95% of traders lose... This is nothing more than a myth.

[NVP]

If 95% percent lose their money, then I can give you an easy way to earn money. Plan your trades, and then as you are about to enter them, enter the reverse. You can actually program your trading software to do the reverse.
As silly as this sounds, this might actually work. If not making you profitable, it is likely to decrease your losses.
There are of course commissions to consider, as well as some other factors that work against you.

no it wont .....sorry to spoil this old wives tail ...... :smart:

 

[NVP]

i think at best its a rough guess, round figure, that in your lifetime if you try trading at all you are "95%" likely to have lost money by the time you have died or given up. the percentage of active traders who are winning over, say, the last quarter will be significantly better than "5%" but there is a high turnover of losers, meaning your statistical chances as a beginner are worse than is shown by a three month snapshot.

so all its saying is your statistical chances as a beginner are low (eg 5% round number) its not based on real life evidence and calculation

this is my impression, from what ive read. sorry havent read the whole thread.

the key is defining the sample size of "Traders"

what defines a trader ?

opening a demo ?
opening a live account with £x ?
making 10 live trades

and so on ..........the earlier you place the definition in the lifecycle , the higher the % of failures becomes ..........anyone say 1 year into live trading (and still solvent) should be sobering up enough to stay in that elite sub 5% for as long as they continue to improve

 

[mpups]

the key is defining the sample size of "Traders"

what defines a trader ?

opening a demo ?
opening a live account with £x ?
making 10 live trades

and so on ..........the earlier you place the definition in the lifecycle , the higher the % of failures becomes ..........anyone say 1 year into live trading (and still solvent) should be sobering up enough to stay in that elite sub 5% for as long as they continue to improve

hi NVP, exactly yes, the terms are not defined so its not very useful in giving a clear picture of whats going on

 

[tomorton]

I recall management at Capital Spreads saying their own data backed up some academic studies they quoted - 80% of clients on the books at any one time would be in the red.

 

[paulkoger]

Is it too different from the statistics of average businesses?
A famous author Michael Gerber has claimed that 80% of businesses fail in the first year. And out of the remaining 20%, 80% will fail in the first 5 years. That indicates a 4% probability of success in a longer time frame.
Yes it takes a longer time period to play out the odds..traders wipe out their accounts faster than aspiring entrepreneurs, but the initial investment is also much smaller compared to what it takes to set up a company.

So all in all, if you want to become rich either as a trader or a business owner, the chances are about the same.

 

[piphoe]

I've shown friends & family my charts ask what do you see? They say "little lines & sticks", I say NO. MONEY!! There's GOLD in those little lines & sticks if you know how to mine it!!

They arten't interested, which baffles the sh^t out of me

 

[tradernumber]

What I am astonished about is that there are only 110,000 forex accounts in the US, if I am reading the stats correctly. Would have thought it would be far higher. I have noticed monthly search volume related to forex and trading is surprisingly low. This tells me two things. Either the big sites have a lot of returning visitors or the interest in Forex is far lower than the impression one gets. Most of the transactions must be done by big institutional players, while retail traders account for a tiny fraction.