@DarkPool:

You really think you have this all figured out, don't you? You're missing a few important chapters of your "here's how it works" fairy tale.

It's really very simple. If you're a trader, you're running a service business. Yes, even as a speculator you are providing a service. That service is price discovery. If you don't understand that then you have no right to even open a trading platform (or even a trading forum unless you're here to ask questions and learn). How do you think any market would work if there was no one willing to take the other side of a contract (or if you had to wait days, weeks or months for that contract to be filled)? Same way any business would work with little or no customers... business would grind to a halt and there would be no economy. I'll stop there because others have already addressed this point in more detail and I choose to help you understand something else.



Any consistently profitable trader is NOT a gambler. That trader is a business person. Sure, many gamblers come to the market... but most don't stay long... and not just because there aren't any free drinks or .99 cent shrimp cocktail. If you insist on equating what we profitable traders do as "gambling" then maybe this analogy will work better for you; we are not gamblers, we are THE HOUSE. Like a casino, we operate with an edge; and like a casino we exploit that edge (not any particular market participant) over time. And over time the law of large numbers says we will come out winners. As a "new trader" if you don't develop an edge and learn to think this way you will not last. (Thanks for the money by the way ).

Finally, the money I choose to risk IS NOT the market's money, it's MY money. It's working capital that I control. I can hit "buy" or "sell" on my keyboard and have my orders filled almost instantly to open OR close any order because of other traders who are willing to provide that price discovery/liquidity service.

Not trying to come across as an @sshole, just trying to help you understand that you're not doing any deep thinking here... you're just fantasizing and trying to make a story up about what's going on in the markets... and that story fits what you WANT to believe. It's not really that complicated.

If I haven't been helpful to you here and you really do want long-term success in the markets, good luck because you're going to need more than your share for this to work out for you. In fact, here's another psychological project for you to consider... try trading for longer than a few months and then come back and tell us what it feels like to lose everything when your luck runs out.

Jim

Any consistently profitable trader is NOT a gambler. That trader is a business person. Sure, many gamblers come to the market... but most don't stay long... and not just because there aren't any free drinks or .99 cent shrimp cocktail. If you insist on equating what we profitable traders do as "gambling" then maybe this analogy will work better for you; we are not gamblers, we are THE HOUSE. Like a casino, we operate with an edge; and like a casino we exploit that edge (not any particular market participant) over time. And over time the law of large numbers says we will come out winners.

Lol u sound mad. I hope u trade this way xD.

Lol u sound mad. I hope u trade this way xD.

Lol u sound mad. I hope u trade this way xD.

But you are not the house. The house has fixed rules, can change the rules, and can truly exploit the laws of probability because their edge does not change. As a trader, a speculator, you cannot do this.

We know how you trade, scared of profit.

No, I'm not mad. Just pointing out your obvious misconceptions about marketplace activity. The fact that you think I sound mad is your own preconceived notion, just like your market fairy tale. If you don't learn to overcome these needs to know why everything is happening you will fail.

The markets are not a classroom where we makeup our version of what we think is happening (or what happened in the past) in a research paper. They're a place for buying and selling... and the reasons for that buying and selling are infinite. Any primal emotions attached to that activity (like guilt over profit ) are just a hindrance to you becoming a success. If you were running a store selling sunglasses would you feel guilty every time someone came in and bought a pair? If so, better to go wait tables while you do your deep thinking about markets and leave your money out of it.

As a human it's primal to need to know "the story" about everything. This is a negative trait in trading markets. All you need to know are the basics about how a market works, what price actually is, and how to develop (and exploit) your edge.

Again, think about what I (and others) have said to you and then decide if you even have a reason for feeling guilty about having a profit. And better yet, what emotion are you going to feel when you lose and have to stop. Are you going to be one of the degenerate gamblers who thinks he's figured it out, refuse to listen to experienced professionals, and then come back with more money to lose having learned nothing?

Jim

Yes, the price is always correct. As a projection of what human beings THINK is the value of a certain item. That value is RELATIVE to the changing world. So the projection is not always "correct". The market does not always have the correct information. You could even argue that the market NEVER has the correct information-that it is it's BEST GUESS. Price bubbles could not occur if this was not the case. Does that clarify the nature of price for you, my friend?