To develop your own holy grail, it takes tons of $$$ (or rather lose tons of $$$), trail and error, trail and tribulation, inspiration and perspiration and hard work. After that, it is not hard work but monotonous work. You can choose to work 2 or 3 hours a day, or as high as 18 hours a day.
I have never seen a trader that makes more than $200k/year consistently that doesn't work professionally day in day out in it - is in early when there are big market events and is very focussed and on their game more than 99% of the other traders are. Thinking you can compete with guys like that by trading/working 30/60 minutes a day is a pipe dream. Ain't gonna happen.
Every trader is different but for me the trading part takes up about 60 to 90 minutes total per day - it consists of entering the trades generated by my systems. The hard (and way more interesting) part is where I spend most of my day backtesting and building out new systems. The hardest part though is developing the mental stamina to ride out rough patches in performance which can sometimes last weeks or even months. There is a long term edge when you unemotionally stick to your systems through varying conditions.
Its not about gurus telling you something about how hard trading is... Seriously, review your posting history at this forum and what you were telling other members that are not gurus and giving you advice. You had some problems and realize there's a lot more involved in trading than just clicking a button (buy/sell). Now after your 3 year jouney you want people to ignore your journey and focus on your belief that its unproductive an misleading to believe trading is hard work. In contrast, I think its unproductive and misleading to make blanket statements like that at a forum full of traders that has a competely different trading schedule than you, using different trade method, trading different markets and going thru their own unique trading journey. Most traders do not surive those first several years of that journey and many believe that trading is easy. Here's my point, I have a close friend that we ran 5k competitions when we were teenagers. The first few years he couldn't finish a 5k mile without stopping to rest a few times because he didn't know how to pace himself. Also, he didn't understand the impact of nutrition, hydration and many other variables in running long distances. Fast forward, he's now doing marathons (about 42k) and was recently quoted in saying that running marathons is easy to a bunch of young teenagers and aspiring runners. I remember his struggles in a recent phone call, his training and reminded him of his own struggles to get to this point in his life as a marathon runner. Simply, its unproductive and misleading to ignore your journey to get to this point while knowing those traders in the past that told you trading is hard were probably aware of your journey at that point in time and they knew that most don't make it or have only a short term of success before failure. You should review your posting history as a reminder of your own journey to help keep things in perspective. wrbtrader
That's exactly right. The journey to consistent winning is very hard work, very painful and frustrating at the same time.
You are absolutely right, probably what I meant to say is, after you find what works best for you, do you still have to work 10 hours a day?
It depends on the trader. Some successful traders have another job to pay for their healthcare & insurance needs. For example, I know a particular successful trader (he's 35 years old) and still has a part time job to ensure his wife has proper health care because his trading is not able absorb the financial needs of his wife that has been fighting leukemia for several years now. Luckily for him its a great part time job that allows him to come back home to trade 3 hours per day. My point, I wouldn't tell someone he/she needs to work 10 hours per day unless I personally know the person and know their personal situation. Simply, you got to take every advice with a grain of salt because the person giving you the advice or recommendation is clueless about your personal situation. That's the nature of online social media. In fact, there's probably someone out there that's successful and is doing such in a 6 hour work day wrbtrader
Trading itself is very easy in its purest form, either price is trending or in a range. When trending you can consult a chart and follow the trend, When in a range you can mark the ceiling and floor and trade likewise. But now in reality how we perceive trading depends on the trader. For some its easy and natural, for some its the most complicated thing, for some its the best way to make money, for some it is very hard and they give up, for some it is gambling and they lose their hard earned money, for some its a challenge they try to figure it out. In the end trading is how we perceive it to be.