Are Traders bad people?

There are bad traders?

Are there bad professions too?
Like lawyers, doctors, businessmen (selling weapons) for example.

Most situations have winners and losers,
very few the win/win below the line.

Is a doctor working for 1 USD better than a doctor working for 100 USD, latter donating a lot?

Is Gates a bad person? - He 'gives us Windows' and get billionaire, possibly a bit of win/win. But on the other side theres is the 'Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation' donating blns.

I think, (bad or good) person is determined by his doing overall. Not earned enough? - So nothing to donate, to spend. Professional traders' business fixed asset is money, no machine to produce a car. So he's very cautious with his asset. But beyond this they are people like the literal average - may be good or bad.

josch

Today I was a good trader, at least while I was sitting here making good money from Forex. Then Bang, the market dropped big time and as usual I did not have a stop loss in place and have lost a lot of money.
Will I ever learn to put a Stop Loss in place, although I did earlier and got stopped out within 10 minutes with the US Dollar dropping big time against the UK£.

Oh well still got 10 trades on that could go anyway, with the Big News from the "White House" Expected next week....!!!!

I think it is not as much a question whether you are well to do or not as what are you doing with your wealth when you have it.
If you take your money for granted, use it only to fulfill your most pedestrian selfish needs and regard all others who have less than you as inferiors only because they have less in terms of wealth than you can start pondering whether or not you are a good human being - but I guess if one is already that guy such thoughts will rarely enter his mind.

We live in a world, in which rich countries exploit poor countries and we cannot do anything about it short term because the entire world economy is based on this principle. Maybe therefore if someone is rich he/she should feel some obligation to help out less fortunate.
As to multi-billion dollar foundations of guys like Jobbs of Gates. I will always wonder whether they are an expression of their good hearts or maybe just a safety valve for their guilty conscience. After all on some level they just can't be unaware that they are ripping enormous benefit from China price, which is in turn a product of slave labor (among other abominable practices).

You hear bad things about people doing well when others are doing not so good. Does not mean you are bad.... It means you are SMARTER !!! And there will always be jealous people. Kinda like a surgeon getting a big paycheck after he saves your life after a tragic accident. Did he profit off your misery? should he work for free? get minimum wage? It took a great deal of commitment and gave up so much to get a medical degree so that he could make that good money... People just get jealous of hard working smarter people !!!

Depends !



well i would say if a person comes up to me and wants to store his hard earned cash in my safe and i take that money and go trading without him knowing that nor his premission to do so .. well then iam a bad person ..

iam even more badass if i sell him a product i came up with wich ´guarantees´ him some profits.. just to raise more money to trade with .. well yes then iam a bad person ... (hint hint )<<>> (Banks)


but if i see an opportunity to make money and that is trading the markets and i study this game and the participants and iam well aware of the risks .. and i use my own hard earned cash .. well then i am just a participant of the game.. and do no harm to anybody except my own....

dont blame the game , blame the paycheckplayers

Well, it is not always like that, is it? Do you feel smarter for being born in US instead of Somalia, which enabled you to write here on FF instead of dying of hunger?
But sure thing - there are lots of people like that. They'd be more glad to see you going down than to see themselves going up. There's even a famous anecdote about it in my country.

What if.... it is a flawed premise?

I will probably will take a lot of flack for this.......but

There seems to be a consensus that, donating sums of money is a good thing.
Feeling bad for someones misfortune, is a bad thing.
and so on..

If (for example) you play a video game, do you feel bad for winning?
Do you feel bad for whacking enemy soldiers in a "call of duty" or similar game?
Why do you presume that this "reality" is anything more then elaborate playground for us.
And I do mean "us" as something more then obvious egos with a names, jobs, families and so on.

Good question!
I do not think traders are "bad" people because the end goal of any business/profession is to make money no matter if the money comes at the expense of customers, competitors, or colleagues. And so are traders.
I did not hear of any business/professional who slowed down the progress of his/her business for the sake and in sympathy with some other party. He/she might feel sorry for him at best, but things will proceed as forcefully as it can. Needless to say that the standard of success today is -unfortunately- the:$, well, at least for now

Saying that, I would add that I do not feel comfortable identifying my profession as a "trader from home", because I believe that I am not contributing towards the betterment of the society while earning my livelihood. The case is different With other professions where you do contribute something and get paid in return. However, personally, I will keep going at it for the simple reason that I was forced into this business...and this is another interesting story....Have a good day

The biggest contribution to society anyone can make, is to live a happy life.
The more happy individuals we have, the better our society will become.

Of course we're contributing, look at all the taxes we pay !!!! WE contribute to section 8 , utility assistance, food stamps, health insurance etc etc.... .. etc etc etc etc !!!

It depends on how you define "happy". I believe "happiness" comes out of achieving our goals in life which is to develop our inner potentialities (mental, physical, and moral) and the conditions and potentialities of those who are around us as much as we can, starting but not ending with our family members. We work and live towards achieving this goal, and as much as we succeed as much we will be happy.
By just trading I feel I will not be working towards this end, Unless I find some other venues (voluntary work, charity contribution...etc.) along my trading "profession".

Exactly right, that's why please, do not tell me what is required to be happy.
We all have our own ideas and needs.
You just need to follow your own bliss.

The bad people are not the currency traders, they take what they can from other currency traders.
The real bad people are a BIG stock traders, they can make the stock market crash by massive selling, wait till a bottom has formed and then buying back for pennies on the dollar.
Leaving average people with half of their retirement savings left.

I am not telling you how to be happy, Sir. I am saying this is my conviction of what is "happiness" and what is our goal in life. On the other hand, I know many people who find there happiness in earning money, and many others in career success, and some in social work, and many in having fun and entertainment..and so on.

have a good day

For some reason I was reading this and I thought of this thread

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/...174212622.html

I guess people are generally good but it's a wholly different when trading mishaps from a computer screen

OP should ask him/herself honestly what would you do if found a safe stuffed with gold if in Japan, return it or not? Then you can know if you're a bad or good person.

brian tracy once said that "the best way to help the poor is not becoming one of them".

everything sums up would be zero, in trading or in any business, you make money when others loose it. There're no reason not to be happy, and that's right, you help the poor by not become one of them..

Traders react to market forces. You reacted correctly. At the same time your conscious told you someone else was suffering. It is good to address those thoughts. Donate some of your profit all the time and that will help you and others. We are small people in a very large world and small traders in a very large market.

I've been sitting here trying to get a good post in for a bout 10 minutes. But I simply can't get it together because I can't understand how this is actually a serious question.

With the amount of media out there on all of the various atrocities happening around the world, you are going ponder whether being a trader makes one a bad person?!

Reminds me of the 'witnesses' that come by and talk to me EVERY DAMN WEEKEND.

I think you need a bit more perspective. If that's too hard to do, think of yourself as a liquidity provider.

Hi,
A simple truth - "the world doesn't owe you a living", so as a trader
i'm using all the knowledge and experience i've/will aquire, to enable me
to stand on my own two feet and pay my own way through this life.