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I think you provide a good description of evolution - and I am sure there is not a single manufacturer of cars, televisions, computers or mobile phones who wouldn't express the same elements, frustrations and fears, competition at its finest and harshest just as in trading and nature.
When something stops working or is beaten you have to look elsewhere or die, nature does the same, when we get beaten down by a damn awful trading day we have to accept it as part of the job, brutal and desperate as that often is for all of us, I know the dark side far too well.
We just have to accept that the work and effort required to be successful against the biggest and the best is immense but on the other hand look back 10-15 years and ask yourself how many traders could sit in front of multi-gigahertz, multi-gigabyte, multi-core, multi-monitor stations running today's level of trading software platforms in their own homes with high speed internet as we now have? Evolution cuts both ways but will never stop cutting.
If you think that the game is rigged, you do have the option of walking away from it. I am unsure why you want to convince others that the game is rigged as you continue to play it. Psychologically, I understand, but I don't think you see the hypocrisy of your statements.
As an objective party, it sounds like you are attempting to place blame on HFT/gov't to validate yourself as a trader... "I am not a bad trader, I am good, but because of XYZ I am losing money." Also, by positing yourself as going against two entities that will remain in the trading world indefinitely, you never have to face the cold truth that the problem might just be your trading. I think a nice (re)reading of Trading in The Zone is what you need (especially Chapters 3 and 7)
You bite your tongue good sir! As someone who has lost a few hundred in Vegas, I cannot deny the fact that there are still edges in Vegas. Admittedly, I don't play the machine games because they seem to be completely random... However, there are edges in Poker, there are edges in Blackjack, etc. You have a higher probability of winning money if you have pocket Aces in Poker or Face cards in Blackjack. These are when you bet money.
Trading is exactly the same way, the only difference is the value of the cards change based on the trading environment. In 2007, buying dips was the equivalent of being dealt a 2 and a 7 in poker, but presently, buying dips has been the equivalent of pocket aces.
Personally I don't give a damn about HFT/aglo trading/VIX, etc but if someone believes that these things have turned their pocket aces into a a terrible hand, they have the option of folding and trying a new hand. Complaining about what their hand used to be worth doesn't help anyone.
Then stop using stop loss orders. I didn't say don't use stops, just don't have resting orders on the exchange, let bar(s) form beyond a level then exit, don't just put an order there. I've had many stop levels passed intrabar that then turn around for a winner. Other times my stops are exceeded much further then I wanted before exiting (ouch). It's a double edged sword but I hate getting stopped out on a winning trade and accept responsibility for the fact that it means I'm going to suffer some larger losses than I might have wanted.
Or, buy protective puts/calls instead of stops to prevent whipsaws.
I'm not being hypocritical. I believe that day trading profitably for a decade is not possible for atleast 999/1000 traders. I would like to believe otherwise and am interested in seeing other opinions. The market wizard Al Brooks, whom I mentioned earlier, inspires me to continue trying to be profitable despite a lot of losses and a lot of evidence to the contrary.
Talking about buying dips refers to swing or position trading, not day trading.
I do dislike a lot of the marketing associated with trading, so that is a partial motivation for starting this thread.
As for marketing, you've mention Al Brooks repeatedly in the thread.... to me that seems like marketing.
How does marketing align with your first post?
It seems to me you reached a conclusion on a subject that you really don't have a lot of experience with, perhaps from listening to others. It would be far better if you did more research on your own before you reach conclusions like that (in my opinion) because if you want to be a successful trader, first and foremost you really need to think for yourself, you need to lead not follow.
Al Brooks is a friend of the site.... but he is a scalper, which is why I do not understand why you are drawn to him. If you are as worried about HFT, latency and algos as you claim to be, then scalping is the opposite of what you should be pursuing. Scalping is time sensitive, which is exactly where the edge is being diminished the most based on the two items you mentioned in your first post. You should therefore want to increase your edge by distancing yourself from them, for example looking at longer term trades such as day trades or swing trades, and not scalping. Scalping is also orders of magnitude more difficult than swing trading, again in my opinion. First you should learn to crawl before running, so if you aren't already a seasoned pro swing trader, that is really where you should be starting.
Why would it not apply to day trading? The market usually moves both up and down over the course of a day. There are lots of retracement traders on every time frame.
I don't know anyone that believes that the majority of traders will be successful. 95% of small businesses fail in the first five year as well. I have friends with Financial degrees who believe that trading profitably for an extended period of time is impossible so I think it should be noted that you realize that trading profitably for extended periods of time is a possibility for 1/1000 traders.
We cannot convince you that you will be part of the small percentage of consistently profitable traders, you can only convince yourself to do that through consistency and results. You stated early that you are going through a string of losses recently, so I can definitely imagine how impossible profitability feels. Like I mentioned previously, I really really think that reading Trading in The Zone would tackle a lot of the feelings you are having right now. There are people on this board trading based off Al Brooks methods that are consistently making money. Follow the mindsets (and journals) of the successful and you will already be a step closer to success than the 999 traders that fail.
To carry on the small business/trading analogy, a lot of people who fail at a start up company play the blame game as well: Outsourced jobs is to blame. No it is workers demanding higher wages. No it is Obamacare. No it is big corporations like Walmart... basically these are the equivalent of blaming HFTs and algos.
Statisticbrain did research on the reason why companies fail. Not surprisingly, the reasons that companies fail are in the same vein as to why traders fail:
1% of people fail from disasters/plain old bad luck. The remaining 99% however...
Thanks for the responses. The appeal of day trading over swing/position trading is that I am out of work and need a full time job. I have already spent two years watching/trading stocks daily. I only discovered Al Brooks due to stumbling upon this great site with a google search about futures daytrading two months ago. I don't want to waste more years on this if it isn't sustainable for a decade or longer. Before that I didn't have much of a system or much knowledge beyond books like Day Trading for Dummies and The Master Swing Trader. I do believe that I can become profitable one day if I follow a system like what Brooks teaches. The purpose of this thread was to see, if that is possible, how likely sustaining profitability is for a decade or longer is. Maybe less than 1 out of 100,000 day traders can do that.
