To succeed in trading... 1. Know and understand WHY, your trades 2. Execute with a high degree of DISCIPLINE. All else is folly/distraction. KISS as always, baby!
As simple as "trading" seems, the story of most conversation between traders is just so much like the blind men 'touching the elephant' -- where each one describes firmly what part they grasp, but have no idea about the rest of the beast. Option markets? Tick scalping? Trend-trading? Tech Stocks? DOW 30? EEM? Forex?!?!? WHUT?!?!? The bottom line is that most of us have filters in place that we no longer even recognize -- to filter out what does not apply to us, because it's either crap, or it's irrelevant to our part of the elephant. But for the poor newb??? UGH! They have no such filter, and must listen and sift through *everything* for applicable gems and nuggets of wisdom. *Very* tiring. "Imagination without discipline is like a butterfly without feet." No matter what, you need discipline: you need discipline to begin, to sift through what you might need, and later, to carry out your finely-tuned trading plan. You *always* need discipline. I "Like"ed lots of the posts above, which all contained solid traits needed to begin, to learn about, to whittle down, and to trade successfully, long-term. Discipline was in there, as was mental agility/imagination, perspiration, etc etc. Maybe, bottom line, would be this: recognize that someone just starting has *two* major tasks at hand: to learn, and to survive. Whereas those of us who've been around the elephant a bit more can merely concentrate on the "survive" part. Fun thread.
Imagination would lead you to think big and lying you yourself, you have to work with intensity. I have no clue what the next tick will be, so my models have to be based on probabilities of the past, mountain of back testing, always studying the charts to better understand patterns. We live in a pattern life, it is which shoe do you put on first everyday, that is a pattern as simple as it can be, and trading is for most part patterns. Patterns of how uneducated traders trade and then take advantage of them, patterns of HFTs and tailcoat them, patterns of extremes and counter trade them till probabilities change and trade for trend. Better you love to research as trading is 99% preparing and 1% doing.