Bullshit. It may have been 60-90 hours a week. It may have been 52 weeks a year. It may have been 4 years or longer. But it wasn't all three in unison; I doubt you could have kept up that pace, so I'm fairly confident that you're exaggerating. But you did convince me that you couldn't do it, so congratulations. Why so many vendors if you were engaging in "rational induction and deduction?" And only a handful of books in 4 years? Not that there are all that many good books on trading, but a handful hardly seems worth mentioning if the intention was to demonstrate commitment.
Damn!!! Q3D, I feel really sorry for you. So you basically put in more than 15 000 hours for naught!!!! Now, what did you exactly spend your time on ? - Did you spend it programming? - Did you spend it "reading"? - Did you spend it actually watching the market, taking trades, and analysing your trading and the market? What did you really spend all these hours on? This type of failure would obviously would develop a deep negativity in a person : May I ask, what is your history of success/failure? How did you handle adversity in the past? With such results of failure, I would suggest to you to discuss with a psy about all of what is involved when one faces failure ( wasted efforts), and then to offer yourself the gift of a 10 days www.dhamma.org As you have invested so much time and efforts, if after the dhamma.org, give yourself 3 weeks of just watching the market. another dhamma session, and start trading. If you do not see any significant improvements, please drop a note on my thread, and I will even take time to go over your trading approach and suggest to you some trading insights - after checking that your story is true. Remember: trading gives you a chance of significantly improving yourself, by identifying the core issues that make you fail.
I don't see my time spent trading as entirely a failure yet. I have had days where I've made over a hundred trades with under 10 small losses, I don't think anyone can do this consistently as a career, which is what I would have to do if day trading was my sole source of income as it should be if it's a potential career. I read price action on numerous time frames and numerous markets with an interest in volume, some volume profile, vwap, etc. I traded and analysed PA/volume closer to 60 than 90 hours per week. I've known people who day trade full time for 10 years without success and then most who claim success become more interested in marketing their self and selling trading products, success is usually becoming decent enough at trading to start selling yourself. I believe 2016 will be a positive year with profits from daytrading, I look to overcome adversity through will power and intellect, the same skills which allowed me to (IMHO) beat wrbtrader in the debate earlier should produce profits, even as a discretionary trader facing new technological advancements in price action each day I now have a realistic definition of what a "career trader" is.
I could just be $1 positive for 2016 after commissions and be ok if I think about selling trading rooms, atm/indicator coding, online courses, individual mentoring, etc, to make this a career. Wrbtrader was spewing positivity well beyond 2016, reread that BS.
@Q3D ....I have had days where I've made over a hundred trades with under 10 small losses.... did you mean to say: 100s roundturns? or 100 contracts? ------------------------------------------------------ ....I look to overcome adversity through will power and intellect,.... with the aforementioned statement, you are heading toward total and absolute insolvency at best....? ------------------------------------------------------- wishing you the best of trading in 2016.... but hopefully with different tradeable settings and parameters. MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE....
@Aaron Cole did you say you paid the prop firm some 3500 usd to become a member??????? in return for....? been profitable or breakeven to date? best wishes
As a professional daytrader, I can attest to the fact that it can be very profitable for highly intellifent traders. Those who lose are not that smart and should not be trading.
It's possible to make a living day trading but I would think that it's hard as fuck, not because of the markets but because of the mindset that it requires.