What are traders?

[Mr. Now]

It is probably not pretentious to assume that a very large number of guys here that play online every day are keenly interested in your trading knowledge.

By focusing the questions under a single thread, the resulting content stays focused and in one place. That makes it a valuable resource that adds value to this forum.

Please seriously reconsider starting a thread where others can ask you questions about your for-a-living, high-frequency trading.

If you are supporting yourself successfully for over a year from trading, for sure you have alot of valuable knowledge to share.

To those who lurk here: Chime in if you want to "Ask mrbaseball about Trading for a Living".

[ChipWrecked]

I have a question:

As many know the Blackberry system was down in North America overnight and into this morning.

The parent company RIM lost about 9% on the London exchange during the outage.

I see that it is gaining steeply on the NASDAQ this morning (RIMM).

It would seem to my limited mind that this would have been a perfect way to either pick up a long term position at a discount, or make a quick play on the obvious restoration in price that would presumably come quickly.

Is this something a 'trader' would jump on?

Was the hammering of the stock in London a fear-based trader-driven price drop?

Any insight traders would care to give on NIM's price moves over the past 12 hours would be appreciated, thanks.

[Sniper]

[ QUOTE ]
Is this something a 'trader' would jump on?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, overreaction to news, is like free money...

[pig4bill]

[ QUOTE ]
Is this something a 'trader' would jump on?

Was the hammering of the stock in London a fear-based trader-driven price drop?

Any insight traders would care to give on NIM's price moves over the past 12 hours would be appreciated, thanks.

[/ QUOTE ]

RIMM didn't move much in the U.S. I was surprised that it didn't. A lot of the upmove was probably due to following the overall market.

[Sniper]

[ QUOTE ]
RIMM didn't move much in the U.S.

[/ QUOTE ]

Open 129, close 134+, is not much of a move?

[justinp1]

You can teach principles such as indicators and chart patterns in books but you can't teach discipline and this is why 90 percent of traders and poker players lose. If you have the ability to get out of a losing trade everytime at a predetermined price than you have a chance in trading. Money management and the discipline to get out of bad trades is the most important aspect in trading hands down. If you can focus on those two aspects when you are starting out and slowing thereafter work on chart patterns and trade setups you have a good chance of making money each year trading. It took me 5 years to figure this out so learn from my mistake.

[Sniper]

[ QUOTE ]
but you can't teach discipline

[/ QUOTE ]

Why do you believe this?

[justinp1]

What i mean is lets say for example i was going to coach a new trader and i teach him the basics such as how to place buy and sell orders on an online brokerage account,teach him the basics of a chart and how to trade just one setup by showing him where to enter and where to put the stop loss order in and where to take profits. I go over everything 20 times so he has it memorized so there wont be any second guessing the correct methods. Lets say he gets into a stock long and before he enters the trade he writes down the price objective and stop loss so he knows exactly where he's getting out but all of a sudden the stock tanks causing him to lose money all the while getting to wrapped up in his emotions he moves the stop loss down further from the original placement of it just because he doesent want to lose the money and accept a loss. The point is that you can teach someone how to do something but you cant make them do it unless they have the heart to follow through. It kinda explains the fact that there are probably thousands of books on trading and poker out with authors telling people sound methods to make money on both subjects but only around 10% of people make money each year playing poker and trading stocks.

[kimchi]

[ QUOTE ]
It kinda explains the fact that there are probably thousands of books on trading and poker out with authors telling people sound methods to make money on both subjects but only around 10% of people make money each year playing poker and trading stocks.

[/ QUOTE ]

Control over your mind is probably the most important factor in becomming a successful trader, and maybe also in poker.

Another important consideration is that trading, like poker, is not a zero sum game (like many brokerages trumpet) because of transactions costs/rake. This explains more why a tiny minority of traders/poker players make money consistently over the long haul.

I've tested many mechanical trading systems, some make lots of money, but after factoring transaction costs, slippage, financing etc., the reduced profits are not really worth all the effort.

When trading live, the awful emotional swings most traders experience further dramatically reduces their profitablility.

[soliq]

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Mr.Now, in your loss aversion topic, for the example of the virus expecting to kill 600 people, which position do you hold?

I have always been passive, and would chose to save 200, rather than risk all 600. In essence, would this make a better or worse gambler?