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Thanks! It's always been my favorite. I believe it embodies the essential characteristics of gaining success in this game!
Persistence! Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not ... nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not ... Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not ... The world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent! Calvin Coolidge
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
All this talk of being "true" to yourself and not following others, brings to mind the story
of the so called "Turtle Traders" from the early 80s. It was supposedly the inspiration for
the movie "Trading Places".
In 1983 commodity traders Richard Dennis and William Eckhardt conducted an experiment
to see if traders were made or born. Dennis believed they were made and could be taught to follow a
specific trading plan with no deviation and Eckhardt believe that they were born with the skills.
Dennis placed and ad in the Wall Street Journal for traders. He received over 1000 replies. He culled
the list down by asking them all a simple question: If you were presented with a trade opportunity
according to the rules of the system but you believed in your heart that it would be a losing trade, would
you execute according to the rules of the system?
VERY few answered that they would execute according to the rules. I believe it was less than 10 of the
original 1000! He hired the ones who said they would execute the system no matter what. Thus were
born the "Turtle Traders" as they became know!
My point is that a disciplined trader can execute any system he is told to execute! Whether or not he believes
in it. Don't get me wrong, believing in a system is VERY important, but I for one can execute a system
that I know makes money even if I don't believe every trade will turn out.
Persistence! Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not ... nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not ... Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not ... The world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent! Calvin Coolidge
And that is why people are always asking if a mentor is legit, and for proof. @josh we're all looking for a Richard Dennis, with a proven system. Unfortunately that chances of finding a Richard Dennis through Google or YouTube is zero.
1. The turtles had widely different results, because even with the initial selection of traders and the clear system rules and all that, they didn't execute the same trades anyway. I think most people who follow a system don't -- the temptation to just make little adjustments to improve things, or to take into account something else, or whatever, is too great.
2. The Turtle system stopped working when the markets changed and a basic trend-following system stopped working. Dennis stopped trading after some serious reversals, but since he got out in time he kept most of his money. If you had been totally disciplined and not changed a thing in the system, you would have gone broke following it.
Which doesn't seem fair, because you'd lose if you changed it and you'd lose if you didn't, but there it is.
So finding a Richard Dennis won't do it either.
I think the moral of the story is not to look for a trading mentor, guru or system. You do have to do it on your own. What if you had found Dennis right at the point that he started losing money? His track record at that point was beyond awesome, but it wouldn't have guaranteed you a thing.
You can get help and you can learn from others, but that's different. Looking for someone to follow is a very risky way to go.
Yes and I am one of those people. Maybe it is just you and you need to understand that you are not alone. There are those who are earning and those who are not. The difference between them is how they handle themselves in here . You need todo something about it.
Of course there are quite a number of people making money. Think about it, how long has this site been runnning and how many people are using it. If there was no one earning then there would not be anyone here or new people joining. What you need to do is develop a better strategy if you have not been making any profit.
There are people making money and there are people that are not making money. If you are among those peole that are not making money then you are doing something wrong. You are gonna have to work harder and improve on what you have been doing. Strategy is everthing in here.
The following is just a basic guideline based on the current 'accepted' thinking.
A) People Making Money
1) Most Commercial Traders -> Market Makers, Commercial Hedgers
2) 'Large Specs' -> Elite Quant Funds using Machine Learning with correct robust statistical methods for financial time series data
3) 'Small Specs' -> 5% of retail traders (mostly using statistically proven mechanical methods)
B) People Not Making Money
1) 'Small Specs' -> 95% of retail traders
2) 'Large Specs' -> Large amount of dumb money piled into sub-par funds that have bad trading methods
If you are not making money then obviously you need to find a way to move from Group B to Group A
