So I've been wanting to write this post for a few years but I knew it would meet with a lot of anger and objection but here goes anyways.
You all are living an imaginary dream.
A career as a retail trader long term (7 plus years) is almost impossible, the ratio is not 5% its more like 1%.
I have been trading for a very long time and the only reason that I have survived multiple market conditions is because I was mentored for 1 year as a floor trader and then for another few years as a desk trader for a few institutions.
After I left the "professional" world of trading I lost a lot of money and even recently lost some money trying to figure things out and it was rough but overall I have survived and prospered.
The biggest lie that you have been told is that "Price movement is predictable" and simple to understand and that some indicator or chart reading method will somehow turn you into a professional trader. Before I address this lie I want to discuss what a true "professional" trader looks like from my world.
As a professional institutional trader we got salaries and bonus's (if we preformed well) but we didn't make income from trading profits. We made income from working on trades the firm gave us to manage. So for example Mercedes Benz gave the firm an order for 100 million Euros to hedge the current price vs where they think it will be in 30 days when they deliver their cars to America. They signed a Forward Agreement and our desk gets the order to fill. If we get better then the volume weighted average price over the period of time we get a bonus. Thats what 90% of the forex / currency exchange market is. Large orders that are being "worked" by either an institutional client or a large order thats being placed by a Macro Fund. Some orders are from the producer of products and an equal number are from the consumer of products or services and it all depends on each companies position whether they are buyers or sellers and their time horizons. At any give time we could be working 100 very large orders a day all at different prices and directions based on different time horizons. This goes on at over 200 large institutions day in and day out.
The retail world just does not understand the RANDOMNESS of trading, this is the 2nd biggest lie that you are lead to believe. If you think that price movement is predictable then you are a fool because you just don't understand the randomness of orders hitting the market from all directions "most" of the time.
Most of the time... being 90% of the time ... price movement is random.
So when is price movement not random ?
10% of the time when some information enters the market that changes the randomness and forces the majority of institutions and their clients to adjust their positions to account for the new information.
Just look at any chart and look at when price moves and if you count the total number of bars where price moves in an opposing or changing direction you will see this is about 10% of the time. The rest of the time is just Random Noise of orders being filled back and forth.
Your all staring at all that random noise and your all trying to make sense of the wrong information.
Be careful out there folks
You all are living an imaginary dream.
A career as a retail trader long term (7 plus years) is almost impossible, the ratio is not 5% its more like 1%.
I have been trading for a very long time and the only reason that I have survived multiple market conditions is because I was mentored for 1 year as a floor trader and then for another few years as a desk trader for a few institutions.
After I left the "professional" world of trading I lost a lot of money and even recently lost some money trying to figure things out and it was rough but overall I have survived and prospered.
The biggest lie that you have been told is that "Price movement is predictable" and simple to understand and that some indicator or chart reading method will somehow turn you into a professional trader. Before I address this lie I want to discuss what a true "professional" trader looks like from my world.
As a professional institutional trader we got salaries and bonus's (if we preformed well) but we didn't make income from trading profits. We made income from working on trades the firm gave us to manage. So for example Mercedes Benz gave the firm an order for 100 million Euros to hedge the current price vs where they think it will be in 30 days when they deliver their cars to America. They signed a Forward Agreement and our desk gets the order to fill. If we get better then the volume weighted average price over the period of time we get a bonus. Thats what 90% of the forex / currency exchange market is. Large orders that are being "worked" by either an institutional client or a large order thats being placed by a Macro Fund. Some orders are from the producer of products and an equal number are from the consumer of products or services and it all depends on each companies position whether they are buyers or sellers and their time horizons. At any give time we could be working 100 very large orders a day all at different prices and directions based on different time horizons. This goes on at over 200 large institutions day in and day out.
The retail world just does not understand the RANDOMNESS of trading, this is the 2nd biggest lie that you are lead to believe. If you think that price movement is predictable then you are a fool because you just don't understand the randomness of orders hitting the market from all directions "most" of the time.
Most of the time... being 90% of the time ... price movement is random.
So when is price movement not random ?
10% of the time when some information enters the market that changes the randomness and forces the majority of institutions and their clients to adjust their positions to account for the new information.
Just look at any chart and look at when price moves and if you count the total number of bars where price moves in an opposing or changing direction you will see this is about 10% of the time. The rest of the time is just Random Noise of orders being filled back and forth.
Your all staring at all that random noise and your all trying to make sense of the wrong information.
Be careful out there folks
