In my mind, trading is not a battle. It is not a war to be fought and then won or lost against an adversary. Whether it be a human avatar or a silicon avatar.

I cannot, in my head, compartmentalize it that way. It is counter-productive for me to do so.

Mr. Suko, if that is the way you need to see it, then so be it. I do not follow that path.

Good hunting. :-)

Maybe I can explain the slight difference in the view I have acquired.

It seems to me that on one hand we can all profit together, theoretically, by buying the shares of a good stock. The company produces a great line of products, makes more and more money year after year and we all share in the happy returns. A rising tide lifts all boats.

Over the last 10 years I have traded mainly futures contracts (stock index and crude oil). There too, theoretically, if I produce crude oil and I am afraid that crude I need to sell in December will face lower prices, I can sell that contract today. And if you run an airline and are afraid that prices will rise you can buy that contract from me.

No one gets hurt. We locked in an acceptable price.

But lots of times one contract will be formed by two speculators. In that case it is a zero sum game. If I guess long and you guess short, next month, one of us is gonna lose. You hope it is me--LOL.

In my firm I have worked with large speculators and large commercials. Many many of these people are predatory. I know one person who will tell you, "When you trade against me, I want you to lose your house and give me your childrens' college tuition."

Wall Street may not be all cut throat, but if one expects it to be a ride on "It's a small world" that might be a bit too gentle. A great trader is as competitive as Peyton Manning meeting Tom Brady. They might not hate each other but they would hate to lose to anyone.

TB

In my years of doing this, the clear enemy is myself, all my bad habits and tendencies are magnified in trading, and a lot of the struggle is to overcome those.

I hate to be the old man who is bitter and angry at life -- LOL

I am not. I made tons of money on Wall Street and at 67 still enjoy trading although I like looking at palm trees outside my home (and occasional alligators that eat people) than shoveling snow in Brooklyn.

Also, I would love to tell stories -- out of school.

I worked in the industry. I have seen how fellow traders made millions. I could write a book.

My problem is that if I started naming specific examples of how some trade, and since most of my friends who come to visit come from the NYSE or the CME I wouldn't have many friends left.

My purpose in trying to "give back" a little is that although an individual can not maintain the advantage that the institutions and smart money have there are a number of things that they can do.

It is sad to see a person read a book, study the market for a month in a chat room and think they can destroy the Big Boys.

If all the people vending trading stuff on the internet were that good, we would not be faced with the same numbers we faced in 1980 --- 90% of futures traders still lose.

There are of course a few people I know who do OK trading just from home. There is this person in my neighborhood who has only a $10,000 account and part time he has been able to produce a 40% return on his trading money over the last 5 years. Pretty impressive.


Happy fourth all.

TB

Maybe I can explain the slight difference in the view I have acquired.



It seems to me that on one hand we can all profit together, theoretically, by buying the shares of a good stock. The company produces a great line of products, makes more and more money year after year and we all share in the happy returns. A rising tide lifts all boats.



Over the last 10 years I have traded mainly futures contracts (stock index and crude oil). There too, theoretically, if I produce crude oil and I am afraid that crude I need to sell in December will face lower prices, I can sell that contract today. And if you run an airline and are afraid that prices will rise you can buy that contract from me.



No one gets hurt. We locked in an acceptable price.



But lots of times one contract will be formed by two speculators. In that case it is a zero sum game. If I guess long and you guess short, next month, one of us is gonna lose. You hope it is me--LOL.



In my firm I have worked with large speculators and large commercials. Many many of these people are predatory. I know one person who will tell you, "When you trade against me, I want you to lose your house and give me your childrens' college tuition."



Wall Street may not be all cut throat, but if one expects it to be a ride on "It's a small world" that might be a bit too gentle. A great trader is as competitive as Peyton Manning meeting Tom Brady. They might not hate each other but they would hate to lose to anyone.



TB

I um, well...I just dunno. I don't feel it needs to feel like it is cut-throat. After all, you do not know who you are trading with. As long as you get your orders filled, who cares who fulfilled your trade agreement on the other end?

Hi TB - Happy 4th



Personally I don't believe that any sensible retail-sized trader thinks they can take on the 'Big Boys'.



I believe retail and institutional traders are two very distinct set of groups of people who happen to cross paths.



I believe particularly that skilled retail traders can perhaps take advantage of the market movements caused by institutional and hedge-fund traders and ride some of the moves as a result but that's pretty much it.



In a way I see the market a bit like that agar.io game, where generall the biggest fish can eat all the others. The parallel I see in trading is that I believe that, generally speaking, the person with the biggest account usually wins (they must be able to know what they are doing of course).



For instance, when there are some setups like 'traders getting trapped into an iceberg order', clearly that iceberg absorption won't be able to go on forever, but if the account generating the iceberg is the biggest one at that point in time, chances are they will make money as other people will give up sooner than they will.



So it is a game of size, wouldn't you say.