How many of yuo learned on yuor own?

trader56 · Nov 22, 2007

Quote from Peter Cantropus:

-----------------------------------------------------

Hi, folks.
I am a trader from Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Though I frequently review this forum âactually I find it pretty interesting and plenty of substance- this is my first post.

Now, going to the subject: fully agreed with austinp. That has been my experience as well as a stock trader since 1999, starting from scratch.

For what it may help, the following is an article taken from somewhere, sometime, that complies 90% with my experience .
Here it goes:

....................

The 3 Phases of Trading Business Maturity

As new traders, we must understand that the road ahead of us will not be easy, nor will it be a quick journey. The path that lies ahead is filled with daily challenges that will test our skills, both technical and mental.
In fact, most traders fail to progress past the start-up phase. They fail to learn:
To take a loss
To be wrong
That, to succeed, they must take the time required to learn!

The one constant fact that all successful traders, including Borselinno, Fisher, Jones and more, all agree on is this: It takes time to become a successful trader. Borselinno says at least a year; Fisher says maybe 2 years, but they all say this business has nothing to do with instant success. Quite the contrary: Most successful traders say that Survival is the first key to success.

Typical Progressions of the Start-Up Phase of a Trading Business

We:
Are lured by money
Perceive a low barrier to entry
Are influenced by âPeer Pressureâ news hype
See that a friend did this and that
Read a few books
Go to a few seminars and get all that is freely available online
Find some speculative capital
Trade
Win
Lose
Lose
Find we need the right tools but think we canât afford them
Think, âI need to try something more difficult.â even though we donât understand what we just tried nor do we have the tools or the education
Lose more
Understand that we truly do need to work on âplanningâ and a way to shift our emotions from an adversary with respect to our goals to a powerful force that guides our actions
Finally, understand that it is okay to take a loss (In fact, we discover that this was the first lesson we needed to learn to survive!)

Survival is actually the goal for the start-up phase. So, then, we graduate to the Growth Phase.

Typical Progressions of the Growth Phase of a Trading Business

We:
Make a commitment to getting education and the proper equipment
Actually learn something
Plan
Trade with better results
Decide to make it complicated for some stupid, unknown alien reason
Lose patience
Lose
Simplify again, refining
Now understand the importance of patience in all of this
Take more risk
Are slaughtered by the market(s) even worse than ever before
Now have trouble pulling the trigger when the set-ups are very clear
Begin to understand the importance of discipline
Discover the mechanics of trading
Learn the life cycle of a trade
Commit our capital as planned, using strict money management
Get better
Start actually accepting responsibility for our own actions
Stop searching and start focusing (That is the key to graduating to the Maturity Level.)

Typical Progressions of the Maturity Phase of a Trading Business

We:
Are patient in our endeavors
Are disciplined enough to trade our plan
Understand leverage
Practice strict money management
Take less and less risk, preferring to use size on stronger signals
Learn how to handle huge dollar profits but keep our perspective (return on investment versus time to money)
Find out how to handle huge dollar losses but keep our perspective (return on investment versus time to money)
Truly understand the life cycle of a trade and can plan accordingly
Commit to a lifetime of education and learning
Now trade on auto-pilot, choosing to participate when the best risk:reward ratios exist
Make our main priority to trade our plan.
More...

Nice article - thanks!

See a LOT of what I've been through in this!

wee man · Nov 22, 2007

Quote from trader56:

Did any of yuo do this?

Interested in hearing how many of yuo learned on yuor own. Not what yuo learned, but the way yuo learned it.

No mentors, just yuo and whatever reading and independant research - of what ever sort - yuo did to become profitable.

Again, WHAT yuo learned isn't nearly as important as HOW yuo learned.

Everyone wants to be told how to trade, I'm finding few ask how to learn (though admittedly, I've not searched this topic here exhaustively).

Thanks for yuor replies!
More...

Did yuo post on another forum as 'car key boi' or somthin like thuot?

paul_alan · Nov 22, 2007

I remember 'car key boi' from trade2win!

ammo · Nov 22, 2007

Quote from Peter Cantropus:

-----------------------------------------------------

Hi, folks.
I am a trader from Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Though I frequently review this forum âactually I find it pretty interesting and plenty of substance- this is my first post.

Now, going to the subject: fully agreed with austinp. That has been my experience as well as a stock trader since 1999, starting from scratch.

For what it may help, the following is an article taken from somewhere, sometime, that complies 90% with my experience .
Here it goes:

....................

The 3 Phases of Trading Business Maturity

As new traders, we must understand that the road ahead of us will not be easy, nor will it be a quick journey. The path that lies ahead is filled with daily challenges that will test our skills, both technical and mental.
In fact, most traders fail to progress past the start-up phase. They fail to learn:
To take a loss
To be wrong
That, to succeed, they must take the time required to learn!

The one constant fact that all successful traders, including Borselinno, Fisher, Jones and more, all agree on is this: It takes time to become a successful trader. Borselinno says at least a year; Fisher says maybe 2 years, but they all say this business has nothing to do with instant success. Quite the contrary: Most successful traders say that Survival is the first key to success.

