I think it's like anything else you want to be good at, it takes years of practice. Golf, playing an instrument, becoming a doctor, anything.
Agreed. Only in trading, staying alive and always in the hunt is much tougher in my opinion. Good Luck!
Finally a very good thread on ET. Keep em coming boys. Personal experience and opinion: It takes about 2 years to learn the dynamics and that includes TA, some elements of FA (talking about traders and not investors). Then it takes about 2 years more to wander around testing system and system, with your own money or on paper, fully focusing on the market. Then, some of those systems seem to be much more comfortable to you than others, and then you start realizing that it's actually you... your own STYLE that counts and now you start focusing on the ones that really suit you. You start thinking more about money management and trade management techniques rather than the actual setups and slowly, through the course of a trading year, you start doing things more or less intuitive, sticking with the simplest setups that don't give you any headache. After about 4-5 years, you automatically become profitable as your mind is relaxed and you do the right things when in the trades, fully accepting the outcomes. From here, it's all about keeping your line, researching emerging markets, types of instruments, other types of businesses that you can throw money at, etc
Agreed. Just putting in the years and time is no guarantee the trader will EVER be profitable. Just reading this post and calculating "Gee, it will take me a few months to a few years to become profitable" is foolhardy Some just do not have the patience, edge, understanding, discipline, etc. Others get sidetracked by a thousand different sales pitches, systems, vendors, books, websites, fax services, elliott wave/gann/astrology and other distractions
I'm sorry, but all this nonsense about "just be profitable regularly-look at the daily outcome and not your overall process" is why most traders blow up suddenly. You could make daily amounts shorting volatility for years, and then lose it all in a matter of seconds, since it's a negative sum game. All your doing is buying into a short term confirmation bias. You haven't proven anything untill you've traded long enough to survive rare, major event risks. Do you guys read at all? LTCM-when genius failed?
Hey young buck, have you ever heard of risk management? You think consistently profitable traders all of sudden decide to keep averaging down/up to blow up? I kindly suggest that you work on raising your GPA and graduate first before thread-crapping here, trying to sound like you know what you are talking about. Capiche?
^ 1. I don't smoke weed. 2. Some aspects of financial economics are not experiential. Doesn't matter who I am. If I present some a priori mathematical principle, what does my screen name, my experience, or your experience have to do with anything? Nothing. 3. I don't have the GPA to get into Goldman Sachs as an institutional S&T out of undergrad. I've still taken more econ/higher level math courses than the average piker at a top university. 4. I never claimed to know much about day to day trading. The fact that I can spot an obvious falsehood w/little experience just shows how shoddy some of the advice here is.
I have been trading currencies for three years now and I do see myself turning the corner. I have tried many different setups but the key to my progress is using a strategy I am comfortable with and being disciplined enough to stick with it. I am a former Swifttrader. They didn't teach me anything but I am glad I stuck with it because once you master your trading style the sky is the limit. The market will always give you an oppurtunity if you are patient and wait for it.