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Was thinking about this again recently over the holidays.
The question is: "Do you admit to being a trader?". What I mean is that when you introduce yourself to someone and they ask what you do, what do you tell them? I have found that when I tell them I am a day trader they usually don't respond very well to that, it is apparent they do not believe it is a "real" job. I even had one guy recently respond immediately saying "you aren't one of those oil speculators are you, driving up the price for everyone?". Ugh, nice conversation starter - and you can't really "win" with these guys, I mean that you can't really make them understand/educate them. It's just casual conversation "What do you do?", the answer can't be an hour long...
So often times I don't tell people I trade, I just tell them I work from home running some computer related businesses. They seem to like that, it seems you are a success then.
Since I work during the day, I always bring my laptop around work and study charts and sim. And they ask why and what im doing. I tell them learning to trade. I get two different responses either negative "Ohhh so you wanna be Wall Street" and try to advise me to be careful with there limited knowledge in finance. Not knowing that you can make money when the market is going down. The second response being a flattering one "Wow you are going to make a lot of money!!" and this is when I try to break it down to them, of how hard it is. Because they don't understand when I tell them its not the chart that's hard its my reaction to the chart that's hard.
Yeah I get three responses. Either, thats cool, I always wanted to do that, can you teach me (groan), a deer in the headlights look and then follow up with lots of questions ..., or the you dirty speculator comment.
When I had full time job, I never brought trading up. Now that I am trading full time, I usually do, but am very hesitant, as most people don't get it, and it is not much of a conversation starter.
Another trader I know, usually used two lines, either I am retired or I buy and sell stuff :-)
I have no problems saying I am a day trader regardless to whom I am talking to. IMO the problem is in people's mind, in most cases, they associate trading to gambling or to a bad personal experience therefore they cannot accept that someone can make a living out of it. This is very true when I talk to older people which are not aware of how home trading has evolved with instruments that are very close to institutional and professional traders. Trading techniques are not anymore a secret there is plenty material on the web and in the libraries. I remember in the 70/80's the only way for my father to pass an order was to call his banker and many hours after the order was passed. In the following days he stood in front of the bank monitor's window watching his title, if you think about it, it is not so long ago.
I have a FT job, so I don't trade/invest for a living but to grow my account and retire before I am 50(revised and final goal).. with 45 being my latest stretch goal... so I dont face the same circumstances when in others company.. however, depending on the circles I am in and if I dont want to explain anything I do... I just say, "I am an investor" ... that usually provides a better conversation topic and they lower their guards and leave you alone... and it is easier to augment the topic as you can just elaborate a little or a lot depending on your mood and their interests...
Mostly i try to avoid it, because of the world wide wrong perception of daytraders, thereby most of my age (i`m 21) think it's for "old" people like their dad.
What i say is that i run my own business, most of the time thats enough if not i mostly say that i trade physical products of all sorts.