Hi everyone, It would be great to have the feedback of some professionals on the time it took to finally get profitable in a regular basis and being able to trade as a professional. I find that very few professionals in books or youtube channels talk about the time they needed at first to adjust their strategy/psychology to finally get to succeed. We generally just know they struggled some time but it get rarely more specific than that. I know it is different for each person but it would be nice to understand the average time. Thanks
There is a large deviation here. You cannot say with certainty it will take 5 or 10 years or 15 years. Of course if you have more time to spend around researching and learning new things the greater the chance you will become a professional earlier. You also need to be very keen and hard working or you can get nowhere, even after 20 years or more. You need to read, to research, to backtest, and to trade. Accept that you will have no income from trading for years until you figured out a profitable strategy for you. So you need other sources of income or larger amount of savings to overcome that period of time. Also I think the fastest way is to trade from the beginning with a discretionary approach, as you do not need to backtest and research a lot. But you need to keep a very detailed journal and tracking every of your trades with intention why you did enter and exit and also tracking of your emotions here. That is the fastest way I think. But I do not say it is the easiest way. You only questioned about how long it takes. So if you want to get a Pro in just a few years, even within 1 year is possible with that approach. Then trade all day and keep journalling all details. Review your journal every day and make your lessons what you could do better next time. This will fasten your process of learning a lot. (Becoming a systematic trader I think will take you much longer instead to get a professional, as there are so many things involved here.) So be a discretionary trader with a good journal if you want to be fast a professional, my two cents.
If you have what it takes then you can be profitable in 6 months or less otherwise it might take forever. By what it takes I mean a basic strategy, the right character and the time to master the craft. Got me ? Overall I think it would be pretty meaningless. My years of trading might be very different from yours + this year might be completely different than the previous one. 1, 2, 3, 10, 20 in average 7.2 years. We don’t ask how long will it takes in average to be a professional football player. But what does it takes ? You definitely need a love for the game + time + dedication + repetition + consistency + feedbacks + effort + training … Depends on what you spend your time on. Are you working on the right skill set ? Are you working on the most important aspect of your profitability ? Or you’re simply throwing darts, drawing lines, fitting indicators to the past, trying to predict the future, learning to code, making up spreadsheets, reading books, trolling on ET ? We really don’t have to be a genius for being profitable. We just have to repeat the right things over time. Buy here and Sell there.
The market is too big and to become expert at it'll probably take close to 80 years. Learn about everything in general then focus on a few. And if you put in enough time you might get a flash of genius that would make you at least competitive in attaining your goal. If not then with the experience obtained you could go into teaching other newcomers.
assuming you're being given a trading system with edge, then it is 3-6 months to build up discipline and confidence to follow a trading plan. assuming you've to built a trading system with edge yourself without any prior trading knowledge and experience, there is no estimate because it's like connecting different pieces of puzzles along your journey.
10.000 hours, man...it's 10.000 hours as always. 3-6 months to build discipline and follow a trading plan? I hope this is a joke. I'm trading for almost 20 years now, it took me 5 to become green without a mentor and I've yet to see anyone to become profitable with less than 1 year in. That said, profitable means not losing money and making pocket change. Making enough to support yourself usually takes another 2 years minimum. Think about this business as going to university or learning any other trade. 3 - 5 years ora et labora until you make acceptable P/L. Can it be done in less time? Absolutely, but this requires a market that is so inefficient that you can make a lot of mistakes and still be profitable...like crypto in 2017. This would be a once per century opportunity and I wouldn't bet on that. So 3 years is genius, 5 years is normal....most people blow up after 3 months and this is a fact
It doesn't have to take years.. If you find a mentor or someone you can trust, that has the fruits on the trees, you can do it in 6 months to a year.
How many years to get pro ---> How many many decades to get pro If you have a mentor who is a successful trader, then it might just take a few years (or infinity). If not, it might take a few decades (or infinity).