samanthasing

I agree that only a small percentage of people will ever succeed, which puts you in an a position where you will be extremely unlikely to be appreciated for passing on your knowledge to beginners. I don't believe it can be 'taught' as such, as everyone has their own personal goals when they start trading. When I was a total beginner I took tips and hints from friends and my broker, and just started slow.

Wow! Bringing a thread from the necropolis haha. I'm glad you did though, this is something that 99% of day traders will get hit hard by... and very few will overcome. I think the advice about opening your mind is great, you can't tackle futures trading with only the problem solving tools you've used on other markets or problems, you need to be able to adapt and find niches/ patterns/ systems that are new and fit to your needs. I also have noticed that more people seem to make livings from trading E-minis as well, but this may just be due to the futures traders within my immediate circle... and I wouldn't use it as a reason to not trade other contracts. Ultimately, if futures trading as a career feels right to you then you should (and probably don't need to be told to) try it! However, if you think you'll never be happy and the other areas of your life suffer because of the volatile nature of it then listen to your gut and find something that does deeply satisfy you.

I absolutely agree... the worst kind of regret is when you make a bad decision and can't immediately take action to satisfy the urge to amend your error. At least M-Th the longest you have to wait is overnight till you can get back in the action and have a feeling of progress/ profit, but two and a half days of plotting your revenge on the markets when you should be enjoying time with family, friends or at least doing something productive is just a waste!

Nice post. I think these are the people that spend many years futures trading, and I agree that it this case it does take on a deeper meaning as any 5+ year endeavor does... if you spend a significant amount of time and energy that'll give you as high of highs and as low of lows as futures trading does then I think it'd be impossible to keep it from reaching somewhere into your soul. But I think this doesn't apply entirely to why people are initially attracted to it, as 90% of people who try out futures trading are the ones who do not come to love it and fail relatively quickly. So I guess it depends on whether the OP meant why people were attracted to trading after or before they had experienced the lowest of the lows and the highest of the highs

I think it'd be a foolish endeavor bound to fail.... unless you assigned an action to when it falls on the side. I'd say sell all of your belongings, divorce your spouse if you have one, and move to Taipei to marry a prostitute (or three), but I'm pretty conservative so you might want to get a little crazier :missy:. If not for this you'd be sure to perish under the fickle futures trading gods.

^ I've heard some good things about autotrading platforms as well... but like shakespeare515 said, any broker will offer free demos so you just need to experiment to determine your trading style. On the subject of autotrading platforms, I think Strategy Runner Lite & Pro do autotrading, but this is off the top of my head and not something I've ever really looked into - just wanted to give a name to check out.

^ TheNegotiator I like the analysis overall, but I don't know if I agree with gambling just being a manifestation of opportunism. The idea behind gambling (in my mind) is that it is technically supposed to be random whether you win or lose. Of course there are different shades of this as some types of gambling involve more skill than others, like futures trading or poker. With these as your skill level increases your average reward should as well. However, ultimately the idea of pure gambling is that it's betting on a random outcome, and that bet carries with it a high reward to somewhat offset the high risk. By doing an analysis of the risk-reward ratio you can find that virtually all gambling is technically irrational, as all bets will have a negative NPV, and thus the mentality that drives people to gamble is irrational and warrants further analysis. Of course as your skill level increases in something like futures trading the NPV of your bets should go up too, and at some point maybe even become positive. Opportunism is just reaching for an opportunity when it is presented, and risk isn't an aspect of it. I fully agree that humans are all fundamentally opportunistic, but obviously the real world is more complicated than that.

I tend to think it's much less romantic than traders make it out to be. Ultimately human beings, and particularly investors, are overconfident. For example, I think if we asked everybody discussing on this thread if they thought they were an above average driver, 9/10 would say yes. Of course there are many factors that play into it, and it would be ignorant to not attribute some of it to the love of risk, opportunity to "make big bucks", and the potential for independence.

Really? Impressive! I can sometimes barely keep from going insane when I take a position home with me over the weekend... the stress really gets to me. The fact that you can't wait to trade some more is incredible to me. I don't mean that it's stupid at all, just surprising. Something that the others haven't mentioned is that you may want to take some time and look at long-term charts/ trends. As futures traders we get caught up in price movements at the level of individual ticks, so it's often hard to zoom out and keep perspective on the markets as a whole. I think that being able to manage this type of meta-perspective would help with your short-term trading as well, or at the very least it would provide some interesting insight into the economy (like whether we'll be paying $5.00/gal for gas this summer in the U.S.).

I think most online platforms offer a demo version as a way to suck you in and eventually take your money.. I mean as a way to introduce you to the platform and give you a chance to take it for a test run . I personally used a demo of Transact AT then NinjaTrader, and ultimately went with NinjaTrader. Remember though, trading with a demo isn't like live trading, as the fills you get won't reflect the ones you'd get on the actual market.