To answer question one. With very high technical skill and market knowledge someone with high emotions can maintain profitability. The less emotionally influenced you are the less skill you need to maintain profitability. To prove my conclusion is very simple. Simulate this person... MrNotGiveASh*t. He picks a random time of the day and flips a coin to go either long or short for ten minutes each day. Mathematically it can be very easily proven via backtesting that he very slowly loses money via commissions. Now, take your average trader who is influenced by emotions... He will quickly lose money 5-10x faster either by holding onto his losers, shorting a market that he knows is rising, or chasing trends that dip soon after he enters panicking him out. Nearly everyone here has personal proof of that. Look at me back in 2009 throwing 100k short every month as the market rose. LoL! I knew nothing about technicals then. I knew the market was rising, but thought it was nonsense... SHORT!!! If you want proof I have the full TDA account statements for the spy/spx puts.
it depends on what you are looking. when you look ahead, nothing is there when you look back, everything is there when you sit, everything is moving when you jump in, everything is in the range and chopping ....... that is "most likely" means
RT. If flawless execution could replace tactic n strategy then programming a computer to trade would be a walk in the park. Unfortunately it isn't. You need good tactics and strategy to be profitable in the markets, as well as a disciplined execution.