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We do not have OPM. We trade our own money. Based on 7 years results, I know what I am talking about. We do know what we talk about via Ivy league academic and work at top tier firms. We are VERY happy with what we do with our money trading our account.
Good luck with your study. (If you can get in some computer science it will be very beneficial in the real world)
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
I've noticed how easily this thread strays off into peoples' views on whether trading is gambling, and on probability, and on how to trade correctly, and definitions of gambling and/or trading, and on risk management (which actually is relevant to it), and anything else that the word "gambling" brings to mind.
Obviously, these are all valid trading topics and people naturally do have their views on them.
But the original post was about traders who may have gotten in over their heads, who have gotten extended beyond their means, or who have other problems that are essentially related to gambling addiction, and it was to provide a way for someone in that situation to find help or advice, or even just acknowledge the situation.
This is not directed to any particular individual, just a reminder of what the topic actually is. In the context of helping, the discussion of risk and its management and its role in trading (as well as just about every other trading topic) is absolutely relevant. But that's the context: helping people who are in a jam or may be heading for one and need a way out.
Bob.
When one door closes, another opens.
-- Cervantes, Don Quixote
I would second this. Trading is rarely profitable for retail traders. However, the lessons it can teach will far outweigh monetary rewards for many, if they are willing to listen to those lessons.
waiting for python to finish doing a histogram of my 19,954,035 adjusted closing prices
i actually have even more data in another db... with history data going back in some cases to the 1960s
working on some neural nets... not that they are oracles... but they can be good tools...
Larry Hillibrand was my personal advisor when building my trading model.
(The best after the fact lesson I learned from him - cut your losses short before its too late - How Genius will NOT FAIL)
I can say from myself that I'm the most stupid trader ever. I'm started some years ago but only on demo accounts or 0.01 Lots on ETF's.
Later on I tried with Topsteptrader and blow up more of those combines as you ever could imaging.
So therefore I'm curious about the question if trading is gambling or not. Going to the a casino is gambling but trading is not. I'm loosing nearly 100% and not 50/50 as it would be on a coin flip.
I'm spending many hours in front off my screens and therefore I have less time for my family. Get in bad mood if trading sucks.
Even If I'm not trading a live account it cost me a lot of money, what I can afford. But not the time I missed with my kids.
I don't know why I'm loosing every day but each day I'm starting over I'm very sure I can made it. :-)
For me trading it's the most exiting thing I'm doing.
If you don't have the money don't think you can get it by trading without lots of experience.
In my opinion it has nothing to do with money management, you have to see (maybe also feel) what the market is doing.
BUT please do not gamble with your family and money. Use demo accounts. All of us think they are smarter as others and will make it soon.
Van Tharp recently stated that if you're looking for excitement it's probably cheaper to just go to a casino and get it over with.
The late, great trading coach and author Mark Douglas wrote several books and taught people how to deal with the inner forces that cause each of us to do self-destructive activities. It's not something you can fix quickly, and perhaps you can never fix yourself permanently, but improvement away from self-destructive behavior, or catching yourself quickly after an impulse trade, and closing the position, is certainly possible.
One's trading technique can be engineered to force you to wait for the best opportunities to setup instead of taking many low-expectation trades. Verniman's trading style does this, and his methodology is full of pauses.
The big difference between gambling and trading is that in trading the house always has the edge, and you cannot build and edge that favours you. There have been some cases thoughout history, like blackjack counting etc... but now they are a thing of the past.
In trading you can actually obtain an edge over "the house" (the market in this case), but it's not easy.
I do not compare trading with gambling, in my mind there is a very big difference. However I often go to the casino, since I love playing blackjack, and I realize people do not understand probabilities, they do not apply basic strategy in blackjack, and if you try to explain them, and you tell them that you have a MSc in math and engineering and they do not listen to you..... so I can easily understand that if you cannot play blackjack correctly you will never make it in trading.
