In relative terms, Yes. In literal terms, It Depends. It is helpful to know what kind of capital requirements provides a fulfilling salary. However %'s don't always do the trick. Knowing how much is made per trade seems to be less intrusive than in terms of year salary. Are they investing long term recieving "paychecks" on a quarterly basis of large amounts? Or do they daytrade and take a daily or weekly "paycheck." How much capital is needed to truly become "full time" with their peticular strategy? What was the transition like if they went from employee to trader? Those are some questions I have for them. An idea for thought...What if there was a trader bio tab at the top of the website. A standard, name brief paragraph on them and 5-10 standard questions, that way when we (the listeners are) searching for traders to follow and blog with we have a qucik reference.

Well, since I was interviewed in the past, I can tell you my thoughts on that. First, there is an old brazilian saying: "To ask does not offend". Meaning that it is probably what is in the mind of the person being asked what is offensive or not. You run the risk of someone saying they are not willing to share that, but that answer hurts their credibility.

I DO think that saying how much you have made depends very much on what you had to begin with. Sort of like the parable of the talents. Must people would not want their finance expose in such a way. I avoided not because I am afraid of being scrutinized but because I don't want to be personally exposed in such a way. Like having "financial advisors" coming out of the woodworks to "help me" with my winnings, or my friends and family calling me to "help them" financially, and then have to say no and risk losing friendships and respect from them.

This is why I started in June a paper trading account that I can show others without having to specify how much I have personally. I can actually show much I would have made in 1 year, following my approach, with a defined amount of cash to begin with. It is hard to believe that I have made 70% return in my money over the last 12 months (as I said in my trader interview) in my personal account. However, I have the paper trading account numbers, that have been available to the readers of my blog in real time since I opened that account. My readers have seen every trade I have made and how I have made 65% return on my money in 8 1/2 months, under market conditions that most will call at least very difficult.

I have seen web sites, and I have even payed to see other people's strategies and approaches. Never do they say how much money they have made, not even percent wise, nor do they show a track record of accomplishment, let alone results such as my paper trading account. Yet they should. We should demand that, if we are going to buy into their approach as consistently profitable.

How about this question: if your trading approach is so good, why are you selling it instead of just keeping it secret and make more and more money?

Tim, I believe if they are selling a product or a book,then I say YES, Definitely! Expressed as a percentage on a rate of return. On the traders who are not selling a product, I think maybe ask before the interview if they don't mind telling but again expressed as percentage. Cheers Bazz.

This is something I, like practically every aspiring trader, would like to know. I don't see any harm in asking...I asked my teacher (or mentor if you like that term...) and while they didn't respond in $ terms, they did in %. Of course, the best evidence is a statement or to watch them trade. Some might say what do they have to prove but, in my opinion, if you're trying to inspire, there's no better way than to show what's possible with a consistantly profitable approach...

We are all grown ups. If someone is willing to do an interview and calls him- or herself a trader, then I'd say it's obligatory. I think that's a fairly easy nut to crack. Alexander Elder, in his Entries and Exits interviews, required actual P/L statements. He doesn't play around. Nor should TraderInterviews. I completely agree with Juan. Case in point: Boris Schlossberg wrote a book about trading and has put some effort into propping himself up as a professional trader -- although he doesn't often come out and say it, he doesn't make it explicit for his clients and expo groupies. You haven't seen his personal P/L statements because he's just an analyst who sells a service. Does that mean he doesn't have something meaningful to say? Not at all. But whether or not he is profitable should be established at the outset of every interview. It should be on the record.

We are traders and aspiring traders. It's all about the P/L. This is an aspect of trading where some of the most important lessons can be learned. If someone is being interviewed as a trader and is unwilling to honestly reveal his or her P/L, then I have to wonder how much faith I want to put into that approach or philosophy. And that kinda nullifies the credibility of the interview for me, frankly. Now, if one is just staring out and says so up front, then that changes the entire nature of the interview. I would in fact be interested in breakthough experiences of new traders. It really is fertile ground even for those with a few more years under their belt. (I doubt the pros would care one way or the other, but I assume they are not your core audience.)

Here's your dilemma. If you ask your interviewees to reveal how much they earn, you risk alienating a pretty good proportion of them. However, there may be a way to get around that. Just talk about the psychological and administrative aspects of managing one's earnings -- and how tricky this can be. Any trader who has more than a few years of experience can speak volumes about this. Anyone who can't probably hasn't been profitable for very long.

My $0.02.

Mustang has an excellent idea, by the way. More work for you, I'm afriad...

