Traders: Millions by the minute. BBC i Player
Discussion
Dunno what the ongoing argument is about. It's clear that there are important levels but you also need to have an understanding of fundamentals. Fundamentals give you a direction, technicals give you a price to enter. Otherwise you end up trading without a chart and just go on a number eg for simplicity's sake, you think it's going to go up but you don't realise it's at the year's high. Surely, it'd be nuts to buy?
That said, I mainly trade sports odds using ONLY TA/PA. It's not difficult to come up smelling of roses. I don't need to know that Rooney's on the bench or Spurs is having a run of bad luck, either. For 6 months, I thought Rooney had jumped to Man City.
Actually, is Rooney still playing?
That said, I mainly trade sports odds using ONLY TA/PA. It's not difficult to come up smelling of roses. I don't need to know that Rooney's on the bench or Spurs is having a run of bad luck, either. For 6 months, I thought Rooney had jumped to Man City.
Actually, is Rooney still playing?
Derek Chevalier said:
Condi said:
Not what it WILL do, but what it MIGHT do.
Does it give you better chance than a random guess of being correct?You do understand that I do this s
t for a living? My book is what I want to be judged on, not justifying myself on an forum. If you dont believe it, then dont, but there are plenty of people who use charts to scalp the market or enter positions. If it didnt work, then they wouldnt use it. You only need to be right 55% of the time to be a millionaire.
Speaking from professional experience, there are only two successful strategies when it comes to trading. They're pretty simple as long as you can keep yourself disciplined.
You either set out to make a lot of small profits and accepting some large losses along the way, or making a small number of large profits with a great number of small losses along the way. As long as your profits outweigh your losses, you're doing ok. A few % a month is sustainable. 10%+ a month certainly isn't.
I've been in the markets for about 15 years now and never known a private investor to successfully trade long term. I'm talking trading rather than investing. I've seen people give up jobs to do it full time after they've had a run of luck, thinking they can do this full time, but none have lasted. I'd say one of the most common mistakes they make is not accepting there are going to be losses along the way, and not managing them properly. What people have to realise is there's no safe way to make significant amounts of money when trading.
You either set out to make a lot of small profits and accepting some large losses along the way, or making a small number of large profits with a great number of small losses along the way. As long as your profits outweigh your losses, you're doing ok. A few % a month is sustainable. 10%+ a month certainly isn't.
I've been in the markets for about 15 years now and never known a private investor to successfully trade long term. I'm talking trading rather than investing. I've seen people give up jobs to do it full time after they've had a run of luck, thinking they can do this full time, but none have lasted. I'd say one of the most common mistakes they make is not accepting there are going to be losses along the way, and not managing them properly. What people have to realise is there's no safe way to make significant amounts of money when trading.
OtherBusiness said:
Here he is again.... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance...
He is clearly deluded.In 7 years he has made no money yet still persists with it all.
BlackLabel said:
He is clearly deluded.
In 7 years he has made no money yet still persists with it all.
Sadly, he is not alone. Many home 'traders' seem to live in a delusional state in my experience. It is quite surreal talking to otherwise rational people, who continue to fool themselves into thinking they know what they are doing. Trading success or otherwise is entirely quantifiable - it is a number, so there should be little room for delusion, but people have a remarkable ability to convince themselves of anything. It takes outside intervention, such as a bailiff turning up at the door to stop them.In 7 years he has made no money yet still persists with it all.
Edited by 335d on Monday 20th October 09:01
twinturboz said:
I'm confused, I can expect non traders to question if TA works or not but those of you who trade in this thread are you seriously telling me your trading day to day with no TA.
I can honestly say that I have not looked at TA in the last 7 years, but I trade bonds so I look at relative value at stat arb. I obviously am aware of the high low of a week, month, year, contract etc but I would never base a trading decision off it.As has been written above there are many ways to skin a cat but also like written above I have never known a single home trader to be consistently profitable. I have also never known anyone to trade currencies with success, yet I believe that is what most home traders gravitate to first!
Bonds may not be glamourous, but it's where the money and scaleability is, yet home traders would never even dream of looking at that.