Typical Progressions of the Start-Up Phase of a Trading Business

We:
Are lured by money
Perceive a low barrier to entry
Are influenced by âPeer Pressureâ news hype
See that a friend did this and that
Read a few books
Go to a few seminars and get all that is freely available online
Find some speculative capital
Trade
Win
Lose
Lose
Find we need the right tools but think we canât afford them
Think, âI need to try something more difficult.â even though we donât understand what we just tried nor do we have the tools or the education
Lose more
Understand that we truly do need to work on âplanningâ and a way to shift our emotions from an adversary with respect to our goals to a powerful force that guides our actions
Finally, understand that it is okay to take a loss (In fact, we discover that this was the first lesson we needed to learn to survive!)

Survival is actually the goal for the start-up phase. So, then, we graduate to the Growth Phase.

Typical Progressions of the Growth Phase of a Trading Business

We:
Make a commitment to getting education and the proper equipment
Actually learn something
Plan
Trade with better results
Decide to make it complicated for some stupid, unknown alien reason
Lose patience
Lose
Simplify again, refining
Now understand the importance of patience in all of this
Take more risk
Are slaughtered by the market(s) even worse than ever before
Now have trouble pulling the trigger when the set-ups are very clear
Begin to understand the importance of discipline
Discover the mechanics of trading
Learn the life cycle of a trade
Commit our capital as planned, using strict money management
Get better
Start actually accepting responsibility for our own actions
Stop searching and start focusing (That is the key to graduating to the Maturity Level.)

Typical Progressions of the Maturity Phase of a Trading Business

We:
Are patient in our endeavors
Are disciplined enough to trade our plan
Understand leverage
Practice strict money management
Take less and less risk, preferring to use size on stronger signals
Learn how to handle huge dollar profits but keep our perspective (return on investment versus time to money)
Find out how to handle huge dollar losses but keep our perspective (return on investment versus time to money)
Truly understand the life cycle of a trade and can plan accordingly
Commit to a lifetime of education and learning
Now trade on auto-pilot, choosing to participate when the best risk:reward ratios exist
Make our main priority to trade our plan.
More...

ammo · Nov 22, 2007

tried to pull out part of quote that said "trade on auto pilot when large risk reward is there" if youchart and study channels and trade those first ,at least twice a month it bounces off of those lines ,its a layup 80% of the time,if you have stops above or below your line when your wrong you can make money,or lose small 20% of time,once you've gotten that sort of backup income,you now have a safety net,you can progress to other layups that you become adept at,if you protect your capital with GOOD DISCIPLINE,the part of trading that still eludes me,you will survive ,if you can survive long enough you.ll prosper. That part of trading{drawing channels} was self taught and allowed me to survive and gave me time to learn.Ive also learned market profile thru trial and error and combine the 2 , the hardest part is watching the market and not trading because there arent any visible setups,11 am to 1pm central time ,i do a trade,it goes against me,im riding it and asking myself ,what time of day is it dumbass?,so discipline fails often in this time period.

Canados · Nov 22, 2007

Quote from trader56:

Did any of yuo do this?

Interested in hearing how many of yuo learned on yuor own. Not what yuo learned, but the way yuo learned it.

No mentors, just yuo and whatever reading and independant research - of what ever sort - yuo did to become profitable.

Again, WHAT yuo learned isn't nearly as important as HOW yuo learned.

Everyone wants to be told how to trade, I'm finding few ask how to learn (though admittedly, I've not searched this topic here exhaustively).

Thanks for yuor replies!
More...

I'm a selfmade trader. I met some top traders and they told me something about their trading style,however I never used those stuff beacuse I needed to find my own style. So, I continued studying charts and technical analysis. The most useful thing has been watching charts from 08:00 AM to 08:00 pm

hwkaiser · Nov 22, 2007

Quote from gnome:
*probably an oxymoron like "happily married" or "jumbo shrimp"
More...

hmmmm... which is the greater example, happily married or Jumbo shrimp...

In all fairness, maybe it should be referred to as super, duper jumbo shrimp

Rtrader2525 · Nov 22, 2007

read read read, i always considered myself unemployable and anyway to make money that wasnt conventional appealed to me. look at charts, talk to people, and just started training. no school in the wor,ld beats just jumping in the ring and going for it

AAA30 · Nov 22, 2007

Peter,

Here is the link to your post. It was written by Jim Harrison. Good read thanks for sharing.

http://www.esignal.com/trading101/issue1/trading_education.asp

gaj · Nov 22, 2007

i'm self-taught - lots of reading (books then), trading, SI/yahoo msg boards (seriously on the latter) and picking out the few gems in the bunch...then time for me to learn my psychological makeup in regards to trading. and lots of time going through charts...

i'm still nowhere near as good as i can be in my little trading niche and it's taken me years to get to the point where i'm comfortable in my own (trading) shell, but there you have it.