Do you admit to being a Trader?

I think any business is a gamble and trading is no different.
If you buy stock to sell on ebay you are gambling as to whether it is going to sell or not.
If you have taken the time to learn about your trades and how to read charts etc then it is quite different from playing a slot machine!
As to whether I would tell people that I am a trader,, I'm not sure as I usually keep my business as private as possible from everyone apart from a few close friends and family. As I have just started trading in my forex account live I would probably wait until I felt successful about what I was doing before telling anyone that I am a trader. As being a Northern Brit most of my family and friends are rather cynical about stuff like that! :)
 
theroguetrader said:
If you view trading like gambling - ull get results like a gambler... !! Its all about CONSISTENCY.......... !! (y)
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What I meant was any business is a gamble to some extent.
But if you do your research first it doesn't have to be any different from running a business that is successful.
 
Ok so if I used my own capital to trade in the forex market, what would I put on my business card - Fund Manager, Foreign Currency Trader, Gambler?
 
andys0506 said:
Ok so if I used my own capital to trade in the forex market, what would I put on my business card - Fund Manager, Foreign Currency Trader, Gambler?
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"Private Investment Consultant". these day people are getting sneaky with their job titles. for eg: plenty of sales ppl call themselves marketing executive or whatever.. :mad:
 
everyonerich said:
"Private Investment Consultant". these day people are getting sneaky with their job titles. for eg: plenty of sales ppl call themselves marketing executive or whatever.. :mad:
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Hilarious, would never have thought of that one!
You are so right though with the way people give themselves fancy sounding titles, its getting ridiculous now. I took my car to the garage the other day and it was fixed by an Automotive Technician lol
 
Skill Leverage said:
Why the hell would anyone be embarrassed to say they were a trader, unless they were sh!te at it?
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The thing is, unless you get your brokerage statements out and calculate your sharpe ratio, no one knows if you are sh!te or not.

Look at spanish89, he claims to have been successful for six months last year and perhaps he was.

If you had been at a party last xmas and you told someone you were a successful trader and then spanish89 turns up and tells the same person he is one two, would you feel embarrassed? He would have a point, up until that point his results were as good as anyone elses.

Any clown on a hot streak can claim to be a successful trader.
 
I tell them, I am a discretionary, value, counter-cyclical, long term, commodity, futures trader. With luck, they will have moved away by then. One person, said, "it's good to have a hobby" broke me up
 
If you're succesful at it I don't see it a problem. However if you're not making a good living from it I think this is where people will be rather unsure of speaking about what they do as they can't justify it.
 
If asked what I do for a living, I tell people about my day job. If asked what I do for a hobby I tell them I trade the FTSE 250*.

*caveats:
1. This is my "bland" response, aimed at people who are disinterested in the topic, and don't really want chapter and verse. Sometimes I get the response "Isn't that a bit risky?", but I've never felt anything particularly negative towards me. Mind you, I'm one of those thick-skinned people who doesn't really notice disapproval unless it's written on a piece of paper wrapped around a brick**.

2. If I'm feeling mischievous, or I want just want the person asking me to go away, I'll tell them that I gamble on the stock market using a system [trade plan] that gives me dead certs [success ratio marginally better than 50%]. Guarantee they'll slide away quickly, like it's contagious.

3. I've been often surprised by the most unlikely people giving me a response along the lines of "Really! Me too. I trade xx in the xx market, what do you think about the trend in xx recently."

**I had the best training for being thick-skinned - a working class, inner city grandmother who loved her flock dearly but disapproved of us becoming teenagers.
 
Yes, but when I start to speak about index futures, algorithms and so on to the others it will stop the conversation quite soon and other subjects are welcome...

And my ex wife does not think this as a full time job although it is actually sometimes much harder and time consuming (or maybe I just don't know how... ) Nags to go to the real work.
 
For a lot of us I think its a bit of misnomer, we are not traders we are speculators , we are gambling on the movement of prices we do not own anything. So if I am ever asked I tend to just say I work in the futures market. Then that usually kills it there. If not then I explain.

Lodian
 
now i am a trader and so are the majority of my friends
i think it is good to be a trader so just do what we like and ignore what others say
 
Alin_Puin said:
hi guys,
this is really interesting stuff. i work for the institute of trading were looking to interview independent traders. general stuff. nothing intrusive. Anyone interested?
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You've posted that exact same spam message randomly on about 7 threads.

Therefore:

Losertown. Population: you.
 
Yes, happy to tell people what I do. I've always had a very positive response, along the lines of the freedom it must offer ( I am yet to feel much of that freedom myself with all the screen time endured). But I am yet to have A Traders Daily Conversation:
http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7682699/
 
I can't say that I'm a trader but I started with an autotrader called buru that works 24 hours. If it brings me stable return in mid term, I'm going to invest more in it and than I can probably say that I'm a trader, full time trader :)
 
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