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Gambling (with life)


Discussion in Psychology and Money Management

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Gambling (with life)

 
ChrisDouthit
San Francisco CA USA
 
Posts: 40 since Jan 2020
Thanks Given: 2
Thanks Received: 17

I’m not going to argue with anyone’s definition of gambling or trading. However, in my opinion, trading is definitely gambling. You can be good at it, you could make smart decisions, or you can be bad at it and not make well thought out decisions.

The fact is I’ve made some extremely well thought out and researched trades that turn out to go bad for whatever reason. The first one that comes to mind is when I bought stock in Chipotle the day before it was announced someone got sick with from E. coli back in 2015.

Of course, these situations are few and far between, but every trade is a gamble, even for the most educated and professional traders.


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SunTrader
Boca Raton, FL
 
Posts: 260 since Nov 2018
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Life is a gamble - everyday.

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sraman
washington, D.C.
 
Posts: 22 since Jul 2018
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ChrisDouthit View Post
I’m not going to argue with anyone’s definition of gambling or trading. However, in my opinion, trading is definitely gambling. You can be good at it, you could make smart decisions, or you can be bad at it and not make well thought out decisions.

The fact is I’ve made some extremely well thought out and researched trades that turn out to go bad for whatever reason. The first one that comes to mind is when I bought stock in Chipotle the day before it was announced someone got sick with from E. coli back in 2015.

Of course, these situations are few and far between, but every trade is a gamble, even for the most educated and professional traders.

That’s why one should always have a well defined risk as stop loss.

 
 Fxfutures1976 
London
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: cqg integrated,ninjatrade
Trading: Futures and forex
Posts: 52 since Apr 2015
Thanks Given: 6
Thanks Received: 69


Big Mike View Post
Guys,

I was watching something on TV that made me think of starting this discussion thread.

I think that in our path as traders, there are some (maybe many if we are being honest) that are more gamblers than traders.

And that's fine. Usually. But, not always.

I think that if it's viewed as a hobby, and money spent on your trading is being spent in a responsible way that doesn't jeopardize yourself or your family, then basically it's all in good fun at the end of the day -- and probably, a lot of people fall into this category.

Then there are those of us who are professionals and treat it like a business. For the purpose of this thread, we aren't taking about this category.

But... Then there are some who are literally gambling with their life. Their savings. Their families. Their kids college funds. They are maybe taking on debt. Maybe they are hiding this from their family. In fact, maybe they are hiding this from themselves.

We are a community. A special community. Almost family! It's a safe place where we can be honest. I'm worried that there are a lot of people here that truly have a problem, and they need help. For their sake, for their families, for their future -- for their lives.

I hope that you will open up and share here in this thread. Lean on the community, talk about your struggle. Maybe come clean and admit there is a problem.

There is also another related thread I encourage you to read called Support of wife and family. Sorry I'm on my phone and can't link it easily.

Best to all you guys.

Mike

Sent using the NexusFi mobile app

This is a great thread Mike and some very good points.
I have been in the position with a lot at stake and im sure a lot of people have too so im sure this will help out.

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ChrisDouthit
San Francisco CA USA
 
Posts: 40 since Jan 2020
Thanks Given: 2
Thanks Received: 17


SunTrader View Post
Life is a gamble - everyday.

You got that right!

 
 Chile 
Boston Massachusetts
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader
Trading: Emini ES, Crude CL, Gold GC
Posts: 31 since Dec 2015
Thanks Given: 8
Thanks Received: 14

Women are a gamble for men.

Men are a gamble for women.

 
Tom1978
Houston Texas
 
Posts: 15 since Dec 2019
Thanks Given: 6
Thanks Received: 11

My 14 year old son is always on his phone.
My wife regularly confronts him with his behavior.

Nowadays he says: but dad is always looking at his charts. He is doing the same...

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Artfldgr
New York + New York / USA
 
Posts: 76 since Jan 2020
Thanks Given: 2
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ChrisDouthit View Post
I’m not going to argue with anyone’s definition of gambling or trading. However, in my opinion, trading is definitely gambling. You can be good at it, you could make smart decisions, or you can be bad at it and not make well thought out decisions.

The fact is I’ve made some extremely well thought out and researched trades that turn out to go bad for whatever reason. The first one that comes to mind is when I bought stock in Chipotle the day before it was announced someone got sick with from E. coli back in 2015.

Of course, these situations are few and far between, but every trade is a gamble, even for the most educated and professional traders.

I think you have this view because in everyday life we live and do things our risks tend to be hidden in the normalcy of it all, and we dont have such a clear view of them... we do not see the risk in being a taxi or uber driver the same way we see the rare event in a trade. in fact, if you go to the insurance companies listings and see risk as we believe it vs actual risk.

We often do not see risk to ourselves as much or as easily as we see risk to our wallets once realized
mostly because a bad event in the market is not only something that we watch, but happens fast...

We over-react to intentional actions, and under-react to accidents, abstract events, and natural phenomena.
We over-react to things that offend our morals.
We over-react to immediate threats and under-react to long-term threats.
We under-react to changes that occur slowly and over time.


Quoting 
People exaggerate spectacular but rare risks and downplay common risks. They worry more about earthquakes than they do about slipping on the bathroom floor, even though the latter kills far more people than the former. Similarly, terrorism causes far more anxiety than common street crime, even though the latter claims many more lives. Many people believe that their children are at risk of being given poisoned candy by strangers at Halloween, even though there has been no documented case of this ever happening.

and


Quoting 
People underestimate risks they willingly take and overestimate risks in situations they can’t control. When people voluntarily take a risk, they tend to underestimate it. When they have no choice but to take the risk, they tend to overestimate it. Terrorists are scary because they attack arbitrarily, and from nowhere. Commercial airplanes are perceived as riskier than automobiles, because the controls are in someone else’s hands -- even though they’re much safer per passenger mile. Similarly, people overestimate even more those risks that they can’t control but think they, or someone, should. People worry about airplane crashes not because we can’t stop them, but because we think as a society we should be capable of stopping them (even if that is not really the case). While we can’t really prevent criminals like the two snipers who terrorized the Washington, DC, area in the fall of 2002 from killing, most people think we should be able to.

i leave you with this to think about:


I used to develop software for the insurance industry, and learned this and tons more about real risks and how people behave... the truth about the market is that you have a decent amount of control of the risk, unlike having a car accident... and its THAT control that separates the gamblers (who throw caution to the wind and take on too much risk) and the professionals, who manage their risk constantly

 
SunTrader
Boca Raton, FL
 
Posts: 260 since Nov 2018
Thanks Given: 81
Thanks Received: 182

Absolutely and I would add traders conflate risk with trading account funds at play once a trade is put on.

Risk is the event of something happening, mostly something negative. Not losing X amount of dollars.

 
 joe s 
sacramento ca us
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Ninja Trader,Trade Station
Trading: es
Posts: 163 since Aug 2015
Thanks Given: 133
Thanks Received: 105


Even professional gamblers have a system and strict money management same as traders or
we will fail without them


 



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