Neke, I was net profitable from December of 2008 onward. My "breakthru" was an understanding of why the trend is your friend and why it makes sense to buy strength and sell weakness, plus an understanding of just how to do that, all thanks to Redneck, Al Brooks, Bighog, Austin, and Geez. A lot of things came together in an Aha! moment where I realized I was doing things the hard way because it felt like the easy way. As you well know I have no hidden agendas. When the volatility died and you struggled, I offered several times via PM to share the price action methods I use because I know what it's like to trade for a living and be under stress to make at least N dollars a month. Here's a P/L post. Please explain to the newbies at ET exactly how posting this sort of thing for a month will be more useful to them than studying the detailed step-by-step illustrations I've posted explaining how a price action day trader identifies and enters high probability trades at the hard right edge.
How does one posting their P&L benefit other want to be traders? Isn't NFL, MLB, NBA, Premier League full of coaches who never played in the big leagues....
Yes. There are several in the trading industry as well and that's completely fine. The difference is that those actually offer transparency and are honest about not trading or even being a failure at trading, while dbphoenix and others take on the role of guru and teacher pretending to be wildly successful at trading when they most likely are net losers. They may not even get a monetary benefit from it (I doubt dbphoenix gets rich selling his ebook), but they get to feel important and get recognition for their "work". The neophytes are of course easily impressed and amazed that succesful guru traders are using all their free time to teach them. If only they put in the hours and put together a plan...
Sorry I didn't tally the P/L over that period. I just assumed it was about break-even based on reading some of your reports. But it was then still very early in your trading journey. I didn't say it will be more useful. I said it adds credibility. Just imagine your PM invitation/offer to me above (which by the way I didn't take, as I didn't the unsolicited free offers of some other "gurus" on ET who PMed me). Do you really think that after trading the years I have, and making hundreds of thousands of $ - yes even with all that losing streak - I would like to spend "thousands of hours of screen time" trying to practice a methodology of someone who I didn't believe has made, say 100K, over their trading career? Seriously? I don't think even newbies will like to find out the vain-ness of a pursuit after spending that amount of time. Hence the need for whatever aids credibility. Donna, don't take it the wrong way - I still believe you are sincere.