Quote: (06-09-2015 08:10 AM)Gringuito Wrote:
Exactly, I'm hit up by these kind of guys all the time. I only know two guys that consistently make money trading and one has a seat on the exchange. In my view this is very similar to gamblers. You always hear about when they win but you rarely hear about when they lose. In my view, there are much easier ways to build wealth (owing a company). The stock market should be part of your wealth preservation plan once you make your money.
It's more akin to professional poker. The amateur gambles, the pro is sufficiently adept that he can guarantee to make money long-term. Sport betting can be done professionally too.
But similarly to pro Poker it is anything but easy - it is probably more difficult. Personally I think that the chances of a trader to make it on his own long-term without the aid of some helpful market (extreme boom phases like the dot-com boom) is probably 1 to 10.000. They say that 1-2% lose, but I don't believe those stats - it's probably only for a small period and the pro traders at banks and hedge funds are counted into it.
On the other hand business is also a high reward, low risk of success enterprise. I would estimate that only 1 in 2000 business strike any decent success unless you count in every self-employed architect or plumber as a "business" just like some stats do.
It is absolutely impossible in our centralized automated economic system to have a country of entrepreneurs. While a decent job is the least likely to get you big money, it will give you relative stability and the possibility to accumulate a moderate degree of wealth.
And the stats for a proper education to pay off are high: plumber, specialized accountant, various engineering gigs - all of those jobs have a "success" rate of over 85-95%. Compare it to a potential success rate of business of 0,05%. Trading is even lower at 0,01%.
Of course the potential return of the latter enterprises are such that still many people will take the risk and work for it. But yeah - business has 500% better odds of making it - maybe it's 1000%, but that is still 1 in 1000.
People who hit up well-off individuals for investment funds are often hucksters who make money on commissions or some other scams similar, but at lower levels than Bernie Madoff. Even major banks and companies often make their big bucks through practices that are less than ethical. Still - it's possible to make it, but you should know the odds before quitting your day job.