about how other people view you, I remember someone at my school who was quite good not great at rugby. He moved to a higher team and people treated him like a good player and he plays at a national level now...weird...
Back to trading, the massive problem comes when a lot of people are doing the same thing and it has no definite boundaries i.e technical analysis or watching the ladder...in some ways, these are both a complete waste of time because it is difficult to get any feedback and people get confused badly...people who win don't realize they are just lucky (its weird this "successful" trader couldn't say what he was doing differently) but more relevantly people who lose think it is something they are doing wrong and that other people are doing, they start thinking goldman sachs is stealing their money etc. If you can't define your edge and you say ur "skillful", YOU ARE LUCKY.
In actual fact, it isn't hard and successful traders have outlined repeatedly exactly what they do...but people just don't believe its that simple. Example: there is a published system that has made good and consistent yearly returns since the mid-90s but people don't use it why? Its boring, it doesn't trade very often, its based on fundamentals and they think I can't compete with smart analysts they have inside info and better info or they think its already priced in....
sorry if that missed the point somewhat but often the reason why something doesn't appear possible is because we have already decided it is and we can't do it...this is even more so in trading with the confusion around whether we are lucky or skilfull...long story short experts aren't nearly as expert as they seem, success is all about perspective and discipline is all you need to be successful in trading, if you can't define what your doing in trading though you will never be a success regardless of how much money you make.
i can see your point but think it is completely wrong...
first point, almost 50% of performance in anything is psychological (not discipline or what you mention), your mind can make you believe in anything so it can be a serious problem. And its apparent in your answer, people get really confused when they see someone do something that in theory they should be able to do but can't do in practice, they attribute it to anything or just say its "talent". In some cases, that may be right...a dwarf isn't going to play in the NBA, a man with no legs isn't going start for Man Utd but in the vast majority of cases it just isn't relevant.
It is difficult to prove this though, personally, i have experienced a massive difference when i have separated myself from thinking that people were somehow different or had talent, in school and in sports. I have seen other people do it. It is also about how other people view you, I remember someone at my school who was quite good not great at rugby. He moved to a higher team and people treated him like a good player and he plays at a national level now...weird...
Back to trading, the massive problem comes when a lot of people are doing the same thing and it has no definite boundaries i.e technical analysis or watching the ladder...in some ways, these are both a complete waste of time because it is difficult to get any feedback and people get confused badly...people who win don't realize they are just lucky (its weird this "successful" trader couldn't say what he was doing differently) but more relevantly people who lose think it is something they are doing wrong and that other people are doing, they start thinking goldman sachs is stealing their money etc. If you can't define your edge and you say ur "skillful", YOU ARE LUCKY.
In actual fact, it isn't hard and successful traders have outlined repeatedly exactly what they do...but people just don't believe its that simple. Example: there is a published system that has made good and consistent yearly returns since the mid-90s but people don't use it why? Its boring, it doesn't trade very often, its based on fundamentals and they think I can't compete with smart analysts they have inside info and better info or they think its already priced in....
sorry if that missed the point somewhat but often the reason why something doesn't appear possible is because we have already decided it is and we can't do it...this is even more so in trading with the confusion around whether we are lucky or skilfull...long story short experts aren't nearly as expert as they seem, success is all about perspective and discipline is all you need to be successful in trading, if you can't define what your doing in trading though you will never be a success regardless of how much money you make.
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oildaytrader
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Gambling with family money?Loosing your own money and now on a begging bowl?
N Rothschild
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never ceases to amaze me how miss informed you can be, over so many different subjects
Sang Froid
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