Just an interesting stat that I ran across at an off-topic site about forestry and pine plantation management:

As pine stands grow and mature, individual trees compete for light, soil moisture, nutrients and space. Many trees are crowded by faster-growing neighbors and die. Thousands of pine seedlings populate a naturally seeded acre...However, at maturity only 50 to 100 large-diameter, saw timber pine trees, greater than 20 inches, remain. More than 90 percent of the trees die. Source

The "90% fail rate" caught my attention - a number I had heard somewhere else...

The life cycle for traders is much shorter than 35 years, but I had always thought the high fail rate was "unnecessary". Perhaps it is more "natural" than I thought.

I believe the 90% figure counts those as give up as losers, so they didn't necessarily blow out their account, they just stopped. Although from all the brokers I talked to, I think a lot do blow out...

It's the nature of this business. All you have to do is look around the forum to see the kinds of posts people are writing, and it is clear some of them have no business trading - they don't know what they are doing and are really not interested in learning. So trading gives them what they truly want, thrill.

"Win or lose, everyone gets what they want from the market" - Ed Seykota

Mike

bijeremiad 

Just an interesting stat that I ran across at an off-topic site about forestry and pine plantation management: As pine stands grow and mature, individual trees compete for light, soil moisture, nutrients and space. Many trees are crowded by faster-growing neighbors and die. Thousands of pine seedlings populate a naturally seeded acre...However, at maturity only 50 to 100 large-diameter, saw timber pine trees, greater than 20 inches, remain. More than 90 percent of the trees die. Source The "90% fail rate" caught my attention - a number I had heard somewhere else... The life cycle for traders is much shorter than 35 years, but I had always thought the high fail rate was "unnecessary". Perhaps it is more "natural" than I thought.

Comparing traders with pine trees is more than I bargained fir...

kevinkdog 

Comparing traders with pine trees is more than I bargained fir...

Luckily pines dont blow up that often

Vvhg