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Is trading not considered a job?

  • #41
  • Mar 14, 2015 11:21pm Mar 14, 2015 11:21pm
Quoting emanco
A few days ago a girl bashed me for the time I'm wasting on trading. She said it's not a real job and I'm just a dreamer. She's a salesgirl in a mall and claims to be more important than me since I do my main job also sitting in front of a computer. I should get a real job and work my ass like she does. I didn't tell her how much I earn though. I kept being calm and grinned because she's quite the opposite of me. I'm fit and workout and usually very calm. She's chubby and always angry. But it made me think how average people sees trading nowadays....
I'm more curious whats your relationship with the chubby mall girl that is the opposite of you? I mean obviously there is a relationship in their but by your description seems interesting.
There are those who know, and there are those who don't know.
  • #42
  • Mar 15, 2015 5:06am Mar 15, 2015 5:06am
traders provide liquidity to markets. what if farmer doesn't want to take future of product price risk? who trade with farmer? Traders...
  • #43
  • Mar 15, 2015 8:04am Mar 15, 2015 8:04am
Hello all, hello Emanco!
Your short story has the seed of a very delicate and powerful topic.
I should start with the shortest answer: You shouldn't give one pip about her opinion.

Trading is the hardest and simplest job in the universe.

People do not understand that money is a tool, not an object.
People can not cope with the stress of a job where each mistake equals to a loss in the paycheck. Imagine you are at an office job and you forget to send an e-mail, as a consequence you lose 5%. People would stop doing their jobs because of fear.

Trading is seen so poorly by outsiders because they lack the understanding of leverage, stop loss, take profit, money management, technical analysis and fundies.
They perceive it as a gambling marathon. When you win : " ha-ha that was luck", when you lose : "lol what a looser, you should get a REAL job".

Trading your own capital is peanuts compared to managing investment capital. believe me.
Short history:
When i was 17 i saw a banner on a website with the Romanian stock exchange. It was love at first sight. Upon further research i found out that i needed real cash (+10k) to play in that league. That was really disappointing... but, a week later i first met the forex casino ). first demo opened was at forex.com. Down the line a couple of months, after i was 18, i opened a real account with fxpro with 500$ that i put aside. I was trading 0.5 )) i still remember one day i lost 100$ in 4 minutes. i was demolished. That's when i understood what forex really is.

Fast forward a 2 years and i was finally pulling a year in profit. (~20%). I was really happy but since i was trading a ~1kusd account that 20% gain wasn't actually a fortune.lol. That's when i realized that money makes money, so i started looking around for some investor. Bare in mind that a normal bank gives you an interest of 3-5&/y on a deposit. I was gaining 5 times that much so the main target was relatives that hold cash in bank deposits.

It was REALLY hard to explain what i was actually doing, let alone ask money (money that stood in the bank with no risk). After a couple of months of explaning and showing extensive performance stats i got from my uncle an amount equal to 50% of my account. This was a major win in my uphill battle.

The months after i got my 1st investor followed the madness in the XAU bubble. i was up 110%. I was a superstar. Once my uncle spread the news everyone wanted to find out more about whats going on. in half a year i got 5 more relatives investors and some 3 out side friends.
I told them all that i'm aiming for 15-20%/ y, but they all wanted the 100% bonzana.

At the peak i had 12 investors and an account 21 times bigger than my initial one. But, everything came back to earth. the following years. i had 12%, 18%, 10%. Half of those 12 took their money out and put it back into bank account (fuck the human need for safety) the rest are still with me, but they are bugging me every week about whats the money doing.

So, all in all, trading is the hardest and easiest job in the world.
Easy: you can do it while watching a movie and smoking a joint.
Hard: every mistake bites you in the ass. You do not know what tomorrow will happen, no safety net. what you make is what you have.

Trading (FX) is NOT a get rich quick scheme. You cannot learn it and be consistent in 1 month. At some point you will fail and you will consider changing your hobby.
Trading is a place of conflicts. You have to humble, but aggressive, confident, but flexible, smart, but foolish.
Trading is against human nature.
That girl you were taking about is the example of an ordinary human. Go to job at 10am, do a set of tasks, finish at 5pm, and get money of the 30th of the month.

