We had a great saying on the CBOT floor when trading options in the pit... After one year, you can confidently say you know how to succeed in day trading options. After two years, you can confidently say you have no clue how to trade options.
When I started out I cleared my own small account with TransMarket to scalp T-Bond futures - Ray Cahnman gave me three trading rules and told me my goal was to survive for 6 months.
there are NO secrets in trading - this along with belief in a predictive power of various TA models are two grand delusions of trading. just my 2 cents.
I always am reminded of this clip when duration or amount of account size. If more people saw this as a business or very expensive hobby, and before buying inventory(opening account), take couple years first of one's self abilities to be disciplined, memory capabilities, working on your own, programming, pattern recognition abilities and find an in town trader willing to be there, they have much better change. But hey this is America for most part and money is easier to come by, more is better, how hard can it be since neighbor cross the way is doing it. There are a few hidden treasures in trading and when you find them you keep your mouth shut, and those who say there are no secrets, most likely have some.
Go tell that to successful traders. It's as good as your TLA, you'll never figure out. TA is as good as any crystal ball.
Skill is not a secret. It is a phenomenon. Skills are not transferable. Only knowledge around those skills are transferable. Trading, just like swimming, car driving, etc, is basically a skill. No skills on this earth are transferable. Trading is a business skill. Business is a semi art. Art is also a skill. Trading is a semi art. The IRONY is trading doesn't look like ART at all. It looks like pretty simple and straight forward thing in the first encounter. Hence attracts people from all kind of demography. Yes trading has no secret, except for the open secret that trading is a skill, a phenomenon, a semi art. The beauty of trading is one can learn with a sample sized investment. No other business in the world has such a convenience. Of course thick brains cannot see art in trading. One advantage is ignorant trading mass increases the turnover which helps genuine traders to invest decently. The same trend dynamics, not price action patterns, observed in EOD chart can be seen in intraday chart too. I won't recommend price action patterns. There are many books on swimming. They provide the knowledge around swimming. These books does not guarantee that one can jump into water and swim instantly with the knowledge provided in the books. Same is with trading. Don't drown your money with the trading knowledge. Trading is a skill. Develop the skill first with sample sized investment. I guess I am losing interest to say the same things again and again. Thick brains are more consistent than me and never get bored. The problem with creative oriented people like me is we easily get bored in doing same things repeatedly. Thick brains are as good as machines. Anyway I am not one among the 99.99% of the trading mass. I only belong to the creamy layer of top 0.01% who truly follow their intuition and not pride. It is obvious to all that these books on swimming are just transferring the knowledge around the skill called swimming and not the skill itself. But it is not so obvious in the case of books on trading and people drown their money in market. If I happen to write a book I may emphasize this fact, if possible on the cover page itself, that not to jump into the mid of swimming pool immediately after reading a book on swimming and to practice in the shallow depth first. Trade with sample sized investment first until the trading skill is well developed.
Trading with analytical skill is like painting a fence and will be paid peanuts. Trading with intuition and insights is like painting an art and will get paid the premium. The first category of traders wont understand or believe in what the second category of traders say. They keep arguing "What is the difference, we all are painters only, right?" This world pays premium only for creative heads, not thick analytical brains. (This post is a classical example of creative and constructive criticism, which is rare these days)
Or they are successful but the information they give away is public knowledge and/or doesn't represent a true edge when applied systematically.
Any written edge is inefficient or in other words just an outline. There is blend of knowledge and skill in trading. The books can practically represent only the knowledge part. No books can represent the skill part fully because skill is unexplainable. For example there are no books which explains skills like swimming, car driving, etc. There are only books which are written on the knowledge around those skills.