pk,
Absolutely understand your points about some people feeling uncomfortable with wealth and the resultant covert undermining of technique by an almost guilty subconscious, though I don't think this discomfort applies solely to trading. I also agree that a ten second commute downstairs is far more agreable than one from Leeds to Manchester in rush hour traffic (although working from home can create stress in other ways: sudden lack of daily social contact, work/play boundaries blurred, distractions e.g. "I really should manage this trade but those tiles are crying out for a grouting") and I would certainly choose the former by a yard of chalk.
Trading is certainly dissimilar to many jobs, although I would suggest it is by no means utterly unlike all. For instance, novelists, musical composers, professional chess players and perhaps top level programmers create "money (or often just bad art - aargh JK Rowling
) from nothing" as you put it (my brackets) and I am sure there are many other jobs in which people are paid essentially for the isolated
power of their thought .
The ability to think clearly in a sustained manner, to continually acquire fresh knowledge, to adapt to change, to maintain the discipline to consistently transform that thought into a useful result, by way of methodical, rational action and constant re-evaluation constitutes hard work in my book. Perhaps I am poorly wired for trading and find it more difficult than most. The lack of tangible results (as in "look, I just built this Eiffel Tower!") does fool some people into thinking trading does not constitute work: my grandfather is always asking me what I produce, why the world cannot see the results of my efforts. I tell him the definition of production I most like is the 'application of reason to the problem of survival': production at its most basic level, its essence if you like. From this premise there may indeed follow manual labour and a physical result, e.g a hunting spear, 400 well packed boxes of chocolates or a tastefully lanscaped rockery (this labour>>tangible result is perhaps the conventional, "old-school" definition of work) but it is not a prerequisite to allow the work to qualify as difficult, or indeed as work at all. Anyway I digress and think we touched upon this in another thread.
The abstract nature of the market, the lack of boundaries and definitions, the lack of "Well done, you've clearly finished that project" (a trader's work is never finished - it is a true lifetime challenge) all contribute to the difficulty. Yes, it is an unusual, unnatural and potentially deadly playground with which our brains must struggle daily.
Perhaps one could just buy a black box system from somebody else, ensure the methodology remains unknown and not understood, take absolutely no interest in the market and leave it to autotrade for very little effort at all, but I would not call that person a trader.
I can see I'm going to have trouble justifying that last statement, but I do believe it.
I'm enjoying the discussion too.
