Small Stakes No-Limit Hold'em

JJS said:

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I know this is supposed to be a poker forum but since this thread was never about poker anyway, I hope the authors don't mind if keep this going a little longer.

I respect the fact that you have been a stockbroker for 30 years, but even that does not mean that you have seen everything.  A lot depends on the type of place you worked for.  I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you serviced small accounts, mostly individuals who were trying to make a quick buck but didn't really know what they were doing.  In poker analogy, they were "recreational players".

The number of traders who really do it for a living is so small that you might never have seen one, even in your 30 years. But there are people who research trading systems and can make them work.  Surely you have heard of William Eckhardt and Richard Dennis, and how they trained a group of students (who became known as the "Turtles") and how most of them did very well in later years?  Their success was more than what could be attributed to luck alone.

Have you read Schwager's "Market Wizard" series?  If it's really impossible to win long-term at trading, how do you reconcile that with the stories of the traders in that series?

I have seen accounts ranging from the small to large players. Like I said, some of them certainly do have winning streaks, but I have never seen a short term trading account stay profitable for very long. True, I have not see everything. Other seasoned brokers I talk to, however, agree that short term trading does nothing more than pay our salaries.

Sure, Richard Dennis did well for a time. He also suffered major losses and closed several managed funds. I haven't seen everything but I have seen an awful lot to persuade me that long term value investing is the only sensible way to earn AND maintain a profit in the markets.