Is making money in the market a skill or just dump Luck? http://www.investopedia.com/articles/financial-theory/09/probability-without-formulas.asp
I can imagine this question has been asked many many times here, on threads that reach hundreds of pages. It always does the rounds, in all FX/Trading forums - ironically never reaching a majority vote either! There is a clear cut divide though between what new and experienced traders come to collectively agree upon, with the latter outweighing that skill drives success. Unfortunately though, as there are more new traders than successful traders, the real answer losses its credibility amongst the pile of ill-advised, inaccurate and generally false opinions. Similar to trading education and advice in general really, lots of noise which blurs the scarce golden knowledge which is actually available.
Losers believe in Luck, winners believe in skill; Lotto and casino jackpots and raffles are luck -- But to succeed in this trading game for the longer haul...it's all skill, The data don't lie.
The lottery is a tax on the mathematically incompetent. - Neil deGrasse Tyson There must be a similar quote which relates to trading... Maybe something like "Unskilled traders are necessary for skilled traders to succeed, but every skilled trader was unskilled in the beginning"? Inefficiencies are all over the place in the stock market every day. Recognizing these and taking advantage of them has nothing to do with luck.
Does it take luck to get skilled, though? We've all been told that being in the right place at the right time seems to be the foundation of most success stories. Just some food for thought. Or, does it infact require skill to put yourself in to more of these 'lucky provoking situations'
You develop skill first then by doing the right things you set yourself up to get lucky IE be at the right place at the right time...
Perhaps, as said above, im sure it's yet another grey area - lots of stories where it's happened in the reverse order It's very much possible to be in the right place at the right time, without any skill. Anyway, to avoid going around in circles, this was just a suggestion!