Full time trading does it really pay

[Pazienza]

Howard, the moment that posters get more interested in one's investment pot rather than how he, actually, does his trading it means that they have lost the plot. 🙂

This was a typical bit of Howie straw man building actually. Nobody was remotely interested in the total size of his investment pot.

 

[Splitlink]

This was a typical bit of Howie straw man building actually. Nobody was remotely interested in the total size of his investment pot.

Straw man---me? 😀 You have not read my previous posts to Howard on other threads.

What I do say is that when some posters do not understand an investing process of another poster, other tactics emerge which have nothing to do with the subject, at all.

Howard is not understood by me, so I leave him alone. I do not profess to be interested in what he does, ie. options, let alone understand him but I'm sure that he will live through that inconvenience.

 

[Pazienza]

Straw man---me? 😀 You have not read my previous posts to Howard on other threads.

What I do say is that when some posters do not understand an investing process of another poster, other tactics emerge which have nothing to do with the subject, at all.

Howard is not understood by me, so I leave him alone. I do not profess to be interested in what he does, ie. options, let alone understand him but I'm sure that he will live through that inconvenience.

No, not you building a straw man - Howie doing it. It's one of his favourite hobbies. 🙂

 

[meanreversion]

From Wiki (I found it interesting .. )

Example

Straw man arguments often arise in public debates such as a (hypothetical) prohibition debate:
Person A: We should liberalize the laws on beer.
Person B: No, any society with unrestricted access to intoxicants loses its work ethic and goes only for immediate gratification.
The proposal was to relax laws on beer. Person B has exaggerated this to a position harder to defend, i.e., "unrestricted access to intoxicants".[1] This example is also a slippery slope fallacy.
Another example:
Person A: Our society should spend more money helping the poor.
Person B: Studies show that handouts don't work; they just create more poverty and humiliate the recipients. That money could be better spent.
In this case, Person B has specified Person A's position (more funding) into "more handouts", which is easier for Person B to defeat.

 

[forker]

Yes there are.

Investing without knowledge is gambling.

Trading with knowledge is not gambling.

To be successful in any profession requires time, dedication, education and training. As one becomes better in their profession, they get better rewarded. Your expectations should be similar for trading as a profession that provides you with a living.

Howard I think you just refuse to admit being a gambler 😉

 

[elitejets]

But back to my original question do people really earn money trading sat at home doing their thing?

I hear this about home based traders quite often.
If you do not have any self motivation and you need someone to tell you when to start work, when and what to study, etc., then you are not going to succeed in any home-based business (trading included).
In any unsupervised job, business or venture you need to be motivated and have self discipline and working from home is no different.
Sadly many people today do not have that ethic and therefore firms who employ them still require them to show up for work every day even though they perform work very well suited for working from home and would save money if they did.

I work from home. I wasn't always profitable but I kept at it until I was.

 

[Splitlink]

No, not you building a straw man - Howie doing it. It's one of his favourite hobbies. 🙂

Ok, sorry that I got that one wrong. 😢

I thought that a man of straw bent with the prevailing wind.

 

[dickiedickieg]

Hi I started trading in 1988, for an Investment Bank and then from 1993 to present managing my own funds. It is not an easy career, albeit it is very rewarding when things go well. The last three months have been very volatile at a micro (short-term) level in most asset classes so i would not get too despondent if your top and tailing occurred during this period.

I have a rather large network of professional traders working across the industry covering most types of firm and roles and we speak most mornings to discuss our ideas and positions. When a consensus is found the trade is invariably correct so i believe we all benefit from such discussion and when we dont have time to conference we post on our blog which is then used as a journal and medium to throw ideas around whilst retaining a log of prices and thoughts which often prove invaluable at a later date.

I would recommend writing a journal each time you trade detailing the price of associated assets and your thoughts and emotions at the time. Over time this will build up to encyclopedic amounts in which at your next trade you will have detailed notes on a near identical trade taken in the past and your reasons and emotions at the time. I assure you this is massively confidence boosting. Personally i print off a chart for each trade and make notes on it which means that i havent entered or exited a trade for probably 15 years that i hadn't "seen before!"

Good luck

Hi I am intregued to know if there are really people out there making a decent consistent living trading.

I am a property investor and have a position in Silver via Bullionvault. Everytime I have a go at trading by selling when I think it is going to go down it carries on going up! I end up thinking sh1t I need to get back in and do so. It is then at that point it crashes!! I have managed to do the same in reverse to...!

I do take a long (12 month+ view) and believe silver has some way to go while interest rates are negative and so far I am sat on a decent profit.

But back to my original question do people really earn money trading sat at home doing their thing? Thanks

I need to clarify my current view which I am hoping to update (at least for trading anyway):
Investing - taking a long term view based on current and historical knowledge.
Trading - gambling

 

[montmorencyt2w]

Hi I started trading in 1988, for an Investment Bank and then from 1993 to present managing my own funds. It is not an easy career, albeit it is very rewarding when things go well. The last three months have been very volatile at a micro (short-term) level in most asset classes so i would not get too despondent if your top and tailing occurred during this period.

I have a rather large network of professional traders working across the industry covering most types of firm and roles and we speak most mornings to discuss our ideas and positions. When a consensus is found the trade is invariably correct so i believe we all benefit from such discussion and when we dont have time to conference we post on our blog which is then used as a journal and medium to throw ideas around whilst retaining a log of prices and thoughts which often prove invaluable at a later date.

