Fudomyo

You're responding to a post from 3 years ago? lol Well, if you want to teach go for it. Trading is hard work but pays a lot better. It takes time to make real money retail trading, no one is consistent when they start, no matter what their background is. If you come off a desk into retail there are big adjustments, and if you're learning trading on your own it's a lot of work. I know 4 people in 15 years who I can say make real money retail trading, and I've met a lot of traders. The main problem people face besides their personal shortcomings is conditional change of the markets. When we were in the 30 year bull run there were guys who did one thing and did well. Once we had a secular change in the market, quite a few can't make money anymore. What's funny is people will buy books or courses from people who had proven success in past market conditions that aren't relevant to the market today. Everything is timing and skill. So by the time this market cycle is complete, a new set of rules will need to be developed. This is where adaptability comes in, but adaptability is a double edged sword. A trader needs to be able to adjust to conditional change without changing the rules that work, this kind of process is outside of a lot of people's abilities. Take flipping burgers for example. If you teach a man to flip a burger today, he can flip a burger for life. But if the conditions for flipping a burger was contingent on a larger range of variables which were constantly changing, then flipping a burger would require a completely different skill set and experience to be successful. You would need the knowledge of what a perfect burger is, and then be able to adapt your burger flipping rules to fit the current condition to produce a perfect burger ...and you'd be highly paid for it. Since that's not the case, I'd strongly recommend against pursuing a career in burger flipping.

This poll is subjective and biased. Excellent qualities to avoid as a trader. Someone can find value in a book without it being sacred. Can be aware that Livermore took his own life with it changing their perspective of the information they found useful. A trader doesn't need to only judge their performance on times they're making money to find some benefit in the information Livermore shared during a period he was successful. I'm far more interested in reading the thoughts a successful person than the criticisms of someone who isn't.

I agree with this rebuttal. I would add that the markets are tougher since the 2008 crash for a number of reasons. The market has been thinner, and without the larger block traders counterbalancing moves, price action has become more erratic. (yes, this is partially due to HST as well) but with so many participants sidelined or heavily invested in bonds or black swan funds this year, trading conditions have not been optimal. Also, many traders become good at one thing during a long market phase where conditions remained constant. When conditions changed, many traders couldn't adapt. This has been true since the inception of the markets. Livermore was a great plunger but lost money in accumulation phases or rallies. Rally traders have had a tough go at it since the crash. A lot of people in general could make money in an easy trending market, but now profitability requires a higher level of skill. Personally, my profits are down this year, but abiding to the basic rules of capital preservation are necessary when conditions are choppy. The wait time between trades has increased, but there are still plenty of good trades to be had. Just not as many until market conditions improve again. Some people don't understand this. For instance, ML Global. Corzine was playing by an old rulebook in a treacherous market. Leveraging 40% in the currencies market during a period of heavy Central Bank intervention was suicidal. On the flipside you had someone like Bill Gross, who bet wrong on inflation and missed the Bond move, but still managed to squeak out a 1% profit overall for PIMCO. He was criticized for making a bad bet, but the firm didn't take a loss. The markets are cyclical. When conditions improve, many of the lazy people and cowboys (who should have never been trading in the first place) will be gone, but sophisticated traders who have honed their edge through this time will reap the rewards. It's been a great opportunity and challenge for anyone willing to step up their game.

this job requires math skills. back to the broom closet with you.

If you check out the commercial section on FF there's an active discussion going on there about the broker password issue. I think the thread is called "Currensee Security Risk". With certain brokers you do need to provide your password and login to use the Curensee service. I was initially curious about Currensee, until I read that thread. It wasn't so much the issue surrounding the password that turned me off. It was the Currensee owner attacking traders on a public forum and calling members there idiots that bothered me. The other thing the Currensee owner discussed is that he is planning on providing a signal service based on the good traders who are posting their trades on Currensee. This rubs me the wrong way for a number of reasons. First, because Currensee is being promoted as a trading community. If in fact, part of the business model is aggregating data for other purposes or other ventures, then people should be aware of this. Second, if you have a large number of retail traders exposing their positions and stops in a single location on the internet, signals are not the only information Currensee can collect for other purposes. POs and SLs would be very useful to brokers as well, in terms of seeing where large order blocks are sitting and stop losses are clustered. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel. And since Currensee is developing relationships with brokers in terms of being able to access login and password details (and in MB Trading's case your key code) one hand could certainly could wash the other. Who knows? The other disturbing thing about Currensee is the Trade Leaders Program, where you need to make Currensee your IB, pay them a management fee, plus a rebate,(and they get a rebate from investors mirroring your trades on Currensee) plus a percentage of performance fee. The deeper you dig, the more you see, and I've only researched this for a day or two. Do some research for yourself and form your own opinions. My opinion is trading is a business, not social networking. Confusing the two could prove disastrous.