I've been trying to learn to trade for around 10 years! Im 26. Some of them years have been fulltime, early morning until Midnight staring at screens until my eyes bleed, and some of them periods have been more part-time, getting home from work and SIM trading, studying etc etc. My story in brief: demo traded for a few months after a relative who had made lots of money trading got me interested in it. Opened an Account with a spreadbetting company in the UK with £1000 which was my life savings. Turned it into about £2000 in a few months, and then lost the lot. Wasn't using stops. Was always gonna happen. Carried on DEMO trading/trying to learn and saving more money. Opened a new account with just £300 Turned that account into about £3000 Thought I was a genius, and then lost the lot. I had been using stops more this time around, although on the trade that wiped me out, I was in heavier and was sure it was a good one, and was too proud/stupid to take the smaller loss, and let it take everything in the end, instead. At this point, I was certain that CHARTS/TA were not the answer. Lots of other people had told me this, although, NOBODY ever really told me what the answer was. I went off and delved more into reading the order book and studies this for a while. I SIM traded using what I thought I had learnt from my hours watching the DOM. My results weren't even encouraging enough to open a live account. Same thing with Fundamentals. There were still 'experts' who told me that NONE of that stuff was the answer. charts/DOM/orderbook/fundamentals/statistical analysis etc etc. I didn't (and still don't) know what they were referring too. They never told me. I'm not sure what's left after all those things have been disregarded. I was ready to give up, although, despite what everyone who apparently makes money at this told me, I was convinced that there WAS something in the charts. I started over again with lots more studying/charting and came up with an idea. I DEMO traded it live and had the results were quite encouraging. I then took it live, and have been using the same ideas for about 9 months now. I've not set the world on fire, but I've never had such consistent/profitable results before. Quite a few trades meaning statistical significance. Usually around 10 trades per day, so a few thousand trades? Tight stops. Quite encouraging. I work full time and I should note that all of my 'trading' has always been with UK 'spreadbet' firms (very popular in Europe) as opposed to Direct Market access. I have also always traded very small size. (I guess that's obvious from the numbers I posted previously). I don't intend to ever go in big (and risk lots of life changing money) until I am convinced that I'm not kidding myself. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now, that brings me to a couple of questions that have been niggling at me for a few days: 1/ I often hear people talk about how the market is always changing and how nothing lasts forever in the markets. Well, how long? Lets say it's taken me 10 years to find a method that is possibly profitable, am I only gonna get a few months out of it? Years? decades? Surely people can't afford to keep having huge periods of not earning whilst they find their next 'edge'? 2/ Are there any profitable/chart based traders here who have used the same concepts in their trading for years, and who DON'T believe they'll ever likely have to adapt or come up with something new? 3/ Should I be concerned that, in my studies of my own method, there are lots of instruments that it doesn't seem to work on very well? Someone told me that a true charting edge would work on any instrumuent. I notice that mine seems to work well on certain indicies but not on, for example, most FX pairs.
This reminds me of my first day job, I was using Mentor Graphics' PADS products to create complete PCB cycle desingns, doing all kind of tests and sended them to production. But I got in love with trading and switched from engineering to trading, so here I'm)
Hi OP: To answer your Q's: 1. No, the market never changes. You can count on using the market to find out how it works. 2. I began with an approach and have used it for 55 years. Times have changed so more information is flowing now. Makes no difference. 3. A top method works in all markets on all instruments. You must have liquidity in a market, however. Lack of liquidity means the market's operation is not in a place where the market principles can be operating. I'm sorry to say that your questions will not forward you very much. Get a student loan and go to college. Most colleges have courses that will expose you to learning how to learn. Then, you can begin to build your long term memory for various topics. At some point in building the mind, a person has a conscious spectrum which the mind's unconscious memory can be added to by the brain's activities while you sleep. Amazingly, when you awaken your mind asks you questions for consideration. Why the brain is doing its work is clear. As the brain processes unconscious memory into the conscious memory, the brain encounters tricky wickets to squeeze through. The brain needs your conscious thinking help. No conscious memory spectrum will ever develop when the facts and facets involved are incompatible (where you are now) and a consequence of CW OODA type thinking and beliefs. The time you spent with a person who was not equipped mentally was not good. A decade of "interest" is understandable since you have just observed what learning failure looks like. No one learns anything by reading posts in ET. Writing posts is a better personal experience. Obviously I do not fit into the perspective of your three questions; I amswered what you asked, instead.