I hope you do get more replies. Replies with all their statistics with absolutely nothing behind it. Hope you fill your empty head with all the empty stats and information you get from them. There have been many answers, but nothing to back it up. Let’s see some live accounts to back up their “knowledge” of what all these supposed groups of traders can expect to make.
I am absolutely positive you should make your trading decisions based on their answers. I just know you’ll make it! I’m sure they can recommend a good EA for you too.
Dude, go back and look at your posts. Has a single one been constructive? the answer is no. So why are you still posting?? What’s the reason? just leave the thread because you’re not helping me or anyone else…
I remember I was very happy when I discovered this forum because it was way more civil than elite trader! I hope it stays that civil.
In my one year’s worth of reading and research, I’ve noticed that traders get into squabbles over what is possible with performance. If someone is on here who can pull 20% a week off of a $1000 account (or at least get there half the time without catastrophic drawdown), that’s going to sound odd for someone who is proud of a 20% rate of return each year.
Long term traders insist that day traders can’t make money in the long run, day traders scoff right back and say that 1 trade a week is for wimps. Obviously, there is someone in each camp making money.
Probably the most frustrating thing about trading is that we have no reliable statistics, other than the obvious statistic that says 80-90% of traders fail (a statistic that is similar for certain other business, such as real estate). The only source of reliable statistics on rates of return for retail traders is the IRS, which knows the rates of return for all profitable traders that abidingly file their tax returns. Unfortunately, we have no way to get this information.
Outside of that, its everyone’s word. I saw an article in the Wall Street journal where one forex trader grew his account from $50K to over $1M in just a few months, as a newbie. Is it luck, is it craft? Time will tell. People can get just as lucky and unlucky with any business venture.
Everyone always hammers away that 90% of all traders fail. I think that’s important in the beginning, to wash away the myth that this is easy money. That SAID, I assume we’re all interested in being in the profitable 10%, and if we really mean it we’ll get there.
Thanks for the post man, I realize that my questions are vague and that I could get a lot of BS answers. However, it can’t hurt to make a post like this and get real input from someone like you. So sorry for trashing the thread a bit but the guy who is posting is not being constructive at all and that angers me…what’s his reason for posting sarcastic comments in this thread? To get a kick out of it, i don’t know but it’s not useful. Anyways thanks for the good post, I’m aware trading is difficult and I hope my original thread didn’t indicate I want people to assure me I can get phenomenal returns in FOREX, was just looking for opinions.
As a side note, I’d like to say that I hope trading forex is difficult, because I feel this would be a barrier to success by more uninformed traders. If something’s easy, it inevitably attracts others to it and returns become more and more marginal. So if there’s been any indication that I hope forex is easy, sorry because I’d prefer it to be tough like it is with stocks.
I’ll give a comparison to illustrate what I’m saying:
I also play a lot of online poker in a special tournament form where you have only two choices: go all in or fold. Five years ago, this form of poker was incredibly profitable because most players didn’t understand how to do it. Now, it’s an extremely marginal game (moreso than trading believe it or not) because more players know how to play the game. This serves to illustrate the point that if something is easy to learn (like the poker im talking about) returns become smaller as other players are more knowledgeable.
So thanks for the ballpark estimate that 90 percent of traders are losers, this is actually good to know considering I’m very dedicated to trading and consistently getting better at it. Good post!
I recommend paying attention to what mastergunner wrote, he knows what he’s doing. So does ken Lee I think, but his advise here was perhaps not the best he’s contributed.
Between 5-10% per month is quite doable while still observing very strict risk management, and through the power of compounding, who needs more?
I see a lot of anger on this thread. A word of advise to the new members busy fighting: stop it, it benefits nobody. Especially not yourselves.
I think that anything worth money is difficult. Imagine how many people say they want to be not only business owners but doctors, investment bankers, attorneys, and then when they realize just how much work is involved they basically say “You know what, this wasn’t what I thought it was, I realize I don’t want to deal with this - its not worth the return”.
That’s why in med school they have those tough classes who’s job it is to flunk everyone out who’s not dedicated. That’s why investment banking analysts work 80-100 hours a week. They want to see who’s willing to stick around and do the tough work.
In the end, if you want security and a pension - get a government job. You can sit back and rely on a defined benefit pension which the state or the federal gov’t has the taxing power to pay for. Some people do just that - they are your teachers, police officers, firemen, etc. They make some pretty good money too, teachers in my area make on average $100K a year. The pay scale is very clear, X amount of years and Y amount of education = Z salary. You have a union contract and that’s that.
