33 Comments
 
BankingWaffleLucky gambler vs. hard-working semi-lucky gambler, respectively. Take your pick.
which one's which?
"Sincerity is an overrated virtue" - Milton Friedman
 

He's right, it is luck when you have no fucking idea what's happening in markets. If you already feel it's luck then it isn't for you.

 
qweretyqbtw OP if you become a prop trader u aint gonna b pullin 7 figs/yr

Have you even watched "Wall Street"?

"Every man should lose a battle in his youth, so he does not lose a war when he is old"
 
qweretyqbtw OP if you become a prop trader u aint gonna b pullin 7 figs/yr

I know commodity prop traders pulling in 7 figures a year at some of the top shops.

 
whitemamba1309
qweretyqbtw OP if you become a prop trader u aint gonna b pullin 7 figs/yr

I know commodity prop traders pulling in 7 figures a year at some of the top shops.

I know a rapper pulling 8 figures a year.

His point was that it ain't as likely for a prop trader to make 7 figs as some of the college kids on this board make it sound.

 
whitemamba1309
qweretyqbtw OP if you become a prop trader u aint gonna b pullin 7 figs/yr

I know commodity prop traders pulling in 7 figures a year at some of the top shops.

I know a rapper pulling 8 figures a year.

His point was that it ain't as likely for a prop trader to make 7 figs as some of the college kids on this board make it sound.

 
Prop trader

Rapid thinking Mathematical mind Two steps ahead of the game

Entrepreneur

Vision Dedication Execution

 
wallstreetballa
BankingWaffleAnything by Nicholas Taleb, less so Burton Makiel, etc.

You mention Burton Makiel.... but what about Andrew Lo "A Nonrandom Walk Down Wallstreet"

Will definitely read, sounds very interesting and definitely does jibe with reflexivity which I've been digging into. I do want to note the "less so" part for Burton Makiel--I'm not 100% convinced by his proposal, although his data is the best I've seen so far. Lo's book and supporting data could prove to be a great counter view.

Again, opening up any counters to Black Swan / Fooled by Randomness? The data / psychology behind this is the more compelling point imo.

Cheers.
 

to my understanding any actual 7 figure "prop trader" is essentially an entrepreneur that is involved in markets - ie using entrepreneurial techniques/analysis/methods to trade... i only know a few 7 figure traders (granted i'm young / limited experience) but the ones i do know are involved in some pretty specialized stuff that most people here would consider extremely "unsexy" and thus "undesirable"...

 
BankingWaffleCan I find the cure for cancer? Definitely possible. Probable? Probably not. But definitely possible.

Do any of you people even work in this industry? I know more than a handful of traders pulling in 7figs. It is difficult to do and you have to be very good but comparing that to cancer just makes you look like an idiot.

 
Best Response
whitemamba1309
BankingWaffleCan I find the cure for cancer? Definitely possible. Probable? Probably not. But definitely possible.

Do any of you people even work in this industry? I know more than a handful of traders pulling in 7figs. It is difficult to do and you have to be very good but comparing that to cancer just makes you look like an idiot.

Not really that hard to find a viable cure for cancer. I was just at a conference (girlfriend's in biomedical research) and there were 34 different approaches to curing cancer. There's chemo, radio, more recently, protein and endotoxins, with many subvariations, and for the most part it isn't a matter of ability to cure rather than cost and length of treatment.

But anyways, approach trading as a law of large numbers game, and you'll know why in trading a few people naturally outperform the market just based on sheer luck. Also, read Taleb's book on the Black Swan and such, but learn often times most people don't actually outperform the market over time (one big wipe destroys positive gains over a long period; people claim they do beat the market because they like to exclude outliers, but outliers are natural with the cyclical nature of our economy).

I will note that there is a difference between making money in prop trading and beating the market in prop trading. The first one works quite well given how the trader isn't fully responsible for the L side, but with the latter, coin flips can predict the amount of people who make millions too from sheer luck.

Cheers.
 

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