The quants keep reminding everyone trading is impossible and throw around all sorts of credentialism in the process If they haven’t made tens or hundreds of millions trading, you can discount what they say

Trading is hard, as I always say One of the best credentials is, how fast can you learn/improve/eliminate mistakes? How disciplined can you be to only push easy trades? How much grit do you have to figure sh*t out? This is something that’s not simple to evaluate in an interview-type setting

“no no no you’re just misinterpreting stochastic processes as edge!!” oke.

My “credentials”: -studied math/econ (by no means a quant but good math/stats foundations) -made millions at high stakes poker -transitioned to trading in 2020; made 7-8 figs in each of the last 6 years trading; don’t sell anything; my book, no outside $ -good at figuring things out, learning, adapting. High grit and discipline, ingrained from prior poker experience and associated ruthless feedback loops -never had a job and would be unemployable at any mid 6f+ trading job Anyway if you’re a trader who doesn’t care about if someone started at Jane Street/SIG or understands spherical geometry, always willing to connect with smart like-minded people

w that said there are lots of times where I feel like I don’t have any appreciable edge. In those times I stay out of the way and wait for one of those free spots. Not being forced to trade is the biggest thing working in your favor.

I also recognize I may not be able to figure it out forever. Between AI and the quants it’s already rough out there. As such, I try to always stay upskilling and learning and searching for edges in anything. This is a repeatable process I enjoy and would do for much less $. Seems like there’s always some new gold rush every so many years (poker, DFS, crypto, prediction markets, …). Early-As-A-Service.