For you traders that are profitable, please state the time it took to be profitable, and state where you got your training or if you are self taught, and if or how many times you blew your account up.
This is really a personal issue. Some traders take years, other are profitable from the start. I am lucky to be in the latter group. But this is because I spend an incredible time forward testing, backtesting, and stress testing my models on demo accounts before implementation on my live accounts.
I joined a group in my firm in May 2004 which provided me a mentor. From then, it took me until Oct 2004 to have my first significant "up" month which was 5k. From then on, I was making between 5-10k a month until recently where now I am in the 10k-20k per month range and hoping to continue to climb.
Mahras, How profitable are you? I am curious, b/c you mention being successful from the very start which is rare.
Well currently I am just 17 . I started with equities when I was 12, dabbled a little in options, and currently focus fully on quantitative methods to trade FX. Built up a sizable stake since then. In my early years my success had quite a bit due to luck. But over time I built up my own investing and trading philosophy which until now has been successful.
Wow, you are really young! By the time you are my age, 26, you should be running a large hedge fund .
If you're 17 and you actually know what quantitative methods means, then you're off to a great start. Runningbear
Keep up the good work and consider yourself fortunate that you have started off on the right foot at such a young age...... It takes some years.....took me almost 12 years to figure out I would never make money as a discretionary trader. Sure, trading these days may not be as exciting as it once was... but I don't trade for excitement anymore so I don't mind one bit... Nick