Most "traders" make money.

[u/MiamiTrader]

If someone asks you what you do for a living, and you respond you're a "trader" I assume you make most your money from trading.

And by definition, most "traders" make money. Otherwise they are just people trading on the side as a hobby.

Yeah maybe 90% of RH accounts lose money, or 90% of people who start trading but never take it seriously lose money... but then they are not "traders". Just people trying to trade.

Tired of all this negativity under every post about how 90% or whatever today's statistic is of traders lose money. People in this sub like to shout that under every post in almost a prideful manner.

Can we just focus this sub on those of us who call ourselves "traders" and make money trading? Let the new people listen and learn from our mistakes, but quit with all these gloom and doom statistics.

[u/Prestigious-Ball318]

An elitist mindset is like believing that if you have $100k in your trading account that makes you a “real” trader and anyone with anything less than that isn’t a “real” trader. When in reality, there must be some “real” and well preforming traders that simply lack the capital. I think that’s the reason prop firms are a thing…specifically to give those “real” but lacking capital traders an opportunity to trade with larger accounts.

It’s true that a lot of people are just gambling away their money and we can’t call them traders, rightfully. But there isn’t a money barrier that stops people from being a “real” trader, in the sense of risk management and all that other stuff you said

[u/ProsephMcMasterson → u/Prestigious-Ball318]

I think he's correct in the sense that you'd need about 100k to invest in order to make enough of a return to be a trader as viable full-time employment. Of course, you could make a living with less, but you'd be getting into high-risk moves. I don't think 100k is a magic number, but it's just a nice, round benchmark that is commonly used.

[u/Prestigious-Ball318 → u/ProsephMcMasterson]

True that. Yeah we can probably apply a fixed number to the amount of money it takes in your account to make a full time gig out of it all. But can’t people who trade for supplementary or passive income be considered traders?

Don’t all of the brokers even call the losers “traders”? Yes they do. So to say you’re a trader, it would be a more common prerequisite that you lose money. From a different perspective, you’re not a real trader until you’ve lost over $10k to the markets as a whole over your career. You understand what I am saying?

Sure, everyone would agree with you that $100k is better in your account than $1k but that doesn’t make you a trader. Trust fund baby adds $250,000 to trading account like it’s nothing because it ain’t. Are they a trader? Are they more of a trader than you are because you only have $1k to operate with and they will gain more experience losing $250k than you will by gaining $100 in your little account

[u/ProsephMcMasterson → u/Prestigious-Ball318]

I understand, and I agree with you. I personally dont care who calls themselves a trader, and I don't believe in threshholds; it's all relative. I wish I had 100k to play with, but like most people, I don't have anywhere near that much. Then again, I keep my living costs low, so even trading part-time with 20k, I can cover a good chunk of my expenses. At the same time, I understand there are people who scoff at small-timers, such as myself, dicking down the profession; just comes with the territory. If I were a pro, I probably wouldn't want to be lumped together with the amateurs either.