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I start this journal feeling like a day trading refugee. Up until a couple days ago I was actively participating in the PATS common journal, having been learning and sim trading this method the last few months, and I even started a journal of it in the …
. I realize that this journal is in the Elite section and is not available to casual readers of this forum, but one should not make assumptions about things you don't know about.
That is great. So go ahead and do it. Until you do, live is live, and SIM is SIM. There is nothing at all wrong with SIM, but it is practice. It is not trading.
It is understandable that you don't like this message, but it is not reasonable to just reject it. It comes from real experience. The best advice is to pay it some attention.
A last point: this thread was started by @Big Mike to give a place for those who realize that they may need to give up the dream of trading to say so. This is a brave and honest statement, when it is the truth. There is no point for others to come in to say how great they are. It has a different purpose.
If you succeed, everyone will applaud and support you. If you have difficulty, you will still get the support, from all those who have been there and have struggled too. But tone down the boasting about how great you will be, once you go live. Even once you have become a great success, it would not ever be appropriate, and certainly not here.
There are a lot of positive examples and negative examples from the book.
On the negative side, he traded too big from the very first day.
On the positive side, he faced a lot of obstacles from the beginning. He actually got banned from trading and had to go to another town. Then he blew up his account and had to take as step back and go out of town.
Obstinate refusal to be give up in the face of spectacular failure after failure all the way to the end of his career.
He was making and losing and making and losing millions and 1930"s millions could be translated in hundreds of millions of today.
He was not a trader but a gambler and his addiction was not winning but losing. I partially read the book but it made me sad for him and I stopped reading it.
Nothing positive in this story except a good lesson maybe.
R.I.P. Olivier Terrier (aka "Okina"), 1969-2016.
Please visit this thread for more information.
Hey Bob..agree. SIM will be SIM unless someone trades of SIM exact the same way they do in live. Else SIM is a waste of time and has ZERO value.
Trading is a personal thing..... good traders will never boast that too on a public forum. The one's who do...congrats!!. A truly successful trader is actually devoid of emotion and may not find it necessary to express it on meaningless counter productive arguments. Anyways one's personal account balance will be worthy if one is good.... it makes zero sense to go announce one's bank balance to the world. Lol...with good friends or buddies one may share a thing here or there about markets & how they read markets...but i dont think it will ever be from a boasting standpoint. As the more cocky one gets the next slap can land on his face. Does not go to say that successful traders do not have ego...they do but it's to use it to their advantage.
anyways good that some share their good and bads of trading. Salute that. But there are many Amazing traders who are silent spectators and especially since they do not feel the need to justify or get into endless squabbles about proving their stuff..& why should they as it is not necessary ......i know for a certainty as i have one such individual as a mentor who taught me trading101. One of the most brilliant the world has seen imho. so good traders will not share & have no reason to do so. If they do it is only for pay back in some form.....nothing more...nothing less. And they will not do it for the sake of money for sure or expensive education.
i know for certain with hard work and application.... & like everything in life a lil bit of luck or the contact with the correct person.... anything is achievable......it's a limitless world
anyways cheers and gl to all. may all seek their objectives
The book ain't gospel, but it sure is an interesting read
@mattz - would love to hear your take on my question earlier about once successful traders who lose their edge. Given where you sit, I'd guess you've seen it happen
Could you please be very specific about what you need to know about traders losing their edge(?)
Would be more than happy to answer.
Matt Z
Optimus Futures
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For whatever it's worth, I did like the book. And grit certainly is good.
We have to realize that it was a fictionalized account, written by Lefevre, a journalist at the time (it is sometimes said to be an autobiography under a pen name, but it was not ), originally as a series of 12 articles in The Saturday Evening Post. This was a time when Livermore was a celebrity, and it does paint him in a very good light. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Lef%C3%A8vre )
Can we say whether he was a good or a bad trader? Who knows, really. He went up and down, and the market changed on him, as it does. It appears he did not adapt to that, which does not detract from his accomplishments, but it is also part of the real story.
He did not actually die broke; he was no longer successful in the market, and had lost the huge sums he once had, and gone into bankruptcy. But he had stashed away a significant amount of money in trusts. He also may have had clinical depression, which may have been a factor in his suicide. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Lauriston_Livermore )
In the end, I agree more with @mattz about the romanticizing of Livermore. The book is inspiring, which is fine, but it is not a blueprint for success, nor was his career, overall. I also have to say that the serious and heavy betting on the market going his way sounds great when it was working, but it did not serve him well in the end. So think @Okina has said it well overall.
Just my thoughts; I don't want to detract from anyone's hero, but this is all part of the real picture, in its good and bad parts.
Thanks mattz. I'm just curious if there might be certain personality traits or good habits that allow some traders to more readily identify and adapt to change than others. I shared a story earlier (post #329) about a trader who, after years of success, somehow lost his edge and ultimately chose to retire. Floor traders transitioning to electronic trading provide another interesting case study: why were some successful, while others failed?
I'm not looking for answers, per se, as every trader is unique and must ultimately answer these questions for himself. That said, it might be instructive to learn from the experiences and observations of others.
Thanks again to all who have contributed to this discussion.