Asking anyone exactly what they make is sure to make them feel uneasy. I agree that if there selling something they should not be offended by the question and should probably find a way to prove themselves. I was reading about hedgefund managers and ran into this one guys blog and he uses this service called covestor. He opened an account with $12,000 and is trying to duplicate his prior performance of trying to turn it in to $1.6 million. It taps into his account and shows his results. I wasn't very interested in this guy because he does it with penny stocks but I thought the idea was great. If you don't want people to know what you're worth you open a second account with less money and people can see your results. I'm going to give it a shot, my broker lets me link accounts together and trades the second account simultaneously with my first account on a percentage bases. No extra work and people can see your results without putting yourself out there.

Basically finding a solution to prove yourself of which this sounds like one.

i've just joined for the purpose of joining this discussion. i am a person who lost a lot of money in the year 2000. mostly out of my ignorance , i was an investor for life. i had bought the party line hook line and sinker. the rude awakening, lset me in the learning path, along the way i have paid many thousands of dollars to people who "teach" how to trade. market wizards included. all of thi brings me to the central question. why do these people give these interviews?. in the end a lot of them, not all admitedly, have something to sell. and i am guilty of buying from some, only to discover that what they have is not that unique. so to answer your question, by all means, ask what they make. however, to really have credibilty, that question should be followed, by a trading statement, certified by an accounting firm which we could call. even then the name arthur anderson comes to mind. without the above, the interviews will lead your listeners to the provervial slaughter. it may sound harsh, but before they use your forum to advertise themselves, i for one think they should stand behind what they proclaim. anyone can tell tales and state platitudes, backing them up is something else. my take fwiw.

Asking before the interview is a good idea. We will get several bits of data from this. Other than the obvious answer to the question, if you don't ask during the interview then we all know that the trader said "no". In addition, you will start to get an idea of how traders respond to the question...which is an insight to their personalities.... The money you make (or not lose) is really at the heart of trading and after asking several traders you may find commanalities to report back.

I am a retired sureon and was once interview by a high school student. Eventually he asked about the salary range of a surgeon. I replied that in my part of the country it is probably between 200K and 500k per year although there are many outliers depending on speciality, how hard you want to work etc. Had he directly asked my what I made I would have given him that range and not been offended. It is obviously much more diffficult to know the range for a retail trader (-100k to 5M?). It certainly would be of interest to me to know how everyone else out there is doing.

You should ask, prior to the interview, if that person wants to divulge income. If you were to ask everyone, it would quickly become clear that this is part of the standard interview. Some people may not want to disclose income, for many reasons. It may be that the person doesn't make a lot of money because that is not the goal. It may be that the interviewee does make a lot of money, but would rather keep that private. There could be many other reasons for privacy.

I think you should encourage everyone to consider answering this question because it really is at the heart of what we are trying to accomplish. A successful trader just might be inclined to "show off" and let us know how much money is being made.

We should hear from everyone who wants to be interviewed. We might miss some useful information if you only accept candidates who agree to discuss personal income.

I think that asking what range a trader makes would more likely get an answer. Leading the answer with something like: "would you consider commenting on your annual trading income, under 100k, 100-150k,..." would not so much pin the person into a corner. Also, asking what their trading account started with, the current size their trading account is (or "ballpark" size), and how long it took them to achieve that amount would be a interesting question.

For anyone who gets this far. NO ONE WANTS A PEDOPHILE BABYSITTER. I have a freind who has been trading for a while and is well versed in the many strategies and methods out there...BUT HE LOSES MONEY. So I'm just curious, how many of you want HIM to be interviewed. Bottom line, WE AS TRADERS DONT NEED TO LEARN FROM SOMEONE WHO OWNS A COOKIE CUTTER, WE NEED TO LEARN FROM THE CHEF, AND WE NEED TO KNOW HE EATS HIS OWN COOKING.

I apologize if this is slightly off subject.

I think everyone has said something that makes sense so far. However I disagree with "leont" about these interviews leading us to the slaughter without disclosing how much these people are making. I Trade Forex and have listened to every single interview on this site; regardless of what the trader traded or what their approach was. In my opinion it is easy to discern whether or not these traders are making money doing what they are doing. Maybe it is experience that makes it a little easier, but I think it is just common sense. Also, if a trader were smart and SERIOUS about trading, they would test these strategies with demo accounts or very small live accounts before risking anything serious. That being said, if you protect yourself first, there is no being led to the slaughter.

For example, out of ALL the interviews so far the one that helped me develop a winning strategy was Avery Horton's interview. He does not disclose how much he makes, but its obvious that what he says works.

My actual opinion about disclosing how much is made... I think we all want to know. That way we could easily see which strategy seems to make the most money and just do that right? Wrong, because it may not suit who we are as a trader, so we have to be careful and not fool ourselves into thinking that we will be able to accept certain risks that others can. As far as disclosure goes, I'm not interested in dollar terms and I don't think anyone should be AT ALL.

