I've flirted with the idea for many years, i paper traded in 2003 for a few months, then life catches up with you. Fast forward to 2008, Economic downtrend came, i moved to Taiwan to teach English, and get away from my boring life in the states. I finally started to get serious about trading. I read a book on trading, and studied it, reviewed it, tested myself, and come 2009 i had a little money to put in the market. I consistently had about a 30% return every month on my measly little investment, and i was trading about 4-5 times a week, being restricted by the Pattern day trade rule forced me to hold swing positions for days at a time. 6 months later i quit because i felt to be good at it it would consume all my time, and i was not wrong, I decided to pursue other things. To the average person (which is me, I'm pretty average) The task of even making a steady 4k a month in stocks is daunting, confusing, foreboding, and seems nearly impossible. When almost everyone you know tells you, don't do it, its gambling, and all of your peers don't have a clue what your talking about, its hard to stick with it to be able to keep progressing. Fast forward to 2015, I started my own small business and worked hard enough to hire a manager. With some steady money coming in and with free time, i finally felt like i had the perfect situation for me to have space and time for me to learn, grow, make mistakes and keep pushing through. You absolutely need the proper environment for you to be allowed to fail, and not go broke, and allowed the time, without having to do anything else for your survival. Because not only does it take 8 hours a day 5 days a week practicing, trading live and learning, it also requires 4 hours of homework everyday, reviewing what worked and what didn't work. being able to identify different setups that you can quickly recognize and execute. I would say it takes 6 months 8 hours day practicing and 4 studying/homework 5 days a week 20 days/month for 6 months without interruption. so 12hrs a day X 20 days a month X 6 months = 1,440 hours of hands on learning. Not to mention however long it takes you for preparation for that moment. You need to be able to not worry about food or rent for 6 months. It took me 6 months just to get the correct amount of starting money, learn how to avoid the pattern day trade rule (opening multiple accounts), thousands of dollars spent on online tuition, through various online classes, DVD's, and join the best chatroom leading up to my actual 1st day start of trading. Before you start you need to find peers, and online community of others that are going through the same thing you are. It's a lonely road as a work from home retail trader with no co workers to share your success with, and its easy to lose motivation. To me, professional traders are no different than professional athletes. It takes years of dedication to reach the professional level and once you do you reap the benefits of a professional salary (i.e. a base professional athletes salary is apx: $500,000/year, even though I'm far from it) The better you get the more you make. so I would say 1 year preparation of studying 6 hours a day and 1 year of hands on training and studying (12 hours a day)and you should be just be seeing some consistent results. I didn't say getting rich, but you will start to see some consistent monthly profit.
20 Years! 1996 to 2000 I scaled up 50k to 850k, in 2001 I had about 250k back, took it traded and wrote my dissertation phd about momentum trading, but I was not able to manage the psychological side of trading / investing any more. 2009 50k where left, took a pause until 2012. Meet the love of my life, got married, tow kids and a less bigger ego. Stepped up the coorporate ladder, now a CEO of a small IT company. Started again with www.portfolio123.com, since then I am back on track. Back to about 750k net worth now, did not have a loosing year since 2012. We hope to stay healthy and prosper... Most important for me was to manage the psychological side of the trade and finding a systematic edge (I run a small-cap, momentum, value, low liquidity stocks 100 Portfolio with a low turnover). Also rent out some systems now to other traders trading (for example: https://www.portfolio123.com/app/r2g/summary?id=1056887 ) Regards Andreas
I was never a consistently profitable trader. Lost money in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2011.
6 years and $150K in losses. I looked at it like the tuition to be a doctor that I never had. I finally found the system that fits my personality, which is the number 1 reason why I have been so profitable the last 3 years now.
The title of this thread should be " How long did it take you to be consistently profitable gambler , betting real money on unknown outcomes in a trading casino?"
Do you read minds, how do you know their strategy? If the trader is on the sell side, the prem received is known.
Premium diarrohea is the outcome in some cases , all the premium received over many years , goes like soft water from the back , when writing goes against you.
yes it took me 13 years to begin to have a clue so this is about par for the course. but i still think it was worth it...IMO i always wanted to be a day trader......for the freedom more than the money which is nice but a lot of rich people are prisoners' of their wealth.....not traders though
sorry i do not agree. that is why i traded for 13 years even while losing because i always believed it was possible to read markets as was told to me by Brooks and others in their books. you need to be able to recognise the strength of the players involved-the bull side and the bear side-and be on the stronger side. this is not easy but it is not gambling though there may be a need for considerable judgement in reading the conditions of the market.