Million dollar traders
I know a few other blogs have mentioned this today already but this makes great, sometimes cringe worthy, viewing! Whatever market you trade on, it's worth viewing what is effectively 'The Apprentice' for traders.
You can watch it in the UK by using BBC IPlayer
I was actually the first ever poster on a financial forum way back in 1996. I enjoyed my time on the forums and posted for a while before the forums degenerated into the familiar chaos they often are. I met loads of interesting characters during that time and I also met several people that worked in these environments. I quickly realised a lot of these groups where run for the benefit of extracting money from the traders, not to make it for them. It will be interesting following the group. On the first episode you see all the classic stereotypical traits of first time traders. It makes good viewing, especially giving the timing of the filming.
Being on the advisory board of an investment fund and running my own SIPP, I am still very active on the financial markets. They are ultimately more scalable than betting exchanges but in constrast to the exchanges I tend to be an investor rather than a trader. I do have to say though , I've never seen a market that was as easy to trade and gave such high potential returns as the betting exchanges. You also have a perfectly framed market, it's always going to gravitate to 100%. The only issue successful traders have on the exchanges is that it is quite easy to outgrow them quickly. That shifts your focus back to investing your money, which of course you need financial markets knowledge to do.
For short term traders on the financial markets a generally different fate awaits. It's a lot better than it used to be but costs are still a killer given the small amount of margin on offer. At the end of the day a company can only throw off as much cash as it earns. You and I can sell each other bits at different prices all day millions of time but it's the ability of the company to generate income that drives the price in the long term. Frictional costs are enormous and it's generally the brokers that make the most money.
You can watch it in the UK by using BBC IPlayer
I was actually the first ever poster on a financial forum way back in 1996. I enjoyed my time on the forums and posted for a while before the forums degenerated into the familiar chaos they often are. I met loads of interesting characters during that time and I also met several people that worked in these environments. I quickly realised a lot of these groups where run for the benefit of extracting money from the traders, not to make it for them. It will be interesting following the group. On the first episode you see all the classic stereotypical traits of first time traders. It makes good viewing, especially giving the timing of the filming.
Being on the advisory board of an investment fund and running my own SIPP, I am still very active on the financial markets. They are ultimately more scalable than betting exchanges but in constrast to the exchanges I tend to be an investor rather than a trader. I do have to say though , I've never seen a market that was as easy to trade and gave such high potential returns as the betting exchanges. You also have a perfectly framed market, it's always going to gravitate to 100%. The only issue successful traders have on the exchanges is that it is quite easy to outgrow them quickly. That shifts your focus back to investing your money, which of course you need financial markets knowledge to do.
For short term traders on the financial markets a generally different fate awaits. It's a lot better than it used to be but costs are still a killer given the small amount of margin on offer. At the end of the day a company can only throw off as much cash as it earns. You and I can sell each other bits at different prices all day millions of time but it's the ability of the company to generate income that drives the price in the long term. Frictional costs are enormous and it's generally the brokers that make the most money.
posted by Peter Webb at
8:00 AM
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