Lucias isn't going anywhere. This Journal gives him the attention his ego so desperately craves. We will be hearing about his paper trading exploits for many years to come.
Lucias/Curtis/Predictor if you keep promise to keep posting I promise I will only post in your journal once a month. I would hate to be responsible for killing the best journal on ET at the moment.
Some people are always looking for the next thing.. Always looking for someone to help them or something better. I think we should guard against this though. The idea of going to a proprietary firm was one of my original goals.. you know get capital and all that jazz. However, I've started to sour to the notion completely. I felt it might be beneficial to explain why. First, I don't care if you're making 50k or 120k and you're working for someone then you're still fundamentally in the same situation. I mean fundamentally.. the guy making 120k can buy a few more toys. So what we should do is strive to do what we want to. I don't care if you trade a 5k account or a 50k account, fundamentally you're in the same situation. You aren't getting rich overnight. A lot of failed trader have discouraged me because I wasn't trading all of my paltry capital in the market. However, I've spent a lot of work and time building my connections up slowly. Saving my money. I have made special arrangements with almost every provider in the trading world that I do business with. I now have subscribers on both of my systems and more subscribers are showing interest all the time. I ran some calculations and due to the arrangements I've made, before I place a single trade, I'm saving over 100% return on my account size per year. In other words, I could make 100% on my account size that i will be starting at and would only break even after shelling out "normal fees' for all services I use. This doesn't include my subscriptions which could add another 100% return!! Assuming I don't gain any.. So, the way I've went about it. I'm making effective 200% return per year before I risk a single dollar in the market. The difference is obvious.. I'm starting a long term business and will be here whereas the guys who just take their 5k and throw it into market don't even have a chance. Now, we have Maverick blowing the trumpet about how great prop firms are. As a discretionary trading and seeking capital, I had seek a prop firm for a long time. Over the past few weeks, I've came to a realization that most deals Ive seen are simply not worth it. I mean I spoke with one firm and the manager told me that it would be hard to make 40k the first year and that only exceptional, blue moon traders made more. I spoke with another firm where they were scaling back on their discretionary traders. The lost opportunity cost to joining any firm that doesn't pay a salary is enormous. For the futures trader, like myself, it doesn't add up. I mean that taking just 20k and going to a retail firm would be equivalent to what I'd make starting at a prop firm. And, I don't have to risk anyone firing me, firm going out of business, etc. Now if a firm offered exceptional training/edge, remote access, or salary then it might be something different. But what I'm saying is that everyone is always looking for something better around the corner but at end of day.. I'm happy with where I'm at. Right now I'm at the top of the c2 charts and I know people say they don't care but they know inside when they see what I'm doing and they know what they can do. I see a lot of traders here looking to others to help them. This concerns me because I know how unreliable that can be. My recommendation to the trader is focus on getting capital. Forget the dream merchants in whatever flavor they come in. Enjoy the game. Enjoy what you have. That's all we know.
Also, I want to clear up some confusion. When I've claimed I'm exceptional at what I do then I've referred to MY GAME which is predicting the direction in advance, calling direction, etc. I don't mean that my methods are the best or that I am best at everything. I actually see myself shifting to creating more automated and semi-automated strategies and doing more programming work. I can also see myself going more into the higher frequency trading domains. I always see myself trading discretionary but I also see my robots playing an important role. I won't be updating here regular but may update my progress in a few weeks.
Where do you see yourself in 3 years? Still selling systems on C2 and trading whatever money you have saved up? Trading as a means to make some money on the side or actually trading for a living . Idk about you but I don't know if there are many traders that are trading and earning 7 figures and have been independent their whole career. I just don't see it, maybe if they were born into wealth or earned it at a prop earlier on in their careers.
I hate to read long shit. Just give us the result: Did you make money and how much? The title of the thread is "path to success," I want to know how successful you are.