I thought it was crazy all the indicators that one guy used for futures. I wanted to see if he had any hidden gem techniques I might be able to utilize, but as soon as he starts grabbing bollinger bands and RSI I bailed.
It would have to be a (points gained:win rate) ratio, probably over thousands of trades with some sort of drawdown measure thrown in. You can have a minority win percentage of trades if your risk/reward return is high overall. I once asked the same question and it seemed there was no defined measurement, though we tried our best to come to a general consensus. https://www.elitetrader.com/et/thre...be-considered-a-successful-day-trader.347353/
i think win rate is not important. For scalpers like me, win rate can be very high. But it is meaningless if 1-2 loss wipe out all small gains (big draw down, Sharpe ratio).
Ya you're right to an extent. I'd say your win rate in relation to your risk reward ratio are the important factors. If you're regularly hitting 1:3 or 1:4 then a win rate of 30-40% is still profitable. It has its place, because if you back test your system over 10,000 trades with a success rate of 30% and an average risk:reward of to 1:2 then you are losing 1 point every 10 trades and will eventually go bust, and that is before slippage/ commissions/ fees etc.
I think Pros are those who has a job at securities firms and who trade clients' money. Amateurs are those who do not have jobs and trade their own money. The most important difference between the two is Pros have much more strict money management , they focus on lower risk, but Amateurs focus on high profit. Pros have much higher survival rate, but best Amateur beat best Pro by high margin.
I'd say that a pro is trading someone else's money and gets paid to do so. An amateur is the retail trader who is trading their own account. The difference is that the pro gets paid even if they lose money.
Funny video. I'd agree that I wouldn't characterize the so called 'pro' a professional trader. Considering that he's running a YT channel with affiliate advertisement I'd say he's more of a salesman, but it's possible he does both. Regardless. Impressive results in just one single week of trading. Too small sample size to extrapolate anything, though. And his approach did seem a bit discretionary.
I would not consider the vast majority of money managers as 'traders'. But yes, they are professionals.