Anyone who wants to make big money has to either work hard, steal hard, or be lucky. Stealing is usually not a great deal in the end, you’re nervous about getting caught and often enough you do - plus its still quite a lot of work! Relying on luck (lotto and inheritances) is foolish. Working hard is the only way you’re sure of getting there.
Well, I definitely agree with what you’re saying, that to be good you have to put a lot of effort into it. Intelligence will only take you so far (or not far at all if you’re lazy). The thing is, I think it’s the individual goals that separate those people you described who were just doing it for the money. For example, you mentioned the investment banker who works 80-100 hours a week. Well, to most people this isn’t worth it because they’re focused on getting easy money like you said.
However, I think the single most important thing with trading is that you have to enjoy doing it. I’m in college but have been trading, reading books on the markets, etc. for a while now…but I don’t do this so I can get a lot of money and buy a nice car or something. I actually enjoy the learning process, maybe even more than the rewards for being good. So yeah, just kind of trying to embellish on your point that it’s not easy, but like I said that’s a good thing: it’ll weed out the less dedicated and reward those who really want to get good at trading, not the ones looking for free money.
The thing is that the 90% who fail are still in there playing with you. They are actually important because they provide liquidity. I think that if 50% of traders were successful it’d still be possible to play on the same terms. In the end, with a zero sum game, one person wins, the other loses. Its that simple.
However, not everyone plays the game the same way, so its not true that the winner is hitting or lifting the bid/ask of the loser with each trade. That assumes that everyone is always trading the same timeframe, and same exact strategy. Trading strategies are so diverse, that you could have a profitable trade, have closed out and sold your position to someone who is holding for a much longer period of time and simply doesn’t care about intraday movement. Or, you could be in a situation where you are on the winning side, the trader on the losing side has lost their trade, but their next one is profitable because they have a different system than you do. Both of you, technically speaking, can be net profitable and be buying/selling to each other when one is losing and the other is winning.
That’s why I don’t get into this whole pep talk that “Every time you lose your trade, the guy on the other side won”. Baloney. That’s actually a very unhealthy psychological trick, sort of like getting ticked off at the first baseman who tagged you out. It simply has no logical basis.
You could both have lost, both have won, or either or. You have no idea if the guy on the other side is a bank trader, a corporate hedger, or anyone else for that matter. If 90% of the losers were always buying/selling the 10% winners, you’d have a huge imbalance of supply and demand all the time.
Talk is cheap, why don’ t we group together like a poker game and see who is the best.:). I challenge all of you to beat me. London session only. 12am to 3am daily.
Lol, unfortunately I never got good at standard texas hold em, did sng turbos instead if you know what those are. You’re joking i think but I’d still play you for kicks at standard hold em!
I am serious. I use 3 cards. For ex : Buy or Sell : 10/10/10 or 10/10/K …then Its safe to buy or sell only. 2/10/5 = stand aside position or small hand = no trade. Its work very well for me and my partner. Each card stands for time frame (1h/3h/daily).
The card game helps us to focus and keep psy in check since FX is similar to card counting. If I give strong hand by1am, and from that point, the market moves from 70 to 100pips = I win. Doesn’t matter what price you enter; simple as that. I should.nt share too much details, but you should know the general direction (buy- sell - stand aside) is the key to survive in the market.:p:p
Ya i use my poker strategy in the markets too. I have 10,000 in my account and if I think there’s a good trade, I go all-in with my bankroll. Otherwise I fold…real traders are willing to risk more to gain more, and I’m a real trader. It’s all in or nothing for me in trading, just like when i gamble, too. Oh btw I use 1000:1 leverage so if I go all in with my trading roll I can make a ton more!!! It’s like trading penny stocks, you can’t lose!!!
To prove it. Anybody who accepts the challenge will be sent an email trade condition ( buy - sell - stand aside) 1 to 2 weeks. Its 90% accurate. If less than that I lose. ;)and then it will be your turn.
The difference is Julien and I are just messing around, probably shouldnt be doing that in the thread but it’s different from “relax”, who just posted some (bad) sarcasm to somehow respond to the original post. So I get an infraction for off topic, but he gets an infraction for purposely attacking a serious post :).