Trading as a whole is a fantastic venture... one that I personally stumbled upon once upon a time as a early 20 something year old and catapulted me into Bentleys Lambos Rolls Royces and anything else gold plated.
DISCIPLINE is the key word here.
Imagine you are a lumberjack and given 50 acres of prime tree land (is that even correct grammar?) - you could easily cut tree's, make money, even take short cuts and take down even more trees cutting slightly less and starting a domino effect so that trees fall onto more trees knocking them down making you more and more money faster. The moral of the story is you CAN MAKE MONEY but the fool who rushes and makes too much too fast - what do they do with 50 acres of baron land with nothing on it? Who made so much money so fast - now has no source of income but was happily spending just as fast as it was coming in but now left with nothing!?
This is your average home stocktraders situation - many have had big wins, also losses but overall can they survive? The answer is no - could I survive? The answer is also no if I did nothing but stock trade. The KEY psychologically is to know when to stop, know when to pause, have a secondary, third and even fourth source of income and DO NOT RELY on speculative day trading as a main source of income although it could prove to be your biggest source of wealth!
Once you start - any profits which are juicy enough to plough into something else which can generate you a guaranteed (albeit much less) source of regular income - you must do it. Psychologically if you can prepare yourself that you do not need money to live/pay bills/mortgages etc due to elsewhere investments that provide you a regular income - this is the best position any day trader can be. You are now a primed hyena waiting for prey - and by prey I mean once the Dow jones touched 17,000 FOR THE FIRST TIME - it was a perfect short time SHORT, how many times does this opportunity come around? Or when the Dax broke the 9000 level FOR THE FIRST TIME - it was a great short time LONG. Or oil when it bounced off the huge 80$ psychological level - brilliant opportunity for a short time LONG. The moral of the story is that you are an opportunist and there is no pressure to make a capita per day/week/month because no one can guarantee a daily/weekly/monthly income from this business.
No body knows when and what the market will do, the ability to scalp, pinch and ride waves is what makes a day trader - the ability to then put that profit to work elsewhere such as property etc and continue to trade is what will make you a wealthy individual.
And for the record - stocktrading, spreadbetting, technical analysis you name it - I teach it providing 1 on 1 tuition as a side line and it is almost if not more exciting for me than the person I teach because its something I truly adore!
DISCIPLINE is the key word here.
Imagine you are a lumberjack and given 50 acres of prime tree land (is that even correct grammar?) - you could easily cut tree's, make money, even take short cuts and take down even more trees cutting slightly less and starting a domino effect so that trees fall onto more trees knocking them down making you more and more money faster. The moral of the story is you CAN MAKE MONEY but the fool who rushes and makes too much too fast - what do they do with 50 acres of baron land with nothing on it? Who made so much money so fast - now has no source of income but was happily spending just as fast as it was coming in but now left with nothing!?
This is your average home stocktraders situation - many have had big wins, also losses but overall can they survive? The answer is no - could I survive? The answer is also no if I did nothing but stock trade. The KEY psychologically is to know when to stop, know when to pause, have a secondary, third and even fourth source of income and DO NOT RELY on speculative day trading as a main source of income although it could prove to be your biggest source of wealth!
Once you start - any profits which are juicy enough to plough into something else which can generate you a guaranteed (albeit much less) source of regular income - you must do it. Psychologically if you can prepare yourself that you do not need money to live/pay bills/mortgages etc due to elsewhere investments that provide you a regular income - this is the best position any day trader can be. You are now a primed hyena waiting for prey - and by prey I mean once the Dow jones touched 17,000 FOR THE FIRST TIME - it was a perfect short time SHORT, how many times does this opportunity come around? Or when the Dax broke the 9000 level FOR THE FIRST TIME - it was a great short time LONG. Or oil when it bounced off the huge 80$ psychological level - brilliant opportunity for a short time LONG. The moral of the story is that you are an opportunist and there is no pressure to make a capita per day/week/month because no one can guarantee a daily/weekly/monthly income from this business.
No body knows when and what the market will do, the ability to scalp, pinch and ride waves is what makes a day trader - the ability to then put that profit to work elsewhere such as property etc and continue to trade is what will make you a wealthy individual.
