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Wall Street Traders Bring Home Far More Than Brain Surgeons
But if you rolled over to keep the same stocks in the mix, you would be making outside returns. Surfpuppydog and many others are wrong when they think the Dow and S&P haven't performed well, the equities market has a pronounced upward drift and no other market has that quality.— January 18, 2011 5:14 p.m.
Wall Street Traders Bring Home Far More Than Brain Surgeons
Puppydog, I don't use OPM. I solely trade my own account and put my money at risk.— January 18, 2011 5:10 p.m.
Wall Street Traders Bring Home Far More Than Brain Surgeons
Surf, there will always be trading whether it be now or whenever. The market has had many panics without government intervention and it still rebounded. The panic of 1812 was bad, but the panic of 1873 made most banks and businesses in the USA fail, check it out. All panics, bear markets, etc are caused by the same things, irrational exuberance,too much credit, and too much speculation. Nothing is new either as they had derivatives, banking, interest rates, speculation in ancient China. Hell, the first economic stimulus was in 1st century Rome when the treasury put 6 million pieces of silver on the street because the balance of payments with the mideast bankrupted the Roman business class. The markets, bull markets and bubbles are just a game of musical chairs, always has always will, part of the human condition.It's not fair for me to bust on you though, because if you get your business news from the networks, CNBC, or the WSJ, you are just part of the flock of sheep on the conveyor belt getting ready to be fleeced. The mainstream business news is not truth, only the price action on the screens is truth. If you listen to brokers, business reporters,people "in the know," take stock tips etc, you are going to get fleeced. I have no rose colored glasses, just the view of a pragmatist that has had a seat and traded in the pits at the CBOT now CME since 1978. Do you have a track record in the markets and have you made a decent living for 32 years living by your own wits....If so then throw all the stones that you want, if not, then you know what not to do.— January 18, 2011 11:44 a.m.
Wall Street Traders Bring Home Far More Than Brain Surgeons
Oh yeah, Don, to get the facts right, oil traders aren't on Wall Street. Wall Street trades equities and bonds. If you want to trade oil, you need to go to the NYMEX which is on West End St in Battery Park, on the Hudson. And Don, you said, "Providing working capital to businesses, both small and large, should be JOB #1 for Wall Street investment banks." You are so naive....the purpose of Wall Street is for the members of the exchanges, the ones who pay a million bucks for the privilege of being in the front of the line, to make money. There is no altruistic purpose for Wall Street, there is no benevolence, there is no level playing field. It's easy for you all to criticize when you have no skin in the game. Enough said, you all are quite an unfriendly bunch when challenged with facts. I will not be back,and that's a shame as I always thought even though the boards were pretty left leaning, that opposing opinions would get a fair shake, especially from those not in the know. Frankly your telling me about markets is the same if you had the hubris to tell a neurosurgeon how to remove a deep seated brain tumor. You really don't know.— January 18, 2011 9:13 a.m.
Wall Street Traders Bring Home Far More Than Brain Surgeons
Ponzi, Although the indexes are adjusted, they still remain a monetarily equivalent. I'm sure that you are familiar with the exact weighing and formula they use for both indices. Surfpuppy, no spin, and I'm sure that my intellect doesn't match up to yours and your gravitas must be admired. Incidentally, discussing markets usually turns into a penis measuring contests among many males, and I don't have time to get into this with the general public so I bid you adieu. I gave you the facts...all you know is what you read from the WSJ or CNBC. Successful traders cannot look at the data through the lens of a financial reporter, one who is compelled to put out inches of columns everyday whether it's true or not. When they say that, "Stocks went on rumors," "Stocks went down on Japanese concerns," "Inflated expectations buoy bond market," and stuff like this, who can tell if the this is true or the reporter is just filling space. Y'all listen to that and have your heads filled with nonsense, while I will look at my live, hard data Bloomberg feed. By the way, real news is expensive, like $2,000 a month or more and the shelf life of real news is about 30 seconds.— January 18, 2011 8:57 a.m.
Wall Street Traders Bring Home Far More Than Brain Surgeons
Don said, "I would think the median would be a good deal lower. But remember, you have these jackleg traders bringing in $1 million to $2 million." I've been in the trading business for years and have seats on several exchanges. You are pretty misinformed about traders in general. 90% of traders don't make a million and we have our own capital at risk. If a trader was to make a million after tax on his own, he would have to make roughly two million pretax in NYC. To make the kind of returns Warren Buffet makes, a trader would have to have at least 8 million in his account, always at risk. That's a lot of capital tied up. And I'm not even talking about losing years and drawdowns. Shuffling paper, as you call it, is the engine of liquidity in the economy. Shuffling paper evens out the seasonal variations of commodities and makes the price of a loaf of bread stay constant. Shuffling paper ensures that a farmer will be able to get a stable price for his crops at harvest time, and not get punished because all of the crops are coming in at the same time. Shuffling paper allows an average person to get a mortgage without a call provision. Shuffling paper ensures the government can market it's debt, the insurance industry can write a policy, and that we can buy and sell foreign goods. The sad thing is that most people but up on the traders because they are greedy and get burned in the market because they see easy riches. The markets are very hard to make money in, extremely hard and I'm a pro. Your mention of algos ignores the fact that algos are wrong most of the time, only making a very small profit around 62% of the time and the profit might be a penny a share in these days of decimal trading. The general public expects to buy a stock and have it go up.They think a "greater fool" will come around when they are ready to sell and will pay a higher price. The average citizen thinks that part time, they can beat me(a guy who spends 60 hours a week on markets) out of money. For the system to survive, it is essential that the general public lose. It is essential, for those high temples of finance in Downtown Manhattan to exist, for the the whole system to exist, that the general public is always buying at the top and selling at the bottom. That's the price of liquidity. However, even with the flat prices the last decade, the stock market is the only market in the world that has a pronounced upward drift. A good example of this is on July 8, 1932 the DJIA closed at 41.22, andnthe DJIA closed at 11,787 last Friday, and I'll leave it for you to do the math of the average annual return. Hold good stocks in good companies, reinvest yuour dividends, don't trade, keep your winners and sell your losers and you will make money\Jeff— January 18, 2011 6:03 a.m.