Percent profit is really all that matters because with a consistent win rate any amount of money is doable. I would implore every one here to think of these interviews as indicators and not necessarily buy and sell signals. These different tactics may be indicative of a good strategy but then a fair amount of personal homework is necessary to get it right and make it suit US. Avery Horton's "Buy Zone" doesn't suit me the way he uses it, but it triggered a light bulb for me.

I think we all just want to hear a trader say "I make about "X" amount a year doing "--------" Strategy" because we can identify the future lifestyle we want with a dollar amount. But I think thats really just fantasizing..

Instead of asking how much money the traders make (which is very relative, considering any profits are reinvested and/or distributed), I think it would be more meaningful to understand the following:

1. How large was your initial trading account?
2. How long did you trade before you were able to live off of your trading profits?
3. What is your money management strategy (what % of your profits do you reinvest in your business and what % do you pull out as income)?

Money "made" is an interesting number but highly subjective because it doesn't tell us how much is reinvested, what % of that is relative to the trading account size, etc. I would imagine any trader would have no issue giving answers to the above questions - they shouldn't be invasive or inappropriate.

Before I start, I thought I wanted to give you my brief background. I am a successful proprietary trader and have been for many years, I trade between 8-10 million shares of both nyse and nasdaq stocks per month. the answer to the question is YES ABSOLUTELY! If a trader is unwilling to discuss their earn, which is without a doubt one of the most important if not the MOST important piece of these types of interviews to establish credibility, then I don't think its reasonable to consider their commentary as useful, practical or genuine. Its VERY IMPORTANT to note that there are numerous people who speak, write and run businesses that are involved in teaching people how to trade, invest etc... yet have never even made any significant if any $ trading or ONLY earned $ during the era of FREE MONEY in the late 1990's.

You must ask additional questions to give listeners some color on what kind of trader they are listening to. For instance....If you are interviewing a daytrader, you would want to ask how much they have earned each year for the last few years, how does their P&L;fluctuate, are they a very consistent earner to get to their yearly earn or does their P&L;fluctuate significantly, how much risk capital do they have behind them ie. ( do they have 500k cash to risk and lose) are they a proprietary trader with access to firm capital that is at the sole discretion of the account manager or are they a retail trader with only 4 to1 intraday leverage and how much $ do they have in their account to work with.

If the trader is a swing trader, position trader or investor then the same question should be asked as well as their percentage return for each of the last few years.

Its important for listeners to understand that for those who are large earners, 500k a year plus consistently, that it takes a unique individual to take on the large sized positions and handle the volatility in one's P&L;to achieve these numbers (this is particularly applicable to daytrading) Swing traders, options traders, investors can generate these Yearly earn numbers with smaller sized positions and with greater ease if they have large sums of captial in their accounts. ie. if an investor has $10 million account earning 500k is obviously laughable to be considered a successful anything, but if they have a $10 million account and only utilize $2 million then their earn should be obviously be weighted more heavily.

Lastly there are many traders who are in the process of creating algorithms (black boxes) that have high percentage of winning trades but do to other factors (scalability, liquidity, commissions) are not creating a sufficient earn.

I think you could feel out the interviewee before you begin recording, I know it is a little stages, but people are sometimes uncomfortable about talking about the money they make, however it can be really useful information. Let me re-phrase that. I don't care what a trader is worth. I am interested in if they are able to earn a living by trading, or is it supplemental income. What is their position sizing and leverage? Money and risk management statagies. An example would be your interview with Dick Diamond, "no more than 10 contracts." 2 - 3 S&P;mini trades a day. I can get an idea as to if I can make a living trading in the same manor he does. The only way now what the possibilities are is to talk about them, so it does help to get as much information as possible about the traders.

Thank you for your interviews. I couldn't tell you how many times I have listened to you interview with Dick Diamond as well as some other traders. I would like to attend one of Dick seminars in the future once I have built up my trading account. That Interview held a wealth of information for me.

I think it is a great idea. I don't doubt some people will squirm on it during the interview, but I think it would be really hard to find a listener that wouldn't want to hear how that person does. Of course they can always lie about it, but hopefully they wouldn't fudge it too much from reality.

You could also get creative the way you ask - saying "What are your dollar goals for a day/week/month/year?" What is the dollar amount that you can reach and say "I'm done for the day." You could also ask them about their best $$ year and their worst $$ year, with numbers, and ask what they think factored into make it a really great year or really tough year.