I think i wrote enough for today
Keep fighting, keep believing in yourself, stop listening to those that doubt what you do.
Good luck all!
  • #44
  • Mar 15, 2015 8:13am Mar 15, 2015 8:13am
nice and interesting story.
I would never take money from other people, this comes always with problems.
I started with a small account and made good results the last 2,5 years and I don't have to answer nasty questions.
But i can imagine, that this is a bit annoying for you
  • #45
  • Mar 15, 2015 8:36am Mar 15, 2015 8:36am
Quoting BooG
Hello all, hello Emanco! Your short story has the seed of a very delicate and powerful topic. I should start with the shortest answer: You shouldn't give one pip about her opinion. Trading is the hardest and simplest job in the universe. People do not understand that money is a tool, not an object. People can not cope with the stress of a job where each mistake equals to a loss in the paycheck. Imagine you are at an office job and you forget to send an e-mail, as a consequence you lose 5%. People would stop doing their jobs because of fear. Trading...
thanks for sharing your story!
  • #46
  • Mar 15, 2015 10:39am Mar 15, 2015 10:39am
Even though this book isn't a trading book, it's an extremely popular motivation/personal finance book, if you will.. Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I feel like traders have fully embraced the 'make your money work for you, don't work for money' philosophy. I am young and to me it is important to make your money work for you from an early age so that you have the freedom to do whatever you want later on in life. The girl at the mall sounds like she is stuck in the rat race and working 40 hours a week for some dumpy paycheck with blinders on like horse just working for her employer, not herself. Traders are self-motivated individuals that have personal goals and I don't think that there is anything wrong with that. A lot of people will say "get a real job," but to me this is a real job. It's alright if other people don't agree with us traders. Agree to disagree and let them get back to their "real job" while you can go trade or do whatever else interests you in your free time!

(This is in no way an advertisement for the book mentioned above. I simply mentioned it because it talks a lot about having your money work for yourself to escape the rat race. I just think that traders are the ultimate example of this.)
Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.
  • #47
  • Mar 15, 2015 11:53am Mar 15, 2015 11:53am
Quoting kuroro001
{quote} You may have not produced anything trading, but what will you do with the all money you made? Put in under your mattress? No, you will spend it, buy more thing, more expansive things that you may not afford with a "classic" job. And by spending this ton of cash this is the compensation of the fact you don't produce anything. I hope you understand what i mean
That profit made from trading, assuming markets are zero sum, is collected off other participants, so...a successful trader is merely spending someone elses potential spending money...? So again, other than providing some liquidity to the market, the sole trader has produced near nothing.

Quoting stt
{quote} As for traders adding real value - capitalist society cant work without markets and markets cant exist without traders. So there you have it. Trading provides an optimal allocation of capital. They make market efficient so that money is used for worthy things. BTW what do you think of all these hedge funds just out of curiosity? they must be totally useless as well :-)[/.
Bank traders, hedge funds and large investors adequately fill that requirement for markets, small time (sub 1ish'mill accounts) sole traders trading for a living make little impact to the market, unless that market is perhaps pork bellies. Sole traders have near zero impact on capital allocation just due to the shear size imbalance of trading accounts of a person to an institution. I'm sure many traders would agree that they couldn't give 2 F's about the betterment of their trading decisions, price goes up price goes down, people priced out of their 2nd of 2 meals for the day, don't care, as long as they make money. I hardly would consider this approach as ensuring money moved in trading decisions is to more 'worthy things'. At least hedge funds would try to take a long term position and invest in something they believe will grow, at least they could be adding money to a business that creates something.

Again, I'm not bagging trading for a living, I hope to one day, I just think it's disingenuous to think for an individual sitting in their room at home all day, saying they're adding to the efficiency of markets and adding liquidity on their sub 1mill accounts, is their way of adding value to society, whilst their nurse partner just came off a double shift says well done. Someone like George Soros or Warren Buffet is a different story, as they've become business like in themselves.
  • #48
  • Mar 15, 2015 11:56am Mar 15, 2015 11:56am
Quoting BooG
Hello all, hello Emanco! Your short story has the seed of a very delicate and powerful topic. I should start with the shortest answer: You shouldn't give one pip about her opinion. Trading is the hardest and simplest job in the universe. People do not understand that money is a tool, not an object. People can not cope with the stress of a job where each mistake equals to a loss in the paycheck. Imagine you are at an office job and you forget to send an e-mail, as a consequence you lose 5%. People would stop doing their jobs because of fear. Trading...
we don't predict, we only ride
  • #49
  • Mar 15, 2015 11:58am Mar 15, 2015 11:58am
Quoting Naokia980
traders provide liquidity to markets. what if farmer wants* to take future of product price risk? who trade with farmer? Traders...
Purest example there is. Then more traders create a more efficient market, but at the same time isn't this already accomplished by large traders and institutions? A trader from home on a small account is hardly adding any value here. That's what I'm getting at.
  • #50
  • Mar 15, 2015 12:30pm Mar 15, 2015 12:30pm
Quoting emanco
A few days ago a girl bashed me for the time I'm wasting on trading. She said it's not a real job and I'm just a dreamer. She's a salesgirl in a mall and claims to be more important than me since I do my main job also sitting in front of a computer. I should get a real job and work my ass like she does. I didn't tell her how much I earn though. I kept being calm and grinned because she's quite the opposite of me. I'm fit and workout and usually very calm. She's chubby and always angry. But it made me think how average people sees trading nowadays....
Trading is not considered a job because 99% of "traders" are short-lived gamblers, of course there is always the exception that confirm the rule.

