What is a Professional Trader?

[mktwzrd 10]

what do you consider a "professional" trader?

 

i'd say any institutional trader, as well as retail traders with an annual income at or exceeding U.S.$ 550,000 and/or net worth greater than U.S.$ 3 million

 

maybe the term is reserved for institutional traders only

 

what do you think?

[chaotic1 10]

Can you really properly define whether a person is qualified to have a certain career by the amount of money they make? I qualify a professional trader as someone whose primary income is earned through trading.

[Kiwi 16]

I actually doubt that there is such a thing as a professional trader.

 

Certainly most bank traders I've known hardly qualify as professionals in the same sense that a doctor or engineer can be a professional. Its not as laughable as a "professional real estate consultant" but it is almost as unlikely.

 

To quote: "A professional is a member of a vocation founded upon specialised educational training". Trading is both a vocation and an avocation but it isn't founded upon specialised educational training (normally 3-6 years long).

 

Certainly one can be an employed (institutional) trader, a semi-employed (profit sharing) trader, or a self-employed trader. But not professional. One can also be a consistently profitable trader; an impressively profitable trader (500k+); a well bankrolled trader (3M+); but none of those things make one a professional.

 

Employed traders have training in something else (physics, finance, fine arts) and then find their niche just as salesmen and others in potentially enormously profitable employment situations usually do (I can't recall all the salesmen I knew who started out as accountants and just got too bored).

 

So; there is no such thing as a professional trader.

 

I am a trader by choice and I am consistently profitable and I have a high nett worth, and I have 3 University Degrees, but none of that makes me a professional.

[bathrobe 10]

Income is earned from trading. That is how I would define it. Trading is my profession, my bills and lifestyle are paid for with profits.

[sneo 10]

i believe the term is just to differentiate either amateur or non-amateur (so-called professional) for discussion of experience, skills and the way one conducts the activity (as a business or as a hobby).

[Kiwi 16]

Yes, my definition was too limited, that's the modern movement of the original term. It used to imply a body of knowledge, standards of behaviour, the ability for the Profession to disown you and revoke your right to practice.

 

But you are right: tiger is a professional golfer and it doesn't really matter what he does. Similar to professional rugby league players down under - there are no limits. Or Nick G at Barings - I think he's back

 

So the adapted meaning is simply:

2a. Does it to earn money as opposed to for fun (professional gambler)

2b. Does it with the intention of keeping at it permanently (professional soldier).

 

If you adopt those definitions then a professional trader is one who:

- does it to earn money as opposed to dabbling for fun

- intends to keep on doing it rather than do it for a few years and move to something else.

 

If you can answer either of those in the affirmative then you are a professional trader.

 

So I guess I have to change my original statement to: "There is no Profession of trading."