And for the record - stocktrading, spreadbetting, technical analysis you name it - I teach it providing 1 on 1 tuition as a side line and it is almost if not more exciting for me than the person I teach because its something I truly adore!
Edited by Gulzar on Monday 20th October 13:53
Gulzar said:
Trading as a whole is a fantastic venture... one that I personally stumbled upon once upon a time as a early 20 something year old and catapulted me into Bentleys Lambos Rolls Royces and anything else gold plated.
Gulzar said:
And for the record - stocktrading, spreadbetting, technical analysis you name it - I teach it providing 1 on 1 tuition as a side line and it is almost if not more exciting for me than the person I teach because its something I truly adore!
Guzlar,Clearly on an internet forum, when someone appears and claims they have made great wealth from trading, and they are offering themselves as a tutor, alarm bells start ringing.
You certainly have an expensive collection of cars in your PH garage to back up your claim. However it is difficult to know whether these were acquired from trading profits, family wealth, or whether you even own them. Your father, Sheikh Abid Gulzar, claims to own at least one of the cars in your garage - the gold-plated(!) RR
"One place where things are stable is the Mansion Hotel on Eastbourne’s promenade, owned by Sheikh Abid Gulzar – a man who wears his wealth on his sleeve with three golden rings and a gold-trimmed black Land Rover" http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/we-...
I imagine he may own at least some of the others too.
You may be a fantastic trader, who makes millions with ease, and have valuable knowledge to teach others in exchange for payment, or you may be the son of a wealthy man who lives on the wealth of your father, or anything in between. We simply can't tell.
I am surprised you would want to sell one to one tuition if you are hugely successful. In my experience successful traders can earn far more from trading. I apologise if this comes across as unduly cynical.
335d said:
BlackLabel said:
He is clearly deluded.
In 7 years he has made no money yet still persists with it all.
Sadly, he is not alone. Many home 'traders' seem to live in a delusional state in my experience. It is quite surreal talking to otherwise rational people, who continue to fool themselves into thinking they know what they are doing. Trading success or otherwise is entirely quantifiable - it is a number, so there should be little room for delusion, but people have a remarkable ability to convince themselves of anything. It takes outside intervention, such as a bailiff turning up at the door to stop them.In 7 years he has made no money yet still persists with it all.
Edited by 335d on Monday 20th October 09:01
The book 'Market wizards' is full of guys (arguably talented) who lost millions, made themselves bankrupt. Some would call them an addict / not good. But they had a belief and kept going with it. Then made it back + more and manage huge funds. Call them exceptions to the rule if you like. However, those were people who put it all on the line and lost. Instead of just giving up and saying 'i'll take the 9-5 instead' they kept going with it. They could have kept going with it and losing - and you would call them deluded for having that belief. It really just depends when you take the snapshot of a trader.
Now I am not saying that guy on the TV show is going to make millions. All I am saying is some of these so called deluded people can be success stories if they keep going with it.
Edited by g4ry13 on Monday 20th October 21:57
g4ry13 said:
Ok...I am going to stick my neck out. I know you're one of the pros and i'm just a lowly person who moves a bit of money around on some medium - high risk stocks. But the difference between success and failure in trading is a very fine line - almost non existent and can just come down to pain tolerance. The name evades me, but there was a well known investor who was selling the US index and mortgage market all the way up as it rose. Their loss getting bigger and bigger as they shorted into a bull market. They could have cut their losses and lost millions as a result. But they held and held and it came good and they made millions (maybe even billions) out of it and became legendary. Others obviously tried the same thing, but cut their losses and didn't make the money.
The book 'Market wizards' is full of guys (arguably talented) who lost millions, made themselves bankrupt. Some would call them an addict / not good. But they had a belief and kept going with it. Then made it back + more and manage huge funds. Call them exceptions to the rule if you like. However, those were people who put it all on the line and lost. Instead of just giving up and saying 'i'll take the 9-5 instead' they kept going with it. They could have kept going with it and losing - and you would call them deluded for having that belief. It really just depends when you take the snapshot of a trader.
Now I am not saying that guy on the TV show is going to make millions. All I am saying is some of these so called deluded people can be success stories if they keep going with it.
