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Strategies & Market Trends : DAYTRADING Fundamentals -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jaybiegh who wrote (11017)	12/18/2000 6:29:57 PM
From: Brandon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18137

Success is unlikely by any path, but the reasons will have more to do with you than any "method" you are using. IMHO the true path to success is to work your arse off, study everything you can about the market. Keep a trading journel and learn from all of your mistakes. One thing I see a lot of people say is something like..."Damn, that went up 4 points after I sold that, I shouldnt have sold that". But that is as far as they take it. In order to be successful you need to take it to the next level. Go over that trade until you are sick and find out why you should have held on so next time you will hold on rather than moan that you should have. The thing is, moaning is the easy route and most people take the path of least resistance. Welcome to the thread and good luck.. You picked IMHO the best possible time in the last few years to be a newbie. Brandon

To: jaybiegh who wrote (11017)	12/18/2000 6:44:43 PM
From: TheStockStalker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18137

LPS5, using the much bantered number of only 10% of active traders being profitable, would you say that most of that 10% are former firm/professional traders? Are all the profitable traders ones who learned by your suggested path, or is success merely unlikely by another path., In my experience the percentages that are typically thrown around are based from retail trading account statistics. I think that even if you go to a GOOD retail trading office and try to learn from the better traders there you are much better off than learning at home by yourself. At my prop. trading firm (which I will not mention here) the success rate is much higher than the numbers you say. I will go out on a limb and guess that over half of our newbies either already are or soon will be profitable. To say "it is the only way to go" was just a cliche, but to say it is "indisputably the best way" to truly learn is easily quite true. What city are you in by the way??? PDT

To: jaybiegh who wrote (11017)	12/18/2000 6:48:23 PM
From: LPS5	Respond to of 18137

LPS5, using the much bantered number of only 10% of active traders being profitable, would you say that most of that 10% are former firm/professional traders? I wouldn't say that "most" are former professionals...certainly a number of them are...but I would say this: many, or most, of those who are alive and trading today have been in the game for a long time, indicating that they came into the direct access trading before the retail onslaught brought a lot of marginal trading products and firms into the fray. That would be sometime in mid-1998 and all through the year that was, 1999. In the mid-nineties, of 6 NYC firms I knew well, 4 of them were run and occupied by many former professional traders, specifically equity dealers and options traders. That's some great company to have around when you're learning, especially if they have some incentive to help you out. Even more specifically: for those traders who started in 94, 95, 96, and even 97 (before the "gold rush" began), there was more of a chance for even the commission-oriented firms to pay attention to new customers and, to the extent possible, get them up to speed. But professional trading firms and managed funds, both then and now, are structured such that they're wasting their time and capital if they don't turn the individual (or, more aptly, new employee) into the best trader he or she can be. Commissions are a nonevent; transaction volume, great or small, is of little import. The bottom line (a pitiful pun, I know) is P&L. Are all the profitable traders ones who learned by your suggested path, or is success merely unlikely by another path. No, not at all. Success is not impossible via other paths, by any means. However, I am positive that the best, most effective way to pick up the full range of attributes essential to trading success - those that, even on top of reading the tape, knowing how to short sell, etc. - will lead to the survival of major paradigm shifts (I recall a friend telling me, in 1997, how the order handling rules washed out a lot of classroom indoctrinated, well-read traders who until then were doing terrific) are picked up in the scenario which I've described. I wonder if we'll hear the same stories when SuperSOES makes its' debut. LPS5