When still learning, I worked for a trader, who turned 100k, into 100 million, over a few years. That was > 40 years ago. He had many accounts, at brokers all over the world. And was almost always on margin call. Of course, I realize I'm countering my case, but he really did not know how to trade, just very lucky. Several years after I left, he was literally broke. Cautionary tale.
I didn't read through this thread, but I think the going rule for trading is 10,000 trades, not 10,000 hours. After 10,000 trades, a person should have a pretty good idea of how to trade well and how the market is structured and responds to various stimuli, if they are taking feedback from each trade and incorporating it into future trades (<-- a lot of work). Most prop firms encourage overtrading for newbs for exactly this reason - to learn. I was trading average of 100rt per day in sim to start which put the average learning time around 3-5 months (10,000 trades) before you were making money or finding some form of consistency. At that rate, after 3-5 months, if the trader was neither consistent nor making money... well, you get the picture. Most people cannot handle months without making money, trading in sim, staring at a screen, trying to learn from each trade... and most prop environments are actually not conducive to learning, which makes the whole thing kind of ridiculous, but there you have it.
The problem is unlike in martial arts in trading one does not know what exactly he should practice. Those many thousands trades spent just to find the kick... then another many thousand to practice it.... only to find out that it is still apperantly ineffective if not followed by another kick...the u did not discovered yet
A little odd, because every top trader in the world who manages money, so there are real records, have gone thru multi-YEAR draw down periods.
I'm not into martial arts; just a fan of Bruce Lee & similar films, but practicing 10000 kicks also assumes you figured out which kick to practice.
This is the wisest comment. To succeed in trading, you need a type of person. Not skills but a type of person.
Not true. It has been shown many times that trading can be taught. Now if one were constitutionally opposed to money, that might be an issue.