As for the contribution that trading do to society, let's say that profits are a huge contribution to society, profits are used to buy cars, buy food, buy goods from small and big companies/shops, restaurants, services, overall a trader is a great contributor of the country's economy he spends profits in, and these profits comes from outside the local economy (from the worldwide financial markets!), so it is really a real contribution to the economy.

Also, going around bragging to be a trader may not be a very friendly attitude, some of us make in one day what an average "worker" make in a whole year, or even more. It's better to stay silent and enjoy life without bragging it to the normal people, that by the way play important roles in the society (they work on shops, restaurants, services, etc.).
  • #51
  • Mar 15, 2015 12:53pm Mar 15, 2015 12:53pm
Quoting tunera
{quote}Also, going around bragging to be a trader may not be a very friendly attitude, some of us make in one day what an average "worker" make in a whole year, or even more. It's better to stay silent and enjoy life without bragging it to the normal people, that by the way play important roles in the society (they work on shops, restaurants, services, etc.).
Well, she asked what I do for a living and I told her I work on the computer and do occasional trading. I guess it's better to not say anything. I'll say next time that I'm a pusher, that might be less awkward!

Quoting palabara
{quote} I'm more curious whats your relationship with the chubby mall girl that is the opposite of you? I mean obviously there is a relationship in their but by your description seems interesting.
Let's say she wants to be more than just friends. We tease each other often.
  • #52
  • Mar 15, 2015 2:16pm Mar 15, 2015 2:16pm
Quoting shellsnail
This is a very good question. I've thought about it quite a bit and here is one interpretation that I have come up with. 1. Traders get paid for enabling capitalism. As individual traders, we can't do much, but together, we make the market. It's a bit paradoxical, but it doesn't mean it's untrue. We help the world function. 2a. Traders get paid for weeding out irrationality. Staying on top of emotions is key to trading well. Traders who can't think logically and act on those thoughts will fail in the market. Good traders take money away from those...
Best post on this thread so far. OP, next time the mall girl wants to talk about trading, tell her these things. They happen to be all true.
If you are good at something, never do it for free--Joker
  • #53
  • Mar 15, 2015 2:44pm Mar 15, 2015 2:44pm
Start making some decent money. People will look at what you do in a new way, a better one. Been there, done that.

Once money is there, it attracts parasites
COT: The precious data ignored
  • #54
  • Mar 15, 2015 9:44pm Mar 15, 2015 9:44pm
Quoting jeanlouie
{quote} That profit made from trading, assuming markets are zero sum, is collected off other participants, so...a successful trader is merely spending someone elses potential spending money...? So again, other than providing some liquidity to the market, the sole trader has produced near nothing. {quote} Bank traders, hedge funds and large investors adequately fill that requirement for markets, small time (sub 1ish'mill accounts) sole traders trading for a living make little impact to the market, unless that market is perhaps pork bellies....
Thats like saying Microsoft's programmers are enough to write software so high school kids shouldn't try learning code and building new things. Who says bank's traders are competent and are enough to make market efficient? If a sole trader at home is making money, he is certainly making market more efficient (just by definition otherwise he would not make money).
Think : Trade : Live Life
  • #55
  • Mar 16, 2015 1:39pm Mar 16, 2015 1:39pm
Quoting stt
{quote} Thats like saying Microsoft's programmers are enough to write software so high school kids shouldn't try learning code and building new things. Who says bank's traders are competent and are enough to make market efficient? If a sole trader at home is making money, he is certainly making market more efficient (just by definition otherwise he would not make money).
No, it would be like saying someone living in an apartment with a small balcony, deciding they want to start a farm on it, with the idea that they will be as valuable to the market of people that eat greens as 100 hectare farm owners. Until their balcony farm grows to a substantial size, their contribution is miniscule, well, at least they'd be producing something real and tangible, ie food. In your example, are you equating a hypothetical person that is on a team to program software that 100's of millions upto billions of people and businesses use, to a sole trader with an account less than a 1mill, as being equal in their production to society? Software requires innovation and updating too morph to changing needs, investing/trading largely follows the same rules albeit tweaked every few years or so, in other words, there is probably zero innovation coming up from small home traders that would filter out to the wider market.

