Who trades for a living? It is possible?

[petetrades]

Who trades for a living? I'm tired of stories of trading success pushed by people selling the trading dream to others. This thread is the place for those trade for their livelihood, to keep a roof over their head, food on the table and money in savings for family planning to be known and share their stories.

The scarcity of trading-for-a-living anecdotes as well as the dearth of statistical data suggests no one trades for a living. However the trading dream as it is sold by so many implies the existence of these outliers, therefore if they exist they should self-report here. Please share your trading-for-a-living success stories.

 

[piphoe]

Possible, but highly unlikely.

Do both. Have a great career with something other than trading, unless of course you are in the biz but your questions suggests otherwise and spend rest of your time on this hobby. And less stress.

Hobbies can be very profitable, but when they are not you're not screwed.

 

[piphoe]

Let me clarify: When I say hobby I mean a significant hobby one that is taken very seriously. A second "career" if you will, but one that is placed significant time & effort.

 

[petetrades]

The sad truth is even those who approach trading as a secondary or tertiary source of income still secretly struggle to find those ever-elusive consistent profits and often turn to selling misinformation and appropriated ideas to new traders for consistent income. I hope we can get some anecdotes going here to provide even a weak case for the truth of the trading dream for sale.

 

[seekingTruth16]

Who trades for a living? I'm tired of stories of trading success pushed by people selling the trading dream to others. This thread is the place for those trade for their livelihood, to keep a roof over their head, food on the table and money in savings for family planning to be known and share their stories.

The scarcity of trading-for-a-living anecdotes as well as the dearth of statistical data suggests no one trades for a living. However the trading dream as it is sold by so many implies the existence of these outliers, therefore if they exist they should self-report here. Please share your trading-for-a-living success stories.

I'm sure you accept that there are people who trade for a living, whether it be for a bank, prop firm or a hedge fund. So what you're asking then is: are there any successful retail traders who aren't part of any of these. This is likely to be a small population though isn't it? After all, if you can trade successfully, why not leverage that skill and trade other people's money as well, and receive a salary on top?

 

[tomorton]

Who trades for a living? I'm tired of stories of trading success pushed by people selling the trading dream to others. This thread is the place for those trade for their livelihood, to keep a roof over their head, food on the table and money in savings for family planning to be known and share their stories.

The scarcity of trading-for-a-living anecdotes as well as the dearth of statistical data suggests no one trades for a living. However the trading dream as it is sold by so many implies the existence of these outliers, therefore if they exist they should self-report here. Please share your trading-for-a-living success stories.

I'm sure there's a very small percentage of people with accounts who earn enough profit to live on without any other means of financial support. I have in the past known a couple only.

But for those who are earning that much, would they be spending their time hanging around here? I mean, I would of course, but wouldn't most of them have better things to do?

 

[petetrades]

I'm sure you accept that there are people who trade for a living, whether it be for a bank, prop firm or a hedge fund. So what you're asking then is: are there any successful retail traders who aren't part of any of these. This is likely to be a small population though isn't it? After all, if you can trade successfully, why not leverage that skill and trade other people's money as well, and receive a salary on top?

Is it really a skill? There's a whole industry devoted to suggest that trading is a skill, however this industry has a vested interest in selling this myth to people.

There are so many examples of "skilled career traders" who start hedge funds or increase leverage or trade under different random market conditions and blow it all. From what I've read there are more consistent poker traders than retail traders, although this isn't what the dream sellers want you to believe, because they want your money.

 

[piphoe]

Skill:

a. Proficiency, facility, or dexterity that is acquired or developed through training or experience: painted with great skill.
b. A developed talent or ability: improved his writing skills.
c. An art, trade, or technique, particularly one requiring use of the hands or body: the skill of glassmaking.


I would add: d. the art of guessmaking. it's not perfect, but it's not all bs either.

 

[piphoe]

The question is why would you want to try_

You are writing serious code...scary code...shark tank serious code_

i mean i'll give yoy 250 million for 1/2% because i an the qvc king!!!

i and i alone can make it work for you..call me alan (i know lauri!)

The question is why trade_

 

[piphoe]

no one can beat the math's..

no one except...me lol

 

[seekingTruth16]

Is it really a skill? There's a whole industry devoted to suggest that trading is a skill, however this industry has a vested interest in selling this myth to people.

There are so many examples of "skilled career traders" who start hedge funds or increase leverage or trade under different random market conditions and blow it all. From what I've read there are more consistent poker traders than retail traders, although this isn't what the dream sellers want you to believe, because they want your money.

Yes it's a skill. I agree with you about dream sellers but that is about people preying on naive/greedy retail traders. Did you ever seethat show The Hustle. Some of the main tenets:

The Rules of the Con:
Find somebody who wants something for nothing, then give him nothing for something
You can’t cheat an honest man
Feed the greed

There will always be con-men, but you don't have to be a victim.

