Bad Things About Beeing a Daytrader

[TroyMaster 10]

Hey Guys,

 

Im new to this topic and Im trying to figure out how and If it will work for me out, to be a daytrader.

 

I do have a background as professional Pokerplayer and I see a lot of similarities between the Poker-mindset and the Daygame-Mindset.

 

Im trying to figure out what might be the difference between playing Poker and trading.

Whenever I try to figure out how the lifestyle as a Daytrader is, more than often I get to hear this bullshit "how to be a succesfull trader"-advice webpages.

 

What Im really trying to figure out:

 

WHAT ARE THE DOWN SIDES OF BEEING A DAYTRADER?

 

Cheers

Troy

[electroniclocal 10]

NONE!!!!!!!!

(unless you are not profitable, of course).

[cplilqw 10]

I came from a poker background as well. The only difference is... the market is always right. So you can't exactly bully or take advantage of weaker players. Which makes self psychology more important than anything.

 

But everything else in poker is similar... figuring out your own style, waiting for your "setups", money management, managing emotions/tilt...

[UrmaBlume 10]

Hey Guys,........What Im really trying to figure out:

 

WHAT ARE THE DOWN SIDES OF BEEING A DAYTRADER?

 

Cheers

Troy

 

 

Almost exactly the same as they are in poker - especially if most of your play is online.

 

 

Cheers

 

UB

[StevenSJC 10]

Personally I think you'll come into this way more prepared than most. The fact that you understand odds, game theory, money management, etc... and probably regular losing hands -- along with your pot growing, drawing down, growing, et.c... means you are far beyond most who try their "hand" at trading.

 

Wouldn't surprise me if it works the other way as well -- that there are successful traders who do quite well i poker....

[emg 12]

Hey Guys,

 

Im new to this topic and Im trying to figure out how and If it will work for me out, to be a daytrader.

 

I do have a background as professional Pokerplayer and I see a lot of similarities between the Poker-mindset and the Daygame-Mindset.

 

Im trying to figure out what might be the difference between playing Poker and trading.

Whenever I try to figure out how the lifestyle as a Daytrader is, more than often I get to hear this bullshit "how to be a succesfull trader"-advice webpages.

 

What Im really trying to figure out:

 

WHAT ARE THE DOWN SIDES OF BEEING A DAYTRADER?

 

Cheers

Troy

 

Day Trading is no difference than playing a poker. A professional poker players manage their emotion smooth and that is no different than day trading. When emotion kicks in, the mind goes blank. And when the mind goes blank, u lose

[86834 10]

Day Trading is no difference than playing a poker. A professional poker players manage their emotion smooth and that is no different than day trading. When emotion kicks in, the mind goes blank. And when the mind goes blank, u lose

 

As this guy said. If you come from a professional poker background than you have a very high chance of doing well with day trading, it's just a case of learning how to use the right tools that are specific to trading

 

As with poker, sometimes you're up, sometimes you're down, but it's just about winning more than what you loose. Most people say they understand that they take losses along the way, but not many people really do understand it or expect it, and as result they just can't handle that side of things. As a professional poker player, you understand what the craic is so i'm not gonna patronise you

 

For the new guys.... with any business or any adventure that involves risk, you gotta be able to take the good and the bad and the happy and the sad. As I said above, sometimes you're up, sometimes you're down and when you're up it's never enough, and when you're down you think you're never going to get back ontop, but control your emotions, play the game and understand that for every low there's a higher high and heaven will never seems far away.

[zdo 20]

OP, when I sit down to live poker, online poker, and a trader station my subjective experience is different for all three. Other posters are covering the similarities (EV, MM, modulating emotions, etc, etc.) quite well. But, again, the qualities are different for me – before,during, and after ‘play’.

>Some of it is from the subjective utilities of the differing thinking processes btwn the games. In poker, my focus turns to include more of how individuals and the table as a small group is acting. In trading the group is too large for that – it’s more evaluations of large, cyclic / temporary factions, etc – so my focus is more on the fluid dealing, the ‘cards’ if you will, and my (computerized, visual mostly) representations of the auction than on people. Maybe that’s some of what you were getting at in your ‘math’ topic.

>Some of this is from a personal viewpoint that emerged with continuing ascendancy when I was giving gaming vs trading a lot of thought many years ago. This viewpoint is that gaming is a substitute, a verisimilar, a proxy for trading. From this perspective, gaming is portable, pretend trading. Each different game has some replacement role for real trading…. with poker emphasizing cloaking positions and deceit more than most other gaming games.

Trading has many more ways and methods from which to come at it than poker, ie more options of how to process and evaluate the current situation and opportunities and risks at hand – basically bcse substitutes for trading will have structural and discrete limits as they are not continuous, etc., in gaming, the ‘data streams’ are principally generated randomly instead of by humans like in trading, etc.

> And, some of these differences are from past (both simple and complicated) associations…

 

Two extreme cases:

My neighbor and friend eats and breathes poker and maybe does 10 stock trades a year (with good skill transference btw)

I eat and breathe trading and play poker only a few times a year (also with good skill transfer)

So it really distills down to which one you are able to master and enjoy most. hth

[Ericthetrader 10]

Poker I guess is more psychological, trading is strategic and your playing against the market.

[StevenSJC 10]

I'm not sure I'd agree -- there's tremendous psychological warfare underway with poker - agree that for most of us it's not in the pit where you see your enemy. Different than poker that way for sure. However, trying to judge, measure, analyze and take moves based upon analyzing the mass of people trading a given market is just as challenging. Your mind will do all kinds of horrible tricks on you when trading and I'm 100% sure it's the major reason for most peoples downfall when trading.

 

Clearly it's different to be at a table facing off against your enemy and being able to somewhat look them in the eye but I think the challenge, stress and drain on the mind and psychology might even be potentially be greater with trading off the floor.