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My Opinions only and I welcome your feedback on this.
In regards to the debate whether trading is a business:
Although I think that trading success and business success is different, as I have posted here:
Many here compare between business success and trading success. different animals.
Yes, success in all fields requires determination, drive and the willingness to learn, but the market is not forgiving as the business environment. In fact, I have a theory; …
Trading is still a business in every sense of the word.
This is the time that you decide to work for yourself, rely on your skills and no one will hand you a paycheck.
Above All, there is an element of uncertainty, and the varying degrees of this uncertainty will dictate how much money you will make or not.
I often think: why one person makes 1 million and the others is making 10 million in the exact same industry?
Both are successful, but one takes the bank home.
I say it's the varying degree of uncertainty one can live with.
Even when we get to be good, we have a "mental breaks" that stop us being great ( I mean make more).
We don't think of it consciously, but we exercise to the degree that allows us psychologically to be in our comfort zone.
For those who have made good money from trading or other ventures, you know how overwhelming it is physically and mentally it is for the first time. It's either we proceed with caution at that point, or get even more gutsy.
What we choose depends on our nature.
Here is another way of thinking about degrees of uncertainty: when you make X amount of dollars, are you willing to sacrifice the X you make to make 2X, sacrifice the 2X to make 5X, 5x to make 20X, etc. At some point your left brain says "I don't want to lose what I have build/earned so far!"
Obviously these things come to play during your evolution as a trader.
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Some of the best programmers I have known would listen and sometimes take advice from programmers a lot junior than they were. You can always learn from others no matter what their level. It may not be much you can learn but you never know when someone just starting out comes up with something you do not know or understand.
Out of respect to Mike and other members I have sent you a PM related to your reply. And moving forward we really should stay away from this subject on the open forum.
I understand the logic behind your original statement, and I do not believe it's intent was mean spirited, nor pretentious. Obviously, if you had a choice between being mentored by Jack Welch or some V.P. with 5 years of experience under his belt, you would choose the former. Especially, if you had been in business for 10 years or more. Or, if you were going to take a golf lesson, and you had a choice between being tutored by Tiger Woods or his caddy, you would choose Tiger. Especially, if you were already on the tour. However, just because the V.P. and the caddy are less experienced than the veterans, doesn't mean they don't have some valuable lessons to impart.
With almost 40 years of trading experience under my belt, I am arguably one of the most , if not the most experienced traders on this forum. Yet, with every visit to this site, I learn something new. Whether, it s about a new kind of indicator, or strategy, or methodology that I wasn't familiar with, I always take something away with me, after having logged on to this board. With over 10,000 participants, how could you not?
And, it's not only the obvious participants like Gomi, Fat Tails, or Big Mike, that you can learn from; you can learn something new and valuable from almost anyone on this forum, no matter what, is their level of experience.
That's the beauty of this forum and that is the reason why it is so successful.
I just want to let you know that even though I disagree with your original statement, and you may disagree with my view, it doesn't mean you can't discuss it in the open forum. The whole moderation thing in this thread was because some members chose to start calling each other names and not conducting themselves in a positive manner.
Disagreements are part of discussions, so feel free to disagree and make your case I trust you will not call me names, and everything will be fine
Tiger Woods would never take lessons from an amateur golfer Granted, I am not Tiger, but I have the same principles. I don't feel this way to demean anyone or feel that I am above anyone. It has always been my life experience to learn from those who are above me, not lateral or below me. And I have benefited 10 fold from this philosophy. And yes, I'm sure there are things that can be learned from those who are less experienced and less skilled. But my first choice will always be with those better than I. And I will always do what has proven to be beneficial to me.
There seems to be an assumption that someone who is successful , can automatically mentor someone else to greatness..
U every tried to mentor someone on anything and been frustrated because u can't understand why they can't do what u do or they were never as "good" as u were,,, there u have ur answer,, Not just in trading any subject.
This is why the odds in trading successfully measured in money eludes most...
Untapped talent has a chance to be mentored,, but if u have no/little talent and only a desire, the best mentor in the world would not make a difference.....
The best traders I have observed mostly comment that they just feel the trade,, nothing one can teach.....
I must admit, I felt quite offended with your original comment. But your criticique is a good one. It makes me think about this issue for quite sometimes. So, thanks.
Everything about trading is relates to ones personal belief. The worst thing about belief is that it's too hard to be changed. It's my belief that human likes to hear "what they want to hear", not "what they should hear".
