Majority fail in trading because they are lazy and want instant gratification without putting in the work. On any given week I spend ~80 hours trading ES. Even when I am asleep or not at a desk I still have trades running or am monitoring from my phone. I don't buy the burnout excuse. To master anything you have to put in 1000's of hours in order to learn the craft. Most fail for this alone. Over the years of trading and mentoring I've come up with some criteria that are important if you really want to trade for a living. 1.Personality type plays a big part. If you aren't an INTJ than I can almost guarantee you will not make it. Look up the stats yourself. The majority of successful traders are INTJ. You have to eat, sleep and love this game and an INTJ is already hard wired with the right edge. 2. Find one market and master it. So many people try to spread themselves thin following numerous markets and never truly learn how each product behaves day in and day out. If you can't commit to putting in 10,000 hours to learning to trade then should even attempt it. This means making many sacrifices on many fronts including financially, emotionally, and physically. This is another reason an INTJ is best suited for trading. 3. Find a mentor in the trading product you are attempting to master. Make sure they are profitable or at least verify the trades they have posted or called over a long period of time. Do not pay for mentoring. If someone ask for money to teach you run the other way. There are traders out there who like to give back as a way of paying it forward. It's up to you to find them. They won't openly offer mentoring. You will have to get them to open up before you ever have the chance for them to mentor you. 4.Educate yourself. 2 must read books are "The Disciplined Trader" and "Phantom of the Pits". Do not attempt to trade live until you have established some type of edge with a positive expectancy using sim. Every trade upon entry should have a stop and a profit target. If they don't then you shouldn't be in the trade.
Oh, wait a minute! No major in rocket science needed? No phd in computer science? or you mean to put the 1000's hours learning that, or is it the mentor that must own the diplomas? This retail crowd effing deadbeat is lost here...
I think the focus on math is overblown. It implies that markets are exact, like a 5" steel beam at 70 degrees will always hold the exact same load. The markets don't work like that. The patterns repeat, but they are still different. Another thing. You can't ignore fundamentals.