I think the reason many don't get a mentor is because they not ready to get one, "I recall back in 2008 when i first started trading i asked someone who i though to be a trader (not sure if he was or not) but he gave me an answer and said "When the student is ready the teacher will appear" Funny thing fast forward to 2016 when i was still trading but not yet successful and had a job a coworker asked me to teach him how to trade, i chuckled and laughed about it and said to him "When the student is ready the teacher will appear." Today 5 years later he is trading, he knows a lot more than he did before which was nothing, yet he is stuck at one strategy and one style he learned from a class which isn't wrong but he has no idea of the whole picture or other strategies for the sake of knowing them or improving what he already does, for example he knows delta but doesn't know extrinsic. The point is, i would be willing to teach him except that he is stuck doing what he does which will work modestly but after 2 to 4 years in my opinion he will realize its not making the gains he expected and or so much time has passed without progressing. Thus many of those so called "looking for mentors" are stuck in their ways, which only time changes, As Richard Dennis has said that if you get them young enough (fresh mind) you can teach them anything but most people are printer perennial bulls. Thus as one said above if you do it less than 24/7 its gonna take reaaaaaaaaaaaaaly loooong time, i know that was the case at least for me, 10 years of zero success, never even got lucky on that "one trade"
you beat me to it it was bill, and yes i would still trade if i consistently lose, i think after 10 years of trading any one that lasted that long if they keep losing consistently all they got to do is flip the switch and do the opposite and boom they become consistently winners, trading is like building muscles at the gym, if you believe you can lose forever then its a belief of being unable to do it rather than it being a thing that is unable to be done
i got to disagree with you on this one, luck might play a role in making money, but keeping it is no luck whatsoever, also having more money gains or other in your early trading in my opinion will only delay your educational journey which is more important
I got to assume your in your thirties maybe early forties, and i got to say that you would probably do it again, you just haven't seen the long term results of it yet, trading in my opinion is an exponential growth type of results. Wouldnt you agree? Would you not do it again after seeing it?
Re "day" trading - is it really any different for swing trading or investing? i got to say drastically different in my opinion, day trading reminds me of a job, you got to clock in at this time clock out at that time except now you got a more ruthless boss. Basically garbage in my opinion. Also if your trading in general and ultimate goal is to manage MORE AND MORE N MORE money whether your own or not eventually you hit a problem moving such size both liquidity wise and mentally the numbers get ridiculous since you can only trade so few things at a time where as swing trading you do your research any time through out the week, place your orders at night to get filled the next day, you sleep through market hours and you can constantly expand by taking similar positions or bigger positions. Financial freedom might by the same but i wont say the time freedom is the same in day trading as in swing trading.
precisely like you said those attracted of day trading think they can make money faster that is in what i have seen is rarely the case, let aside opportunity cost and time consumption i think most day traders those that make it or dont eventually switch over because they get burned out or their account size gets too big to day trade so the question is why opt to day trading any ways when there is a detour you have to take any ways in the long run?? regarding holding of winners, i agree and i am with you i used to define it same way, however i got to tell you, i got to do it without mastering that emotions of it. For options traders, implementing such can be encapsulated in the position structure itself thus don't beat your self too hard if you haven't been able to do it, research instead different position structures for yourself to obtain its results
maybe soon you will hear it, the process becomes very easy, the stress becomes perhaps bigger because now your dealing with bigger numbers but i am no 8 figures trader so dont quote me but i would agree it has become significantly easier