North Carolina
Experience: Beginner
Platform: NinjaTrader, Tradestation
Trading: es
Posts: 644 since Nov 2011
|
There is obviously a competition. Also, let's imagine X people are watching some pattern. None want to risk or lose money. But, each see the pattern make money. Over and over again. Now, due to various random factors, there will be a sort of normal distribution as to when they can bet on this pattern. It will take time to raise money. There will be likely common behavioral biases that might influence them.
Long story short, the early traders who are able to take advantage will fall at the extreme of the distribution curve. They will get in early and profit. The average trader will get in about the same time and will see flat or losses.
There are other factors too. For example, take the concept of a bluff in a game of poker. Most pros will try to bluff they have the best hand in the same way when they do not have anything at all. The analogy to the market is that sometimes the market will see ready to blast off and then will tank or it will seem ready to tank and then it will blast off. This is only possible to see if you have developed sufficient skill to read the game of the expert players. The market tends to move from highest levels of uncertainty. I used to have the idea to set a random timer before I'd make a trade exit just to prevent closing out a good trade at the worst time-- of course, often it is the best time. Your net profits are not just the result of your correct predictions but your correct predictions minus your losing predictions.
Think about also the concept of parimutuel betting. If the market is likely to go up and everyone bets on it. In a parimutuel game, the return is zero. Now, imagine there is a small chance that the market will go down. The pay off can be higher it wasn't priced in.
Very good discretionary traders in my opinion tend to be "self internalizing". It means assigning attribution of control to your trading. This is useful for developing the ability to track where the market is likely to go. However, some amount of "externalizing" is going to be associated with resilience. The externalizing factor is why system traders can blow up so terribly but yet often still manage to survive. Because, they do not truly own their results. This provides stronger resilience but at the cost of adaptation.
You should identify the real cause of why you aren't making money. For many traders, it is a lack of capital. Imagine for a moment, you have a game where your edge is very strong but where your capital is low. Let's imagine for example, I have a trading system that wins way more then chance and requires a $500 bet in a futures contract. The edge is fixed. It doesn't matter if I trade 100k or $500 only. However, the expected outcome is much different. If I only have $500 for a single bet, my typical expected outcome is to go bust. There is a very slim chance though that I could turn that $500 into $25,000. On the other hand, with the 100k, my expectation might be to make a 50% return on average. The edge per trade is the same but the outcome is not.
As well, finally you must understand that volatility will often lead to outsized gains or losses followed by the opposite. Volatility is highly correlated with trading profits. As such, any outsize gain or loss is more likely to be followed by the opposite when it is the result of increased volatility.
|