Takes one to know one. The Queen of Sarcasm who deluded himself in thinking he could sell a newly hatched system for a mere $250,000 through an ET classified. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=128386
I know you are reading every word I wrote. But let me tell you that I came to ET to vent, not to teach. You may pick up something from what I wrote, but most of the time I am joking. Again, I may accidentally reveal something important, but given the vast amount of false information, you will have a hard time differentiating the gold from the copper (not that copper is useless, it's less useful, but gold will make you rich). Let me give you two numbers: 95 and 5. (This is gold, but buried really deep in the ground). It will take you several years to figure it out, if you ever figure it out. A successful trader with over 5 years of experience probably knows what the two numbers mean.
I took two years. Both years to create a strategy. I've been trading it for about 1.5 years. Now that I have it, I'm not planning on anything else. If you don't believe me, please see my profile.
In my experience in the hedgefund industry and among my colleagues who are traders, In a daytrading firm of 100 traders, maybe 2 are successful consistently. I would put the success % from between 1% to up to 5% of the trading population. Dire percentages indeed, Best of luck! -Hedgefund Jim
HFJ, At what point do you consider a day trader successful? I started very actively day trading last Monday and have had 9 out of 10 profitable days. I traded mainly options and swing trades over the past 5 months, learning a lot of hard lessons along the way. I keep saying I'll give it till the end of the year to determine if I can make a living at this. Is that enough time to measure success in this business, or can a fall happen any time, no matter how successful you think you are?
Hey those are great results! But the real measure of success is not in 9 out of 10 successful days (what if you blow 95% of your principle in that 1 unsucessful day?) but rather what your gains are as compared to your losses, That is somewhat akin to your cumulative percentage gained. For example, if you take a month on the whole as being net positive, and can replicate this month over month over month, and in up markets, bear markets, sideways markets, then, my friend, you've got yourself a winner. Keep your dayjob until you can backtest the living hell out of a system, do so until you have seen that system succeed in a variety of markets over time, then hit that system hard with every spare penny you've got Best of luck, -Hedgefund Jim