So those people aside, you surely accept that people are making money. Some are just by chance and their luck will run out, others have results that are so far from the statistical chance, that they must indicate skill. Others have big pockets. I mean if you had an account of 10million, are you really saying you couldn't trade that and make £20k and live of it?

If you really think about it, there is so much money flowing through the markets each and every day...it's not going to be just random is it (here I mean completely random with no order to it). Just as in poker there are people who can exploit weaker players, they know the 'rules' of the game. Not how it's played, but how it can be played to do better than break even. If experts an find ways to win in Poker, you think nobody can find ways to win in a game with so much higher stakes than poker?

 

[petetrades]

Yes it's a skill. I agree with you about dream sellers but that is about people preying on naive/greedy retail traders. Did you ever seethat show The Hustle. Some of the main tenets:

The Rules of the Con:
Find somebody who wants something for nothing, then give him nothing for something
You can’t cheat an honest man
Feed the greed

There will always be con-men, but you don't have to be a victim.

So those people aside, you surely accept that people are making money. Some are just by chance and their luck will run out, others have results that are so far from the statistical chance, that they must indicate skill. Others have big pockets. I mean if you had an account of 10million, are you really saying you couldn't trade that and make £20k and live of it?

If you really think about it, there is so much money flowing through the markets each and every day...it's not going to be just random is it (here I mean completely random with no order to it). Just as in poker there are people who can exploit weaker players, they know the 'rules' of the game. Not how it's played, but how it can be played to do better than break even. If experts an find ways to win in Poker, you think nobody can find ways to win in a game with so much higher stakes than poker?

You wouldn't be trading for a living with a starting balance of 10 million, not even 1 million. The daytrading fraud dream is at its most egregious when suggesting you can get a 500% YOY return by micromanaging your account with tons of daytrades. The truth is the few profitable day traders are lucky to outperform the indexes in a year, although their brokerages and the institutions love having these myths of large and risk-free % returns from day trading being spread by vendors.

For the sake of transparency and community welfare the EU and other evolved governments need to gather the data from brokerages to see % of profitable clients and what sort of % returns are made and take legal action now to curb the influence of ALL of these vendors.

 

[tomorton]

For the sake of transparency and community welfare the EU and other evolved governments need to gather the data from brokerages to see % of profitable clients and what sort of % returns are made ..........

I actually think this would be a valuable public service which the regulators could perform, so at least everybody has a realistic picture of how likely they are, or not, to make a pot of money if they believe what the vendors of training accounts, services, markets etc. say.

At least then they could make an informed decision. It could also tend to naturally drive out the less scrupulous businesses without the need for legal intervention. We could benefit from an industry set-up which incentivises the market to force the unscrupulous businesses to lose money and give up. At the moment, the regulators just keep their heads down and their hands clean, and say you can lose money as well as gain it, so be careful. Some use that is.

 

[BlackandBlue]

That would be interesting information but I think that we all know that almost all traders lose money. It might stop new traders entering the market but it won't help me make any more money!

 

[Signalcalc]

What interest do governments have in making stats available from brokerages? All that would achieve would be to put people off trading which would reduce the revenue the govt earns, they don't do it with betting firms after all, there is a reason why.

 

[petetrades]

What interest do governments have in making stats available from brokerages? All that would achieve would be to put people off trading which would reduce the revenue the govt earns, they don't do it with betting firms after all, there is a reason why.

Modern government ideally exists to protect the interests of the many and limit the influence of the few, government's ideal purpose is not to serve its own interests, beyond the interests of the many. The online trading-vendor culture is generally an ethically depraved lot, in need of government-backed reforms, if not total outlawing.

 

[piphoe]

Let me ask you guys do you think there is no edge for retail or professionals other than insiders/frontrunners because the market is efficient?

If so, why are you wasting your time trading?

 

[petetrades]

Let me ask you guys do you think there is no edge for retail or professionals other than insiders/frontrunners because the market is efficient?

If so, why are you wasting your time trading?

This is not relevant to the discussion because the subject of this thread, trading for a living, would require a very sharp edge. If 1 percent of traders are profitable and if 90 percent of that 1 percent traders only make enough to pay for a daily trip to McDonalds, while waiting for their retirement dole then that would explain why traders often supplement their income by selling misleading and dangerous trading vendor material, even though they can be said to have an edge. Their behaviour in unethical and uncivilised and they are in need of serious government intervention as soon as possible.

 

[piphoe]

You agree the market is efficient save for the...1%? That are not insiders/frontrunners but...what?
Smarter than the rest to have discovered a "sharp" edge...and can exploit this inefficiency whatever that is?
one thing we do know, it's small, terribly small, tiny edge

 

[progix]

I guess we can rely on forex trading earning but it takes a lot of time so its better to keep trading in part time and continue doing primary job in start.