hmmmm... you are certainly an interesting character... I read a few of your posts, they have all the same "theme"... little value to add though... anyhow, anyone that puts their mind to something, can in fact succeed... to be honest, nothing is hard if one focuses enough... I know this for a fact... you used the running example, which is funny because in January I started running... I hate running... but anyone can run if they do it daily, right? wrong... I had to learn about my stride, I educated myself about the mechanics of running, how to preserve the max amount of energy while going as fast as you can still... I practiced 1 mile at a time in the treadmill until I got the mechanics correctly (forcing myself to land my feet a certain way), I made sure to do squats, lunges, extensions and curls, and box jumps... I trained for explosiveness and focused on endurance, adding 1 mile every day... I learned how to carbo load properly and eat for recovery... I added the necessary supplements to my diet.... the result? simple... I am now doing half marathons, and I have the NYC and MIA marathons coming up in the fall and next year... best of all, I keep challenging myself to beat my own personal records with a goal of running a half in 1:30 or better... will I get there tomorrow if I just seat in my ass eating bomboms and watching TV like most of america? certainly no... so while I will not compete with professional marathons runners, specially those training at high altitudes and running 15+ miles a day, I can certainly compete and run with all the couch potatoes that will be out of fuel by 5K or 10K if they even get that far... oh, did I mentioned I am almost 40? anyhow, you get the point.. what I interpret garachen to state is that you get what you put in... garbage in garbage out... if you dont focus to achieve something, it doesnt happen, and you really have to want it to be willing to sacrifice something... granted, to your point, with trading it has also to do with finding the right "mentor" or experiencing enough without completely blowing out... but both require focus as well... IMO of course... PS... here, this might explain it better for you... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTFnmsCnr6g
BlueTurtle, I don't really know your history but having interacted with other posters here I'm going to lump you in with a certain type which might or might not do you justice. In my posts I generally assume that discovery of a trading edge is a given. From my experiences and as I've noted before, that is the easier part of the business. My concern for sharing my experience and what I didn't really want to say directly is that many people fail because they are just not well suited to trading. There are many facets to that. Helping people discover an edge is not really of interest to me. Not because I don't want to be helpful but because if you need significant help there than you will probably not be able to understand what to do when that particular trade goes away and no way would you be able to deal with the considerable complexity and infrastructure of extracting as much as possible from the edge you have. What I am interested in is discussing with people the 'next steps'. Like "how do I go from 100K/year to $1M/year or $10M/year". For me, that's a fun, interesting, collaborate discussion to have and I have invited numerous people to call me who have specific questions on that front. I agree with rallymode. And I understand exactly what he's talking about. Fundamentally, trying to make 10K,50K, whatever a year from trading is not even a good starting point. And it's not a good use of time either. Do you really want to watch screens for a year for.... 50K? It's a terrible use of time. A valid method when you have a small account and a decent 'life cushion' is shooting for at least 300K that first year. Just to make it worthwhile. Of course this is horrible advice for 95% of the people who have no edge and are lost in Chart and Indicator land so I wouldn't recommend it to anyone I haven't met or spoken to and watched trade. For people with experience it's pretty easy to determine if someone has an edge or not. A friend of mine who was a financial advisor (a profession I loath) showed me a spreadsheet of his Forex trading over the past year. He wanted to start a fund that was a mix of Forex and real estate. After looking at his trades - thousands of them - I told him to ditch the real estate, leave his job and trade full time. I almost never give that advice. I'm not sure exactly what it was, but his edge was indisputable and within a month he'd raised $50M. Totally digressing here. But my point is that at different stages people need different types of guidance. And while I appreciate your desire for something concrete - which is probably more helpful for edge discovery - there is a lot to this business and others where work efficiency, time management, negotiation and creative problem solving become increasingly important to extracting the most money possible.
the point is...you have NOT gotten there. you are doing a plan, and you think it is right...but you have NOT reached your goals. so, after you run a 1:30, please get back to me and then tell me about how you got there. right now, you think you are doing it right, but you might not be. you might be doing it all wrong.... I knew runners who ran 100 mile weeks. disaster. runner who ran 40 miles a week. super stars. some ate "healthy" and were horrible. some ate McD's and won races. so keep doing what you think is right.....good luck. my point....it's dynamic. adjust.
ahhh... so I see your issue now... you make the assumption that most people have strict plans/paths... what I didnt tell you was all the adapting that took place to figure out how to run correctly, eat right, and recovery... all the trial an errors, the continuous improvement process... being dynamic is to me, let's say... a natural part of being me... being rigid leads to failure, plain and simple... one has to be nimble and adapt... evolve or die... that is my thought... I am sub 2 hours now... I can run without issues a half with 8.3/mile... I started at 10.. the path to get to 8.3 wasnt a rigid one, I had to adapt to a lot of things... just like I know the path to get to below 7/mile will take adaptation... just like in trading, I started like everyone else out there.. $5K account.. gambling... getting lucky.. etc... but I soon learned that being undercapitalized, not having enough knowledge of the markets, and not understanding my own emotions were more critical to ever finding an edge... my edge came with understanding the markets, once I specialized in a few... and understanding myself came from looking at the mirror... and it is an ever ongoing process... strategies stop working, edges evaporate... markets change... strategies that didnt work before start working again, new edges appear.. etc... markets change and evolve as the participants do... so I agree with you, being dynamic is where is at... but none of that came across on all your prior posts that were merely making fun of things...
can you show us ANY proof? note: if you are running OTM and spend time on ET, this seems like a breach of fiduciary duty. of course, if you are in the basement and your mom is yelling, "clean your room"....then you are likely OK. my four new guys made over $400,000 today. easy!!!
Using 25% / year as an average, compounding results over 10 years will get you to 465k. Another 10 years to get to 4.3M. I think it's not bad for a part-time activity. Of course, if you were averaging 50% per year, it would only 5.5 years to achieve the same results (50k to 465k to 4.3M). And at 100% per year, it would only take 3.25 years from 50k to 465k. So, working on improving your trading performance would help you speed-up your account growth, if you can do it without impacting your consistency and/or psyche. There is certainly some merit in varying your position-size as a function of trade expectancy, if your *research* can give you this. But this should be an integral part of your trading plan, not an on-the-fly decision based on gut-feel.