I am pretty sure that I never said I was a GOOD trader. I know and have been mentored by a few good traders, and I did say I made money my first year, and I was doing pretty well (relative to my acct) in '09, but it all went to shit. It got to the point were I didn't have enough in my account to be able to make enough to live on without taking excessive risk, so I stopped. I just hope these conditions don't last for years. This is not to say that I think I will definently be profitable over time, or that I've "made it", but I am convinced it is possible.
I don't recall anyone saying compounding makes them mad, but ok. Anyway growing your account is part of the business, the more u make the better your ability to survive bad times. At some point though you will likely run into liquidity issues. Also consider that if u trade for a living then you take money out to live on, pay taxes, comissions, sec fees etc. I only made like 40 something % of my gross my first year, of course I don't have the best rates and I am sure some guys are much more efficient.
I think you misunderstood the graph and excerpt. The graph represents various market operating points. If you use set-ups, edges, etc., sub in those terms. The excerpt states that upper left to lower right is the path to follow for a person learning to trade futures intraday; i.e., it is a CHOICE to follow a path that begins with high profit/low risk trades only and then moving on to other trades as your skills increase. The point of the post was to state that in trading (in contrast to investing) the profit/risk profile is all over the place. Some have followed up here confirming that point. I'm not interested in debating or changing anyone's mind. I'm just putting what I know out there. That being said, your post does raise the interesting question of where the actual source of trading risk lies. Is it in the market? (Risk is not uniform across various market operating points regardless of trader skill level.) Is it in the trader? (Risk is inversely related to trader skill level; i.e., if a trader is good enough, any operating point can be low risk.) Or is it a combination of both? I'll leave that for you to consider. Another question is, is it possible or likely for someone learning to trade on his or her own to be able to recognize if a trade is high, average, or low risk? That's another can of worms.
Just checked, no balls yet. But I attached my trades today to show how patience and trading good setups can produce a solid result without using major leverage.
Possible, but likely to be a painful process. Witness the frustration periodically evident in many 'educational' threads. But are there many skills that people can readily pick up without any direct training?
Yes. Because that's an INVESTMENT (eg. I am essentially buying and holding by giving them my money) so percentage is relevant. Percentages are relevent for hedge funds, mutual funds, long term stock trades, etc. Not for traders. Saying that percentage matters for traders implies that you HAVE to scale up as your account grows, otherwise you start doing "worse." Remember the example where you and I make the same trades all year, but your account is $1M and mine is $10k. We did the same. Unless you traded 100 times bigger than me with each position, then we got the same PERCENTAGE.