I consider myself as a successful trader because I can get everything out that I want from the market with my own way as defined in my trading objectives. I'm not a day trader as I don't like to trade that way, and I don't intend to make living from trading only. I only treat trading as one of wealth-growing-tool.
In regards your comment about "business succeess is different with trading success", no matter how I think about it, I still disagree with that. The key issue to this is how ones define the word "success". For some people, the word success is defined as "becoming rich" or "reach first 2 million", etc. However, is that so?
I, however, propose the word "success" should be defined differently compared to most. I define the word "success" as the state where your objectives/goal has been fulfilled successfully. This implies, if ones doesn't have goal/objective, then they will never be successful. Although this statement is quite bold, it's consistent with my success definition. It's also a corollary that "Success" is subjective, in the sense when someone say you are successful, it implies you are successful relative to their perspective.
Business objectives is not different from Trading objectives. I list the common business objectives and trading objectives as a comparison:
Business Objectives (for 1st year mini-market as example):
1. Establish marketplace with good location.
2. Get at least 50 different products based on consumer interest.
3. Gain local popularity about store existence.
4. Have $10,000 turnover in the first year.
"my-simplified" Trading Objectives (for system trader 1st year):
1. Trade only 5 minute per day.
2. Establish trading system which give 100% growth per year.
3. Establish trading manual operation procedure.
4. Establish automated-framework based on learned manual operation procedure.
5. Research about the possibility to integrate Fundamental analysis to trading decision.
Now, objectives (goal) is what we should be aiming, NOT what will definitely got. To reach this objectives, we need to create a plan. If we can't create a sound plan to reach those objectives, then the objectives needs to changes.
As your comment, "trading environment is not so forgiving for business", I don't quite understand this statement to be honest, but the way I interprete your statement is "business require consistent cashflow to survive which is not available in trading", let me know if I'm wrong?
That's right, business require cashflow management to "live", it's like breathing. But that doesn't mean you will get consistent net profit (as in profit - expense) from business probably you'll never be. Business has bad days and good days just like trading. However, ones might argue when the Business takes off, the profit "tend" to become consistent. In trading, this is equivalent to have multiple systems which handle different market condition. After years and years worth of research during my mad holy grail journey, I argue that it's possible to generate consistent profit from trading (However each system will lose money when market condition changing, integrating fundamental analysis might reduce this drawdown. After all, human perspective is faster than trend changes).
Second argument to support my point is there are a lot of business strategy that's applicable to trading. I'm not sure in US, but in Australia, Share trading is one type of business. What that means is, you get luxury of having a business by trading. This includes but not limited to tax break, a vast availability of tax deductions, loan strategy, investment allowance, etc, etc. In short, there are a lot of things that you can do as a Business which is not available as Individual.
Other profession like mechanical, accountant, salesman might have objectives and they might have equivalent plan. But they don't share same different paradigm to "business, investing, trading" alike in the sense that they are trying to solve completely different problem.
Profession | Problem | Traits
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Accountant | Needs to be produce accurate report which is bounded by law. | Follow procedure
Mechanical | Solving mathematical problems. | They have to be logical
Salesman | Convincing people takes some times beside they also rely on | The require great persistence
| statistical result about the sales
I argue Business, trading, investing try to solve same problem that is "How to make money from money under environment which full of uncertainty". Note that, the problem I define here is subjective to my perspective about those professions.
There are similar professions that address completely different problem. There are market analysts for example, they deal with "How will the market behave". They share completely different characteristic even though they got similar knowledge compared to trader because when they actually trade, they just can't, their pschology just won't hold.
In my opinion, Business, trading and investing share same characteristic because they try to address same problem. This "cause-and-reason" is amplified by the fact that community tends to treat them as equal in the sense, trading is just one variation of business.
"It wasn't easy but I did find some and what I saw was that there are guys who make an absolute fortune but from the second they crack it they go as silent as the tomb. Not a word, sometimes their friends don't even know what these guys actually do for a living. "
Truth right here! I advise reading it over and over 100 or more times! Then maybe it will sink in and you will begin to believe it.
What was it that they found? They descibed it to him as cracking the code.
I call it my hidden treasure. That is why I say " No one gives the secret location to their hidden treasure"" And if they do, you can be sure their treasure is worthless"
I nod to the posts offered by the guys from the pit. I wish I would of gone down that path.
After a week on this site I feel I must go. I almost want to give a hint or two. But I worked too hard to come across the knowledge to even give a hint.
I trust you will not call me names, and everything will be fine 
