Could be that he finally found a system that is working for him or he's finally developed enough discipline to stick to his system. Trading systems do take a long time to develop and perfect to the point of being consistently profitable because the market is so dynamic and changes all the time. Sometimes you develop something and then the market completely changed on you and you have to go back to the drawing board and completely revamp what you came up with and start anew. Happened to me many times during my trading career.
More likely that he's had a small lucky street or found a strategy that works in the current market. There's certainly no guarantee he'll continue being profitable or be able to constantly adapt with the market's dynamics--much easier said than done. This thread is more about wishful thinking than anything else.
Being a trader or not is irrelevant. It is about achieving something that with high probability will end in a failure. Bezos and Musk also succeeded in something that with high probability would end in a failure. Each attempt to achieve something spectacular is at start a probable failure. No matter in what area they try to succeed.
You have no clue what he did or is doing, so that's your wishful thinking. There is never a guarantee for continued success, no matter what kind of business, and no matter how good the track record is/was. The only certainty we have is that we will die.
Nope. I base my thinking on rationality and probability. The vast majority of failed traders who suddenly hit a brief win streak go back to losing later. It's a very hard game to win in the long run. And while there's no guarantee of success in anything, some endeavors offer much better success than others. For example real estate--if you're willing to work hard and not overleverage--has much better odds than day trading. Simply look at the number of millionaires in both fields who started at the retail level without many funds.
It's funny to watch people believe and sell the dream in trading forums. While it may be "free," it's really no different than vendors peddling trading courses and coaching. Very, very few make and keep significant money trading. And of those who claim to, most are liars.
What greenjan posted above is something I wanted to mention to you @wabu27 Being that you traded NG futures mostly for the past 3 years as you say, you have an extra insight into the difference between equities and commod futures. Sure, for the past 11 years or so the equities have been on a bull run. But what has NG done? Not the same darn thing. It has been fluctuating between what, 1.x and 5.x for 11 years? (And it is nearing the upper-band of that range this year. Food for thought.) If for the past 3 years you have been focusing on NG, but were focusing on stocks in the past, you will see major differences. Based upon what I recall from your posts, you finally started to make money trading the NG. Well, stick with it. You said you want to use futures to get back above 25K so you can avoid the PDT rules of stock trading. Well, WHY??! If you can grow your account to 25K trading the NG, you learned some things. Why not keep at it on the NG? Don't get tempted to scale up. Just keep doing what you are doing, and build the NG account higher and higher! Once you get to a comfortable level on NG, just start scaling in THEN. Or perhaps...Get your NG trading account up to 50K, and take 25K out of NG account and put it into equity trading account. I dunno', just trying to come up with ideas for you. Believe me. Shit like NG is far-and-away wholly different than equities. If your brain can multi-task that stuff, more power to ya'. Good journey.
That doesn't change fact that what you assume does not guarantee that the OP is fake. The probability of success is still there although that probability is very small. For you everything is by definition fake, which is not the reality. I don't believe in dreams but at least I am honest by telling that he has a chance, no matter how small it is. I am daytrading since the early 90's and have enough experience to know how big (or rather how small) the chance is to succeed. You speak about vendors, while OP never suggested he would sell something. He will just post his results that's all. And these results will show how good or bad he is. I have meet several real traders in the past 25 years (I can only judge on people I meet in person and with whom I had contact during a long period) and I must admit that I am the only one who still survives after about 25 years. Most of them gave up after a few years. I also already confirmed that it took me also about 10 years before being consistently profitable. So according to you I cannot be profitable because it took me 10 years??? How fast should a trader be profitable according to you, and can you explain in detail why? There are two conclusions to me: it is very difficult to be consistently profitable and make good money and almost everybody will fail. there are traders who however achieve what is almost impossible for most people.
Wow... You have not read his post history, failures in trading, trading too large above his capital, and the infamous large loan debts that put tons of pressure on his trading when we were all yelling not to do it (using loans as trading capital). If I'm not mistaken, this is the same OP that had relocated years back to San Francisco (I think) and moved to a job (bank position) to pay back those loan debts to remove one of the major obstacles that were sabotaging his trading. My point, he has no relationships nor connections to vendors. Thus, he's not peddling anything...never has considering you're the one making that connection. He makes no claims about continue success. Seems like you're having a flashback and said to yourself...this guy is going to try to sell me something. Seriously, no one is naive here and many here know about his trade failures in the past. Let him enjoy his success instead of shitting all over his front porch as if you're trying to bring him down to reality when the fact is he openly discussed his problems in the past and got shitted all over back then too. The question I have unless I'm mistaken...I thought he had joined the military (Army) and was going to be an Officer for a while to pay off that heavy loan debt and then try trading again years from now ??? Simply, his trading never gave any illusions of selling a dream as you put it. It has always been...don't do what he's doing. If you do, you will fail. Please ignore the above if this is not the same guy that took out tons of loans to trade with and was severely under capitalized and thought becoming an officer in the military would resolve his problems. If anything...just wish him good luck and leave it at that. Flashback...not good. wrbtrader