Gambling is as gambling does.

["Stuart Hazlewood" <shazlewood@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Sorry for coming late to this - already exhausted - thread.  I'll be quick.

It seems to me that the intent behind the original question was: do we have a right to believe that we can win consistently, or should we acknowledge that despite all our systems and entry/exit setups, our indicators and our software, that at the end of the day we are at the hands of fate?

We all believe that we can win consistently.  If not, the act of trading would simply be an act of throwing our money away.

Yet despite this blief, 90% fail.  Put another way, 90% provide evidence that trading truly is subject to the vagaries of chance and fate rather than planning.

So the real question is this:  are the 10% who succeed destined to succeed?  Or will their day come too (a la Niederhofer)?

By the way, Edgar Peters suggests (in his Chaos & the Markets theory), that anything less than a monthly perspective on the market is gambling, with no probability (Gaussian or fractal) of success on your side.

Oooops, I said I'd be brief.  Oh well.

  -  Stuart

>>> Walt Downs <knight@xxxxxxxxxxxx> 06/06 1:18 AM >>>
Walt wrote: 
> SUMMATION:
>
> Good trading and good business can not be considered analogous
> at all. Trading is a game of speculation between two participants who
> understand and agree to the rules of the game. The goal of business
> is to provide value.
>
Norman  wrote:
> Walt

       I am a big advocate of the concept of value is given for value
recieved. However, I don't agree that those who trade are not providing
an important service to the market. Those who trade are adding liquidity
and helping the market to be effecient ...

 The "good traders" are helping in the realocation of financial
resources from the less effecient 

Walt wrote:

Hi Norman,

That's odd. I don't read where I wrote anywhere that traders don't 
produce value. They produce value for themselves and the exchanges.
The exchanges produce value by serving in many capacities. You're 100%
correct. I disagree with Pete's implying that the ethical cut and thrust
of actual trading is analogous to ethical business.
***
 *  Zoroingly,
*** Walt