I thought the interview with Trader Stewie was excellent, and the the conversation about the money came up naturally with asking about his $$ goals on a day/week basis. I know him and he is an excellent daytrader, very good discipline. I thought he answered the money question candidly and claiming that he aims for $3000 a week seemed very realistic. Having known him for a while, I can vouch that $3k a week is a very reasonable and consistent number for him.

I think it is a great thing to add to the interviews. Sometimes I hear people talk about how they trade and I think "Wow, they must have some serious ups and downs" and other times it sounds like they make small but very consitant money, but it would be great to hear some actual numbers.

Asking them to identify their best and worst years and reflect on the reasons might be a good way to easy into the money topic.

--DougSF

For the interviewees to have any kind of credibility and for the interviews to be useful we need performance info. I don't think it's important to know their $ earnings, but their annual performance numbers are essential. Until I saw this thread I was getting quite disillusioned with the interviews and hadn't listened to any for a while. While I heard interesting thoughts and ideas, I couldn't attach any importance to them as for all I knew they were being uttered by someone who loses money year after year. Asking about earnings directly could be misleading as it depends on capital size and other factors. I could also understand people being reluctant to disclose.

A simple question around % returns would give the info we need and not offend anyone.

I consider a bit uncomfortable the question of how much money they make. I would rather ask what's their performance in terms of % and their position sizing strategy.

Tim:

This is an issue that is very important to me. I think you absolutely have the right, and the duty to your readers, to ask an interviewee about how much they make. However, I do not necessarily think you have the right to ask about the specific dollars they make as that is no one's business but theirs. Instead, they should be willing to share their performance in terms of some hypothetical circumstances. For example, you could ask them, based on their actual returns, to tell you how much they would make in a year if they had a hypothetical account of say $100,000 based on their real time performance. They could explain how much they risk per trade of that $100,000, what their worst case draw down in a typical year is on that $100,000 (i.e. -10,000, -25,000 or whatever), and they could tell you what type of profit they make on average per year on that $100,000. So for example, if they have a $1,000,000 account and they typcially make $3,000,000 per annum, they do not have to reveal those actual assets and income but instead would tell you and your readers that they would make $300,000 on the hypothetical $100,000.

I think this question is absolutely fair game because if they are not truly making good money under acceptable risk and reward parameters they are willing to share, then there is no way a reader can determine if their methodology is worth pursuing or if the interviewee is even credible. Many authors and speakers act and talk as if they are excellent traders only later to disappoint when you see their actual returns or they run a fund of some type.

Actual money made is perhaps the single most important question you can ask. If the answer is bad, then the interviewee has no right to be acting as if he or she is a credible trader. If the answer is good, they have every right to speak from a position of credibility and authority. I think you also have to be clear that they are no way representing or warrantying any returns nor are they saying that anyone else can use their methodology to recreate the same or similar returns, and that the past returns are no indication of future returns.

Please give me you thoughts on this as I have debated this with many interviewers and authors and no one has ever submitted a compelling reason why any interviewee should not be willing to discuss their returns using numbers that do not reveal their actual income.

MSM

In this day and age of leveraged accounts a trader with a working system can easily make all the money he needs. The only reason to try selling a system is that it does not make money consistantly in all market conditions.
By all means publish a working strategy so that others can evaluate, comment and feed back suggestions for improvement. But always insist on knowing the following:
Win:loss ratio
Ave win : ave loss
Return on capital
together with the time period that the results relate to.

While it might not be appropriate to know exactly how much they made by trading, I do feel that we need to know that they are 'walking the walk.' For instance, I can say that "I trade full time" but that does not mean that I make any money at it. Personally, I have five pensions that pay my normal expenses. I can "trade full time" indefinitely without actually making any money.

We need to know if these people are actually earning a living with their trading. Last week's interview with Tim Ord points out one of the issues. Tim Ord trades full time but he actually supports himself through his service subscribers. I certainly don't fault anyone for that but I want to know if the "professional" traders that you interview that "trade full time" are significantly profitable on a consistent basis.

If someone tells you in a interview that they make $1000 a day, that really doesn't tell me anything. In order for me to know how I stand up against the trader being interviewed, I need to know how much capital they are using to get the $1000 a day. I can then calculate their "Average Daily Return on Equity" This is calculated as the Average Daily Profit Amount divided by the Trading Capital. Do they average .005 (.5%), .01 (1%), maybe 2%+ a day on their capital??

It really doesn't matter whether they trade long term or short, because you can always calculate an average daily profit amount over any time frame. This is the only way to compare a trader with a $1,000,000 account to a trader with a $150,000 account. Otherwise, you are comparing apples to oranges in my opinion. Another option would be a weekly calculation.

As to whether you should ask "the question", I say you should if they are trying to sell their trading knowledge to others. Again, "the question" means little unless you ask them about their trading capital and their average daily or weekly profit amount.