I am lucky in the respect that I was stubborn and tenacious enough to keep going until I figured it out.
It's both, sometimes it's more of a skill than dumB luck and sometimes it's more dumB luck than skill. You need both to make money.
I'd love to agree with this, and although luck can and does play a roll, I'd definitely respond by saying that skill outweighs luck. The serious trader can never forget that this 'game' is all about probabilities, probabilities when looked at long term. Anything can happen in the short term, and in my humble opinion any trader that puts this down to pure luck really hasn't crossed the threshold from newbie to 'realistic' trader (speculator). Oh well, each to their own
Yes I agree that luck DOES play a role especially when the probabilities of making money using skill is low with not-so-successful trading systems. At least with dumb luck, you always have 50/50 chance but if your trading system has a less than 50% win ratio then I would say dumb luck would win out. So skill outweighs luck only if the skill is good. LOL
From everything I read in my own personal trading if you can win on 60% of the trades You are doing good. As long as your winners are even just slightly more than losers you will make $. And I do not believe in luck.
I think your missing the point here - if im honest. Stop reading what others tell you? According to your statement, traders with a 10% win rate would be unsuccessful, right? But what if each winning trade pays out 20:1, or even 11:1... Think about that for a moment? In simple terms, this is and always has been a game of probabilities vs 'winning' statistics