I have often written took me seven years to learn how to do long term and intra-day futures, then took me another seven years to get decent at scalping. I have seldom had to depend on profits for my way of life, until several years ago always had jobs to work for others or businesses I ran on the side. Then I got number of weird health problems and cancers, but continue to live as I live. Yea, beginning years are hard cause as men we likely to lie we are getting better and actually getting worse as we get too much data and get confused, so have to start throwing away what is man-made and go more with using a straight-edge, as time passes and your rules are within your sub-conscious, then you can add couple indicators to confirm for larger positions. Although am scalper for most part intraday, I do it most differently than the masses and my risk is usually far greater than the norm and I average down, when people have told me don't do something, becomes a challenge to me and I just find a way to do it. Trading is one of the greatest careers in the world, but you have to do it for the challenge first and results are profits which are secondary. You do so many trades for so many years, losses are more like a minor frustration than anything else, you just get use to not losing often. You have trained your brain to look for profitable trades, but when starting out most train their brain to lose. And last year after 39 years of trading, finally made a method I can accept for day trading, I simple don't like losing and minor drawdowns means more for me than profits, but if you not losing often, equity curve is smoother. I have found in life there some people afraid of being successful so they sabotage themselves, if they become wealthy, they fear the unknown.
Thank you for your honesty. I’m in my 7th year right now. Oh wow, I only have 7 more till I’m good at this? Terrific. I know trading is a great career. I am sticking with this until I succeed, no matter what. great
Seriously? If it’s so easy to trade your plan, we would all be billionaires. It’s easier said then done .
One small detail was left out: your trade plan should be consistently profitable. Only then you have a tiny chance to become a billionaire.
Markets are consistently inconsistent, or can also be said, inconsistently consistent. So in a way they have seasons, but these seasons are inconsistent. That's what makes it tricky, if a trader can have the discipline to step aside at times, it would help greatly, problem is, when making money it's fun, and we live in a self world of optimism that the markets are always offering money when in fact they do but not suited to our style.
you are unable to trade your plan became you don't have self discipline. trading your plan is not as hard as people think it is. try it for few month, if it works, then why will you abandon it.
Sorry, I don't buy it. Trading challenges cannot be overcome by automation alone. You either have unshakable confidence in your system until you blow up(or become rich enough to shut it down - never happened to anyone), or you constantly making decisions ... You are in effect manually trading your automated system(s). Feel free to disagree.
Automated does not mean unattended. I get alert for every event (entry, trailing, exit) and check what is happening on broker side. I turn it on on Sunday and off on Friday. No manual input. As far as success. Ask me this question a year from now. It took us over 2 years to build it.
Yes, after a LOT of hard work you may have a system that has a sustainable edge. But you will have to experience all the usual trading pains prior to getting there. You will most likely have some tough decisions to make when it starts to deviate. It's no different from a successful manual trader no longer battleing with all the deamons and just profitably trading his "system." And still he/she will need to adopt sooner or later. All I'm trying to say is that this "right of passage" is normal and unavoidable, IMHO. And if you could avoid it, would it even be worth anything? The sooner you imbrace this the better.