My response made it clear I understood what he meant and I also explained that if I were invested I wouldn't be as objective.

Also claiming that someone can make correct predictions the majority of the time means they should be rich from speculating is lacking some basic understanding of life. One of the main reasons I failed as a speculator is because I was unwilling to revolve my life around speculating, so for example even though I made the correct prediction of when to buy and sell silver, I didn't have my fiat and silver in the right places to make the trades. I had fiat in the USA that I couldn't get to Manila without putting me in some FATCA reporting scenario and I had physical in Manila that the dealer refused to buy or find a buyer at $48.

I am a programmer and a sportsaholic, and have my head and free time deep in other priorities. I don't want to be a speculator and be married to my investments 24 x 7. That doesn't diminish my ability to analyze markets.

The other reason I failed as a speculator is because I didn't know how to control my rationality when the combination of my illness messing with my adrenal function right after the May ER hospitalization, and my ex showing up to yank my kids unannounced in the same month, sent me into a tizzy trying to score big in the markets so I could afford to do something drastic about that situation. Which caused me to double-down ($75,000) on an irrational premature short bet  on China. I wasn't doing research, I was acting on my desires of what I wanted to happen.

So yeah I decided not to speculate because I made a lot of money in my life programming and creating. And lost most of it speculating, even though I had many correct predictions.