Yes but his biggest win is £250 after 7 years????, come on to a normal person that has to tell you something. The other guys your talking about probably made a fair amount before losing it which probably came down to poor discipline, a lesson that you only really learn after taking that first big loss. But at least they knew they had the ability to trade. The book 'Market wizards' is full of guys (arguably talented) who lost millions, made themselves bankrupt. Some would call them an addict / not good. But they had a belief and kept going with it. Then made it back + more and manage huge funds. Call them exceptions to the rule if you like. However, those were people who put it all on the line and lost. Instead of just giving up and saying 'i'll take the 9-5 instead' they kept going with it. They could have kept going with it and losing - and you would call them deluded for having that belief. It really just depends when you take the snapshot of a trader.
Now I am not saying that guy on the TV show is going to make millions. All I am saying is some of these so called deluded people can be success stories if they keep going with it.
Edited by g4ry13 on Monday 20th October 21:57
g4ry13 said:
Ok...I am going to stick my neck out. I know you're one of the pros and i'm just a lowly person who moves a bit of money around on some medium - high risk stocks. But the difference between success and failure in trading is a very fine line - almost none existent and can just come down to pain tolerance. The name evades me, but there was a well known investor who was selling the US index and mortgage market all the way up as it rose. Their loss getting bigger and bigger as they shorted into a bull market. They could have cut their losses and lost millions as a result. But they held and held and it came good and they made millions (maybe even billions) out of it and became legendary. Others obviously tried the same thing, but cut their losses and didn't make the money.
The book 'Market wizards' is full of guys (arguably talented) who lost millions, made themselves bankrupt. Some would call them an addict / not good. But they had a belief and kept going with it. Then made it back + more and manage huge funds. Call them exceptions to the rule if you like. However, those were people who put it all on the line and lost. Instead of just giving up and saying 'i'll take the 9-5 instead' they kept going with it. They could have kept going with it and losing - and you would call them deluded for having that belief. It really just depends when you take the snapshot of a trader.
Now I am not saying that guy on the TV show is going to make millions. All I am saying is some of these so called deluded people can be success stories if they keep going with it.
I don't consider myself to be a pro any more. I am not any higher or lower than anyone else. I should probably refer to myself as an investor rather than a trader these days, given the length of time I hold some positions, and my life is made considerably less stressful by diversifying into some very different sectors which are only weakly correlated with the stock market. I have direct investments in three wind farms for example (which provide an IRR of around 12%).The book 'Market wizards' is full of guys (arguably talented) who lost millions, made themselves bankrupt. Some would call them an addict / not good. But they had a belief and kept going with it. Then made it back + more and manage huge funds. Call them exceptions to the rule if you like. However, those were people who put it all on the line and lost. Instead of just giving up and saying 'i'll take the 9-5 instead' they kept going with it. They could have kept going with it and losing - and you would call them deluded for having that belief. It really just depends when you take the snapshot of a trader.
Now I am not saying that guy on the TV show is going to make millions. All I am saying is some of these so called deluded people can be success stories if they keep going with it.
I think your example of traders who have held a losing position which has eventually worked out, are very different from the vast majority of short term home traders, many of whom, like our friend Rene Muccio, routinely lock in their losses. I do believe that he is genuinely in need of help. If he was betting on horses rather than currencies, he would be considered a problem gambler. I winced when he suggested in the recent interview that he thought he would remortgage the house to be able to continue trading. Surely that should be a wake up call for a rational person?
Home trading requires an inner strength and rationality, which isn't required in quite the same way for a trader at a bank, who can rely on his boss to intervene, or fire him. A delusional home trader, without a strong partner, will probably only realise what's going on when it's too late and the bailiff is at the door.
It happened to a friend of my other half, who would have lost everything, and quite possibly been imprisoned (not in the UK), had we not lent him enough money to pay some important debts. I'm still not sure if I did him a favour, as that may have been his wake up call which we allowed him to ignore. Twelve years on and he's still not back on his feet, and his family scrape by on a tiny income from his overworked wife.
I'm certainly not saying that all home traders are delusional, but from the sample I have met and discussed trading with, I would say that perhaps the majority are.
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