What's stopping you from being a BSD ?

the hare

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We've all read the blurb...

"For more than 10 years, Trade2Win's mission has been to support and unite traders across the globe. We provide an environment that enables our members to converse with one another, share their knowledge and express their views. Furthermore, we seek to provide educational and thought provoking content to help better educate our members in their trading careers."

Well there's no denying they provide an environment that enables members to communicate, share knowledge and express their views. They even tolerate an old reprobate such as the hare (despite the occasional ban and a handful of multinics)

As for the education and thought provoking comment... Well it has to be said that a lot of this has been delegated to the vendor community. Lets just say much of the content needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.

As we know, t2w are striving to become "a shining beacon" I'm not sure what that means but I assume they want things to improve... So...

I thought that if we could identify common problem areas experienced by traders, and this might help t2w management focus on the type of material that they possibly need to provide in order to attract new punters, and give the old hands a bit of a pointer as to where they might be able to contribute.

So having said all that, what are / where the biggest problems you faced as a trader, and what could t2w have possibly done to help :)

Ill get the ball rolling: lets start with the problems bit

1. Unrealistic expectations
2. Ignorance stupidity and delusional behavior
3. Psychological baggage
4. Spectrum of duplicity amongst industry stakeholders ranging from lack of transparency to blatant fraud
5. A lack of appreciation of the role of random chance
6. Not so well hidden agendas amongst industry stakeholders
7. Procrastination
8. Lack of personal responsibility
9. Inexperience
10. Information overload

Well there's 10 in no particular order of importance, although on reflection 95% of those problems where caused by reading trading forums such as t2w ! It's also apparent that the problems described above could be categorized under one or two more generalized headings.

I'll leave the "what could t2w have done" bit for a later post I think

So what problems are / where stopping you from being a big swinging dick (or whatever the female equivalent is)

Lets give the t2w boys some feedback and hopefully help improve t2w, and if you don't want to do it to improve t2w, do it for the lulz.
 
1. Unrealistic expectations
2. Ignorance stupidity and delusional behavior
3. Psychological baggage
4. Spectrum of duplicity amongst industry stakeholders ranging from lack of transparency to blatant fraud
5. A lack of appreciation of the role of random chance
6. Not so well hidden agendas amongst industry stakeholders
7. Procrastination
8. Lack of personal responsibility
9. Inexperience
10. Information overload

Well there's 10 in no particular order of importance, although on reflection 95% of those problems where caused by reading trading forums such as t2w !

I think the last line I've quoted is a bit silly. You cannot realistically mean caused here. Procrastination is widespread in society and by people who have never read a trading forum in their life. Inexperience is a lack of experience doing a particular activity, in this case trading and a lack can't be placed there by reading something. Stupid and delusional behaviour again widespread and from people with nothing to do with trading forums. How many people voted in Obama thinking he'd be the 'saviour'. How many people in the UK believe all of these exaggerated Daily Mail hate stories?etc etc.

In terms of an appreciation of random chance, well you'd need to have an idea of probability. A large % of people believe that if you toss a coin and get 100 heads, the next one is more likely to be tails. And even if you do speak to people who understand how wrong that is, then another large % still won't get conditional probability or Monty Hall problem and so on. Even if you do understand, there is still some inherent behavioural psychology biases with probability (maximising wins rather than expectation for example). Don't we all have some of these?

People might read a newspaper and start worrying about crime and being shot, when they're probably more likely to die of a heart attack or in a car accident, and yet that won't stop them eating a big mac or messing around with their phone while driving, or for some idiots, even drinking and driving.

Lack of understanding of probability is already there. Almost all of the list is already there in some form before you read T2Win. The majority aren't caused by Trade2Win. Perhaps trade2win doesn't do enough to get rid of them (or perhaps reinforces some), but then that's a difficult task even individually (never mind communally), when as I've said above, you have so many of these that are already built into people.