"Who says bank's traders are competent +he is certainly making market more efficient (just by definition otherwise he would not make money" You just answered your own question, who ever pays the institutional trader 6+ figures has determined they are worth that much, whilst handling enormous sums of money. Another thing, this idea of small time traders making the market more efficient, I suppose techincally it's true, more participants=more points of view finding a new price, but how would adding another small time trader to the market increase its' efficiency by any measurable amount? This ain't some thinly traded futures contract, this is fx.

Plumber "I fixed 4 taps, 3 blocked sinks and started laying new piping in a house today", sub 1mill home trader "I helped make the market more efficient by ~1x10^-9%" lol, geez.
  • #56
  • Mar 16, 2015 2:46pm Mar 16, 2015 2:46pm
Quoting jeanlouie
{quote} No, it would be like saying someone living in an apartment with a small balcony, deciding they want to start a farm on it, with the idea that they will be as valuable to the market of people that eat greens as 100 hectare farm owners. Until their balcony farm grows to a substantial size, their contribution is miniscule, well, at least they'd be producing something real and tangible, ie food. In your example, are you equating a hypothetical person that is on a team to program software that 100's of millions upto billions of people and businesses...
You must be a pro-monopolist and anti-entrepreneur.

Many big ventures started in garages.

Little innovation over years is coming from doctors, lawyers, bathroom tissue manufactures, mom & pop stores, you name it...
  • #57
  • Mar 16, 2015 2:55pm Mar 16, 2015 2:55pm
Guys,calm down.. You cant handle the processes in forex with simple logic..
  • #58
  • Mar 16, 2015 8:40pm Mar 16, 2015 8:40pm
Quoting emanco
A few days ago a girl bashed me for the time I'm wasting on trading. She said it's not a real job and I'm just a dreamer. She's a salesgirl in a mall and claims to be more important than me since I do my main job also sitting in front of a computer. I should get a real job and work my ass like she does. I didn't tell her how much I earn though. I kept being calm and grinned because she's quite the opposite of me. I'm fit and workout and usually very calm. She's chubby and always angry. But it made me think how average people sees trading nowadays....
Understand this:

You do not get paid to trade. You get paid based on your performance. Trading is a challenge, and sometimes challenges require devotions similar to devotions associated with "work."

Race car drivers don't get paid to drive. They get paid to win.
  • #59
  • Mar 16, 2015 9:23pm Mar 16, 2015 9:23pm
Hi all.

Im a trader myself and i like to write something if trading FX could replace your regular job?

First of all yes you can replace your regular job but it will not be easy and not in the waye poeple maye think!

Because you need to understand that you need a lot of experience to get at 5% winners in forex, but that's not with daytrading, daytrading is wast of time ill suggest you start a lot of demo testing at least 6 months for every new strategy, after that you start with a small amount and follow your trade plan don't get greedy and don't fear. in the that period you will improving your strategy and change a small account into a big one. but dont daytrade you can make living with partime trading look at chart 3 times a day! dont trade look for 200 pips plus trades and never risk more than 1%
  • #60
  • Mar 16, 2015 9:49pm Mar 16, 2015 9:49pm
Quoting tlaug
Hi all. Im a trader myself and i like to write something if trading FX could replace your regular job? First of all yes you can replace your regular job but it will not be easy and not in the waye poeple maye think! Because you need to understand that you need a lot of experience to get at 5% winners in forex, but that's not with daytrading, daytrading is wast of time ill suggest you start a lot of demo testing at least 6 months for every new strategy, after that you start with a small amount and follow your trade plan don't get greedy and don't...
I'm sorry but that's a lot of BS. There are more than a few people here who bang out 20-30 pips a day daytrading including myself. Just because you can't do something don't assume others can't.
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