A. You come here looking for advice about how the markets might have changed, and admit that they might have. B. You then give advice of your own. Yer a weirdo. Dude, if I made a good 6 figures in one year, and lost only 5 figures in the next year, I'd be dancing in the streets. That is AWESOME profit over two years. I do not think you are serious.
Thank you. Lesson learned: don't take everything someone states from the outset at face value but scrutinize for logical coherence.
I can kind of see this. I started trying to trade in 2011, so about when you left and HFT was becoming a known and regular thing. CNBC would often show numbers that in the following years increasingly showed that HFT had taken over volume in the markets primarily in the stock market, than later seeping into index and currency futures. So maybe your particular methods were found and front-runned by the hft and algos. Not saying changing methods, different time frames wouldn't have a possibility to work of course and maybe old momentum scalping was ruined forever. But you've done well for ten years, better than the vast majority of retailers who tried probably.
I made 275 k my last year of trading. I made about 1 million in total in 10 years. I think I had a decent sense of risk management. I traded millions and millions of shares a year. I cut my losses and let winnings run. I almost never had a big loss related be to winnings. Most of the time I made sure system shut me off after a few hundred dollars loss. But I never stopped when I was up a thousand either. Back when I traded that was a primary mistake of traders. They stopped when they made "enough". So what I had success with was a ton of small losses and a relative small number of big winners. 275k is not slot either. I had friend traders who made and lost that figure in single days. One time one guy who was addicted to heroin passed out during trading hours snorting heroin. He was down 70 k while passed out and by the time he woke up he was up 110k through a reversal. One of the best dudes I've known. Sad story too. I've seen some crazy shit during trading hours. Like I said I have always been a piker.
That advice about beliefs has been valid and will be valid as long as trading exists. Don't have beliefs. Beliefs are your enemy as a trader. I think that's valid advice for any trader.
No sympathy here. Welcome back to the REAL. You're gonna' need it. (Luck). It is a brave new world out there.