It's hard intellectually. It's hard emotionally. It's hard to make a reasonable living unless you have very good capitalisation to start with (or what's left after the learning period). It's hard to be consistent, not in results but in your performance every day. It's hard that important factors relating to your results change over time/seasonally/time of day etc. It's hard to overcome costs for a day trader. The competition is of course very tough too, and it's hard overcoming the hard wired behavioural biases. With all of these difficulties, T2Win pales in comparison to the reason why there's very few BSDs here.
 
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I won't say anything just yet other than you might add:

11. Lack (and understanding) of an edge.

Will be interested to see what the responses are, though. :)
 
Almost all of the list is already there in some form before you read T2Win. The majority aren't caused by Trade2Win. Perhaps trade2win doesn't do enough to get rid of them (or perhaps reinforces some), but then that's a difficult task even individually (never mind communally), when as I've said above, you have so many of these that are already built into people..

Very fair point. I think I probably singled out the trading forum thing principally because of their potential influence on expectations. Although in no particular order, if I had to rank these issues it would come first.
 
11. Lack (and understanding) of an edge.

Thats also very good point well made.

I do have certain expectations from certain people, it will be interesting to see how this develops. It's not a trick by the way, just a genuine attempt to provide the zoo with some feedback
 
I hate to think what the female equivalent is but to be fair what stops most from becoming a BSD is not T2W - it's themselves and a whole host of reasons connected to themselves and may or may not include 1,3,7,8,9 and 10 that you list below.

I understand the central tenet of your argument that somehow trading boards can do more harm than good on this journey and everyone will have theor own experience of whether this is true or false...but it ain't compulsary to look at them, and nor is it compulsary for the providers of such to weed out all content that they may not deem as appropriate to this aim - if indeed any given reader of the boards has this to become a BSD aim. The truth is - few actually do and even fewer actually become it.

G/L

We've all read the blurb...

"For more than 10 years, Trade2Win's mission has....
 
I understand the central tenet of your argument that somehow trading boards can do more harm than good on this journey and everyone will have theor own experience of whether this is true or false...

G/L

I wasn't really trying to argue that boards where detrimental (although they are, and some are worse than others :whistling)

I also take the point that not everyone wishes to be a BSD (or female equivalent)

I appreciate this stuff is very much a personal journey, and as one of my multinics used to constantly argue with Mr Socco, there's more than one way of skinning a cat. However I was genuinely interested to see if there's a common theme that might be usefully addressed (other than the same tired old bollox discussed by vendors and their shills)
 
The only thing stopping me is the fact I'm still waiting for Guy to send me my secret decoded nazi box.

Awesome post by Shakeone(y)
 
I am intrigued about what the female equivalent of a BSD is...........
 
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So what problems are / where stopping you from being a big swinging dick (or whatever the female equivalent is).

I still find it very difficult to risk losing money that I’ve earned through hard work, which includes trading profits because of the time I have invested in learning this 'game' and studying the markets in spare time. I am a private investor/trader risking my own money, trading my own account in my spare time. I don’t profess to be anything more than that.
 
I think the last line I've quoted is a bit silly. You cannot realistically mean caused here. Procrastination is widespread in society and by people who have never read a trading forum in their life. Inexperience is a lack of experience doing a particular activity, in this case trading and a lack can't be placed there by reading something. Stupid and delusional behaviour again widespread and from people with nothing to do with trading forums. How many people voted in Obama thinking he'd be the 'saviour'. How many people in the UK believe all of these exaggerated Daily Mail hate stories?etc etc.

In terms of an appreciation of random chance, well you'd need to have an idea of probability. A large % of people believe that if you toss a coin and get 100 heads, the next one is more likely to be tails. And even if you do speak to people who understand how wrong that is, then another large % still won't get conditional probability or Monty Hall problem and so on. Even if you do understand, there is still some inherent behavioural psychology biases with probability (maximising wins rather than expectation for example). Don't we all have some of these?

People might read a newspaper and start worrying about crime and being shot, when they're probably more likely to die of a heart attack or in a car accident, and yet that won't stop them eating a big mac or messing around with their phone while driving, or for some idiots, even drinking and driving.

