How long did it take for you to find/discover your trading edge to the point where you are consistently profitable? Since I've started trading (2009), I have been a 100% discretionary trader, however I've been trying to steer away from that as of very recently. About a week and a half to be exact. So I've been kinda half-assing myself to research new indicators, as the indicators and strategy I've used before wouldn't allow an automated trading style. I have seem to found a strategy that works much better than what I had been doing before, and yielding a lot more profits. I've never thought it would only take a week and a half to find another way. I feel like a week and a half is too soon, and I'm either missing something, or I am incredibly lucky. It took 1000 attempts to create the lightbulb, and here I am reading a few pages in a book here and there, slap on a couple of indicators in my chart, do 1 test, and viola, it works. So that's why I am wondering, for those of you who are consistently profitable in every market (bull, bear, sideways/chop), how long did it take you to find an automated method that works? I'm not looking for any sarcastic comments. I just want to hear from traders who have an automated system, or near automated system that requires very little discretion to tell me how long it took them.
There is no edge in trading except for Prudent Risk Management. The time it takes to perfect this is different for everybody, but the edge is the same.
i am also a discretionary trader it has taken me 6+ years to be a profitable trader. a lot of blood sweat and tears to get to the level where i am now.
Possibly. Either that, or I am incredibly lucky. I do have shitty attention to details, so I may very well be missing something. I did want to add, I'm not new to trading though. I've been trading for 8 years now, so it's not like I just woke up one morning and put together some random indicators. I have more than just general knowledge. I chose the methodology based on a variety of factors with a hypothesis in mind which I set out to try and disprove.
Are these "couple of indicators" published, if not ready-made then their methodology ? If so, then my original statement likely still stands ... its going to be difficult to find an edge with known indicators (especially any that are widely published by American authors), the trading patterns they generate are too well-known to the market makers and HFTs. The best you can hope for with known-indicators is improving your success-rate away from 50:50 to, maybe, 60–70%..... if your implementation is correct and and and.... If you've done the sort of things the PhDs at the algo-funds do, and mathematically derived your own proprietary indicators from scratch, then you may, possibly, have stumbled on something. How long the "edge" will last is another question, there's a reason the algo-funds employ those PhDs full-time year-round ! But even all those PhD's don't get it right 100% of the time, probably 70–80% for the rare really good ones. As you can see from the stats, many algo-funds have had loosing years or miniscule profits.
Yes, they are published, but I've tweaked them. As it stands, 55% success rate, with 1 dollar risk, 3.6 reward. You might be right. I might be missing something.