Impossible to make a successful career trading

Starting a new thread at the recommendation of the moderator.

For you to win I would have to loss 12 times in a row, I don't think thats possible.

Well, since it is impossible for someone to have an unlimited amount of money, it is impossible to make a successful career of trading using this method.

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Originally posted by CharterJoe

But it works with "IF" you have an unlimited amount of money which is the point to all my posts in this thread. Using the rules of logic that Jim pointed out it proves your premise that its "Impossible to make a successful career trading" as false. I was just proving it is possible, I am not in no ways endorsing this although I do it on occasion.


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mmartinez said....

The easy way to see this is to run a coin toss simulation on the computer using your trading strategy below. No matter how much money you start out with, it will get wiped out.

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Will not, prove it with your results. Given enough money this will work into infinity...You cannot just say things that are false with no "proof" I say it is profitable, prove me wrong. Lets me and you start with 2g's a piece and start with 1$ a flip and get a third party to flip and I am sure I will end up with all the money even though over time the toss will revert to mean 50/50 over enough tosses. If you are right then you will end up with a 100% gain on your money.....and document it here on this site for all to see?

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Easy enough to do. I'll make a little program and post both it and the results.

Sure it is. the odds of losing 12 times in a row on a fair coin toss are:

.5^12 (.5 to the 12th power) = 0.000244

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Originally posted by CharterJoe

For you to win I would have to loss 12 times in a row, I don't think thats possible.

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Originally posted by mmartinez

Sure it is. the odds of losing 12 times in a row on a fair coin toss are:

.5^12 (.5 to the 12th power) = 0.000244

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Originally posted by CharterJoe

For you to win I would have to loss 12 times in a row, I don't think thats possible.

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So .5 to the 12th power = 0.000244....Jim, my math guru are you here what are the odds of that? 1 in what

MM, Most people loose trading, that I have no dought. Most people think that 5-10% of traders make it. I belive its under 1%, although I dont have any proof of that. I also believe the reason most traders fail is that cant stick to a system(rules with proper money management). Most people should actually quit because there is know way they will every stick to a sytem even if it is a proven winning system. Most people simply cant do it( I wont go into all the reasons they wont but its lengthy). Let me give you and everyone on this board a very simple system for trading the comodity markets that I have been using for almost 14 years now. I look to buy comodities when they are hiting 20 year lows and then I sell them for a profit when they go back up(sometimes I hold for years, most can not do this). Of course I never catch the exact bottom and I never even come close to selling at the exact top, doesnt matter to me though. Anyone remember $2 corn, $3 gold, $5 silver, Oj at 70 and coffee at 50 and so on. It doesnt matter to me that I just gave everyone a winning system because less than 1% will take advantage if it. Hope this helps everyone

Sorry for the grammer guys. Im always typing to fast

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Originally posted by CharterJoe

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Originally posted by mmartinez

Sure it is. the odds of losing 12 times in a row on a fair coin toss are:

.5^12 (.5 to the 12th power) = 0.000244

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Originally posted by CharterJoe

For you to win I would have to loss 12 times in a row, I don't think thats possible.

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So .5 to the 12th power = 0.000244....Jim, my math guru are you here what are the odds of that? 1 in what

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Exactly 1 in 4096.

Whoever says you cant make a career trading is just part of the 95% of people who fail at it.

I'll explain. It means that if you do 4098 coin flips, you can expect to see a 12-in-a-row losing streak. If losing twelve flips in a row means that you are wiped out and no longer can play: game over, you don't have any more money.

You don't know when this losing streak will occur. It can be anytime. It can happen in the first one hundred flips, or after a thousand flips, or etc. etc.

you may also expect to see 11-in-a-row, 10-in-a-row, etc. So if you are going to set up a game of chance with somebody, you'd better figure out how many coin-tosses-in-a-row you can afford to lose, and then put a limit on the total number of flips in the game. At least this way, you know your odds of coming out on top.

Do not dismiss the odds. Let's say you decide to play 100 coin tosses with someone, because you know you can afford a 11-in-a-row drawdown. You play the 100 tosses and you come out a winner because the odds of you losing all your money are slim. Then you decide to play the game with 9 more people. That's 1,000 coin tosses total. The odds are still in your favor, but much less so.

Then, you decide to repeat the whole process again, four more times (10 people each time.) Well, now you've guaranteed that you will hit a 12-in-a-row losing streak, which means you've just lost all your money. (Assuming that 12-in-a-row is the most you can afford throughout the procedure.)

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Originally posted by CharterJoe

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Originally posted by mmartinez

Sure it is. the odds of losing 12 times in a row on a fair coin toss are:

.5^12 (.5 to the 12th power) = 0.000244

quote:

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Originally posted by CharterJoe

For you to win I would have to loss 12 times in a row, I don't think thats possible.

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So .5 to the 12th power = 0.000244....Jim, my math guru are you here what are the odds of that? 1 in what

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If you are betting your hard earned money on being one of the "5%" (which in reality is more like < 1%), then you are playing a sucker's bet.

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Originally posted by drastic801

Whoever says you cant make a career trading is just part of the 95% of people who fail at it.

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The same argument can be made for starting a business. Just a any regular business, not a trading business. How many are started every year? How many fail in the 1st year, 2 years, 5 years?

I don't know the number but it is a very high percentage >75%.

Of the ones that continue doing business, how many are highly profitable. That's even less of a percentage.

So people that want to try and say you can't do it in trading and if you do its all luck.....well, that same exact statement applies to starting any business. I started and ran a successful business, looking back so many things came down to timing and luck. Ask any successful business person and I'm sure they will agree.

Just like poker. Skill only gets you so far and puts you in a position to get lucky. You still have to get lucky to win. But the more skill you have the more your odds of getting lucky increase are.

I have pondered this topic quite extensively. Pretty much after most losing days. After my head gets clear, I always come back to the same thought.......Isn't this the same as running a business. Every day can't be good or great. There are plenty of bad days. Running a business....somedays you lose valuable employee....how much does that cost??? some days you lose sales deals....how much does that cost??? Some days you lose customers....how much does that cost???

So just like anything else that is worth doing. It's hard and can't be a straight line up. There is always a competing force that acts as resistance.