Johnny, you seem like a good guy and a smart guy. This talk of bulls and bears and extraneous activity is largely irrelevant. It is the stuff of the old men who sit around in brokerages and watch the ticker crawl by and talk of "I bought this...shudda bought that.." etc. There is plenty of this on ET. Have a methodology that gives you a positive expectancy. If the market wants to go up, fine, ideally you want mostly but not necessarily exclusively long signals and vice versa. It's best not to care which way it wants to go and if you can, care as little as possible whether the next trades or series thereof work or not. The good trader is observant, disciplined and humble (not to be confused with lack of confidence..wholly different things). 14 years is a while but hardly a record. It takes what it takes. Most successful traders were once lousy traders.
If a trader was successful and spent hours on elite trader responding to those who have yet to figure it out, would they be like @speedo or @lawrence-lugar? Maybe 'ol Larry is "successful," but then one must question, "Why be such a dick?!"
Money is a dick. Wall St/trading is a dick -- Reality is a dick, If you can't handle it, then I don't know what to tell you...you need to grow thick skin, But 14 years is an awfully long time to trying to make it in something -- if a trader hasn't Seen the Light within 5 years...chances are, they never will, A great trader is naturally very inquisitive, and an adoptive, easy, observant learner, To be a good trader...you need to be a War general, a football coach, a chess player, a psychologist and gambler...all Rolled into one, (pun intended for your weed habit)
Lawrence-lugar is into "tough love", if you have not yet noticed. Also, may be, but I am not sure, he might be suggesting that sorting your drug habit might be something to add on your to do list to improve your trading. Remember you opened a thread : each comment might have some useful insights.
if NQ can close strong, it will be ready to go down again...or it could just as easily keep going up.
These people that have placed time limits, 14 years, 10000 hours, 5 years, invest, daytrade, hold forever, whatever, have zero idea what is in your heart and mind Johnnyrock. The commonality among all, whether trader or non-trader, everybody, is that everyone runs their own race at their own pace. Someone else's lane is not your your lane. How you travel in your lane, public transit, a scooter, a used pinto, or a new Aston Martin DB11 makes no difference as long as you remain inspired to get to your destination. Knowing when to change lanes or direction is a different topic. Since this post morphed from trading into life, I will end it here. \m/
My life has been a lot like my trading. The trajectory has not neen linear nor has it had the consistency of a sine wave. I appreciate the post.