
Agreed OP, people really don’t understand trading. People focus on % moves when they should be focusing on risk/reward. If you know what you’re doing, you can make great money. This is a trade I’m in right now, totally risk free, with ~$1000 already realized. And if you use prop firms, you’re not even risking your own capital.
Also, tired of the “it’s just gambling with extra step” or “trading is just another word for sports betting” has nothing to do with sports betting people be p*sing me off just repeating what people who either don’t know what they are talking about or just aren’t willing to learn or take the risk
Buddy. I did not have the capital to invest long term. This is extremely flawed logic. Im up 32.78% YTD. Thats 2-3x the performance of SPY. My portfolio thinks I had a base amount of 64k. The percentage of returns is calculated based off that. My brokerage doesn’t account for the actual base investment I put in. Most of that 110% return over the past 5 years was in the first fucking year when I was broke
In case you still don’t understand I started with $500. Until about mid 2023 I had less than 20k. My current all time gains are based on my total amount deposited into the brokerage - withdrawals made through that period. That puts it at a base 64k roughly. I’m up 70%. You can go into a calculator and multiply 64k by 1.7 which gets you to roughly the 110k I have now. Everytime I make a deposit (the majority has been deposited this year), the return percentage actually declines.
So the only way that you could concretely say I underperformed spy using my roughly 70% gain is if the amount I put in was 64k initially and I never deposited or withdrew again. % return comparisons are extremely difficult to calculate and you can’t say how someone is performing without consistent contributions. My 401k is a better example. It is up over 20% YTD and has extremely consistent contribution amounts spread out at equal intervals.
Thanks! I think the other thing people miss is that trading is also about risk management. Losing is inevitable, but you have to be in control of how much you lose. And once you secure profits, you can reinvest that into the safe stuff like VOO. People act like you can’t invest in VOO and trade at the same time lol