Lack of understanding of probability is already there. Almost all of the list is already there in some form before you read T2Win. The majority aren't caused by Trade2Win. Perhaps trade2win doesn't do enough to get rid of them (or perhaps reinforces some), but then that's a difficult task even individually (never mind communally), when as I've said above, you have so many of these that are already built into people.

It's hard intellectually. It's hard emotionally. It's hard to make a reasonable living unless you have very good capitalisation to start with (or what's left after the learning period). It's hard to be consistent, not in results but in your performance every day. It's hard that important factors relating to your results change over time/seasonally/time of day etc. It's hard to overcome costs for a day trader. The competition is of course very tough too, and it's hard overcoming the hard wired behavioural biases. With all of these difficulties, T2Win pales in comparison to the reason why there's very few BSDs here.

Very nice post.

Can I be even more simplistic and just say that humans also struggle to understand, visually, basic geometry. I'm yet to show anyone an example of a smooth MA crossover who, looking at the trades taken, think it isn't overall profitable and are always surprised to find that the ranging periods are actually often more harmful than the trending periods are profitable. The same logic applies to visual confirmation of breakouts, support and resistance, key areas etc. The brain somehow blots out what they don't want to see. Institutions don't trade anything they can't test empirically (any instrument that has been around for years anyway - ignore certain ETFs and exotic indices traded by a certain Whale for this example). Yet retail traders do on the basis that it 'looks right' and all they need to do is sort out their psychology. This, for me, is the most startling difference and a tragic mistake. Method trumps psychology every time. Laziness and ignorance of technology can barely be tolerated in this industry these days - you must be able to thoroughly test your ideas. Go to almost any IB's careers page and see if they are looking for entry level traders. No, they want developer associates and the odd VP P&L controller. Nearly all senior traders will be ex Python dorks in another induction cycle and frankly they deserve it. Market forces at work....
 
We've all read the blurb...

"For more than 10 years, Trade2Win's mission has been to support and unite traders across the globe. We provide an environment that enables our members to converse with one another, share their knowledge and express their views. Furthermore, we seek to provide educational and thought provoking content to help better educate our members in their trading careers."

Well there's no denying they provide an environment that enables members to communicate, share knowledge and express their views. They even tolerate an old reprobate such as the hare (despite the occasional ban and a handful of multinics)

As for the education and thought provoking comment... Well it has to be said that a lot of this has been delegated to the vendor community. Lets just say much of the content needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.

As we know, t2w are striving to become "a shining beacon" I'm not sure what that means but I assume they want things to improve... So...

I thought that if we could identify common problem areas experienced by traders, and this might help t2w management focus on the type of material that they possibly need to provide in order to attract new punters, and give the old hands a bit of a pointer as to where they might be able to contribute.

So having said all that, what are / where the biggest problems you faced as a trader, and what could t2w have possibly done to help :)

Ill get the ball rolling: lets start with the problems bit

1. Unrealistic expectations
2. Ignorance stupidity and delusional behavior
3. Psychological baggage
4. Spectrum of duplicity amongst industry stakeholders ranging from lack of transparency to blatant fraud
5. A lack of appreciation of the role of random chance
6. Not so well hidden agendas amongst industry stakeholders
7. Procrastination
8. Lack of personal responsibility
9. Inexperience
10. Information overload

Well there's 10 in no particular order of importance, although on reflection 95% of those problems where caused by reading trading forums such as t2w ! It's also apparent that the problems described above could be categorized under one or two more generalized headings.

I'll leave the "what could t2w have done" bit for a later post I think

So what problems are / where stopping you from being a big swinging dick (or whatever the female equivalent is)

Lets give the t2w boys some feedback and hopefully help improve t2w, and if you don't want to do it to improve t2w, do it for the lulz.

I can sense the way this is going.....the first ever instance of a hare becoming a poacher becoming a gamekeeper :LOL::LOL::LOL:
 
I can sense the way this is going.....the first ever instance of a hare becoming a poacher becoming a gamekeeper :LOL::LOL::LOL:

I reckon a promise of shares could be the reason. The hare finally realised there's no great future in coin tossing.
 
There should be live trading rooms with professional traders , showing new traders live trading experience .Too much amateur bs to read through.
 
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