Why Am I Still Teaching And Working If Trading is That Profitable?
This question always comes back to me from different viewers/students/traders, and it's totally understandable. In reality, trading is hard, risky, and contrary to social-media hype, rarely a reliable salary on small accounts. I teach because I enjoy building systems and sharing what I’ve learned, and mostly engaging in creative discussions with others around the same passion. I also teach because it’s the most honest way to help you progress without selling you fantasy returns. My courses will never provide you a private jet... never say never though.
How Much Can You Make From Trading: A reality check using Medallion-level returns
Renaissance Technologies’ Medallion Fund, the all time all stars of trading with their secret and closed private systems, is widely reported to have compounded at roughly 66% gross and ~39% net over decades, numbers no retail trader should expect to match (consistent trading over years). The fund has been closed and secretive for years, so detailed year-by-year results for the last decade aren’t public; the best verified long-run figures are the ~39% net annualized return across 1988–2021. I’ll use that optimistic benchmark to make the point.
Even if you matched ~39% net Medallion’s long-run figure, that still doesn’t produce a liveable income at a modest account of $20,000 for example, at least in the early years (first 5 years). And retail conditions are harsher than Medallion’s.
Being optimistic, with a perfect 39% yearly returns and ignoring all the ups and downs of the market, slippage, outages and what not... that leads to around 650$/month if my math is correct. And this is in the most optimistic conditions.
This benchmark of ~39% is probably the best real long-run net return documented from credible reporting through 2021; the fund is closed and detailed last-10-year results aren’t public!
So why do I create courses?
I am a teacher, that's my daytime job, and I simply enjoy it I guess, mostly I enjoy the fact that I can teach without boundaries using social media and different platforms. Definitely not to sell dreams. My focus is data, process, artificial intelligence and risk management from idea to backtest to deployment, so you can make fewer mistakes, faster.
To diversify my own risk. Depending solely on trading P&L is fragile. Teaching is transparent, accountable work I’m proud of. And I genuinely enjoy teaching topics like machine learning and artificial intelligence, I am even considering making courses in this perspective unrelated to trading.
To make quality knowledge accessible. I publish code, show the pitfalls, and emphasize realistic expectations and ethics. All codes and strategies I use for teaching are published freely on my YouTube channel @CodeTradingCafe
My pledge to you
No get-rich-quick promises.
Clear, reproducible code and methods.
Straight scientific discussions of algorithmic trading systems, risks, drawdowns, and limitations.
Education only, not financial advice.
If that resonates, welcome to CodeTradingCafe. Let’s build durable skills, and long term research projects.