I would recommend writing a journal each time you trade detailing the price of associated assets and your thoughts and emotions at the time. Over time this will build up to encyclopedic amounts in which at your next trade you will have detailed notes on a near identical trade taken in the past and your reasons and emotions at the time. I assure you this is massively confidence boosting. Personally i print off a chart for each trade and make notes on it which means that i havent entered or exited a trade for probably 15 years that i hadn't "seen before!"

Good luck

Fascinating. Would I be correct in thinking you are trading over relatively long time-frames? But isn't there a bit of a danger of "Groupthink" occurring?
No disrespect to your networking collegaues, but how do you guard against going with the "herd"?

 

[meanreversion]

Amazing, I've been using "straw man" tactics to argue since I was about 6 years old and had no idea there was a name for it.

 

[montmorencyt2w]

Amazing, I've been using "straw man" tactics to argue since I was about 6 years old and had no idea there was a name for it.

Just shows from what a basic part of our humanity it comes from. Perhaps we all tend to do it instinctively.

It's certainly tailor-made for pub-arguers, barrack-room laywers, and, er, politicians.

Not forgetting web-forums.

 

[Hilarymannah]

Just shows from what a basic part of our humanity it comes from. Perhaps we all tend to do it instinctively.

It's certainly tailor-made for pub-arguers, barrack-room laywers, and, er, politicians.

Not forgetting web-forums.

Unsophisticated debate is a good forum to extrapolate the "innate/culturally developed" personalities of particular participants, e.g,.. (building psychological profiles)

 

[wackypete2]

How many more threads can we turn into Howard-bashing threads. Can't you guys just go at it on his thread?

Peter

 

[brettus]

Fascinating. Would I be correct in thinking you are trading over relatively long time-frames? But isn't there a bit of a danger of "Groupthink" occurring?
No disrespect to your networking collegaues, but how do you guard against going with the "herd"?

I dont know about the charting side, but i know groups of professional traders that do very well sharing ideas.

 

[wackypete2]

I dont know about the charting side, but i know groups of professional traders that do very well sharing ideas.

Sharing ideas is great. Works well when trading stocks. Of all the thousands of stocks to trade someone can usually find an interesting one that you have missed. Naturally the decisions you make should be your own, but having a few ideas thrown around to at least take a look should help everyone involved.

Peter

 

[HowardCohodas]

How many more threads can we turn into Howard-bashing threads. Can't you guys just go at it on his thread?

Peter

Would you deny these respected members of the T2W forum their pleasures. 😉 I would not. :-0

I have not always handled it with grace. So I still need the practice. :smart:

When life hands me lemons, I'd like to find someone with vodka and have a party. :innocent:

 

[DionysusToast]

Straw man---me? 😀 You have not read my previous posts to Howard on other threads.

What I do say is that when some posters do not understand an investing process of another poster, other tactics emerge which have nothing to do with the subject, at all.

Howard is not understood by me, so I leave him alone. I do not profess to be interested in what he does, ie. options, let alone understand him but I'm sure that he will live through that inconvenience.

Allow me to explain.

Take a $100,000 account.

Trade an emini S&P contract. Stop loss = 1 point, target = 3 points.

Win the trade.

Declare a 300% profit, having made $150 quid on a $100k account.

 

[HowardCohodas]

I agree with this. I am part time & I do not give up a trading day for anything. I have one pot of cash. It took me my whole life to build up and I am NOT blowing it up for anything. I simply do not take the kind of risks that would make this possible and I am also doing OK as i have learnt the gentle arts of focus & repetition.

Let's say someone in my position had for example, $250k. That person would want to protect that and be trading VERY small positions until perfection had been achieved. None of this 1% per trade nonsense. More like .01%.

For the 100 quid a day. It's interesting but I'll need to be averaging about $20k a month to give up the day job. I have a few other irons in the fire which may contribute to that $20k but until I am at that point and am 100% confident I can take care of my family through trading, I'll keep the day job.

Part time is tough - but my job is easy & some weeks there is little for me to do. I simply do not miss trading days. I don't go out with friends from Mon-Fri evenings. I get home, have some family time and then go to work for 3 hours. Last year this brought me a car, which a bus then went and wrote off!

I care little about the opinions of others as to whether part time to full time is possible. I do know other traders - a few that came up through the industry and a few that went part time to full time. I don't bug these people but they have helped immensly with some of the finer details.

You just have to draw your own conclusions.

Looks like DT may now qualify for a vendor badge. :-0

 

[brettus]

Allow me to explain.

Take a $100,000 account.

Trade an emini S&P contract. Stop loss = 1 point, target = 3 points.

Win the trade.

Declare a 300% profit, having made $150 quid on a $100k account.

Yea and if he has a losing trade, he only lost 0.000001% because he uses the full balance in calculating losses times a million for the hell of it.

Howards trading. Up 300% loses 0.01% up 300% loses 0.01%. Why doesnt my bank account have a milion billion in it???

 

[Splitlink]

Yea and if he has a losing trade, he only lost 0.000001% because he uses the full balance in calculating losses times a million for the hell of it.

Howards trading. Up 300% loses 0.01% up 300% loses 0.01%. Why doesnt my bank account have a milion billion in it???

Because you are not Howard. Not all of us are gifted. We scrubbers have to buy his book.