Some yahoo at Yahoo! ran a telling story called “Top 10 Careers for Ultimate Job Security.” The greater portion of them were either union, civil service – the rest were mindless jobs where you have to listen to other people’s feelings.
If you want to have a great life, be your own boss, make your own hours, answer to no one, and have the utmost in Liberty, then you should learn to trade. If you like to rely on other people, and you believe that a government official is truly concerned about your well-being, that a person should be only paid so much for their efforts, or that you like a sense of pay-grade-ness to your income, then you’re a perfect candidate for welfare.
Mike- As far as I can tell from your blog posts. you are big proponent of trend following. Would trend following be a suitable strategy for a prop trader? You can have multiyear breakeven stretches and sharp drawdowns. If a mechanical trend following isn't ideal, would you advise a swing trading type strategy? or even day trading?
I'm a big proponent of managing risk and keeping losses small. What you can do as a Prop Trader largely has to do with what kind of risk you can take home and that's between you and your employer. Most of the time it's nothing – no overnight risk.
Trend following is behind many great directional methodologies, if your holding period is weeks to months. It's not a day trading system. But Trend Following is much more than buying breakouts.
Not knowing where you are in your career, I'd focus on finding the best methodology for you – one that you can stick to. If that means you cannot be a Prop Trader the way someone else defines it, so be it. At least you'll have an emotional connection to what you are doing and you'll be able to stick with it. That will lead to long-term success in trading.