So, anyone who trades well must be able to make 384k risk free? Good to know. >Anyone who trades well would be insulted to make a lousy $40-200 >bucks an hour, one of the reasons I stopped charging. Trading can be
I think that markets change. And that's been pointed out by some of the posters above. I've looked at the best systems at Collective2 and the cream of the crop did well for 2 years, most good ones - only a year. I think markets change and the patterns that used to repeat themselves go away or change. And that's probably where the ability to adjust or change your method with the market comes in.
Figure out how much it will cost to get someone making $1-10k+ per day to stop their trading and mentor you.
Go to a boxing or MMA gym, or a college basketball team training session. Watch how hard they train. How many of those will end up making a lot of money as a professional? Very few. Trading requires certain talents, which most people don't have and never will. Also, I would wager that ALL the failures you saw, do not train and study markets and trading anywhere near as much as your typical budding athlete does with their physical training.
To pay or not to pay...that is the question. I'm looking at my bookshelf right now and have tallied over $1,000 in books. Admittedly, they were acquired over the past 10 years and not all at once, but the point is that we all pay for education, in many forms. There have been some valid critiques of pay to play systems, precisely because a good portion of the trading systems on the market have been developed with backtesting only, no live capital, and are therefore suspect IMO, or they are sink-or-swim packages (Here's the material, now go make money and don't bother me anymore.) My largest critique with most of the systems out there is that there is little to no follow-on support or structured monitoring/supervision. Now, I realize that most traders here are rugged individualists and would probably chafe at "supervision," but I've found that supervision and support are key to success. If you don't want something so structured, look for an informal group to trade with. At least that way you'll have other people to speak with re: market outlook, setups, trades, position sizing, risk management, etc.
Well it seems that some kind of valid backtesting is necessary - whether it's automated or manual. The way I understand it - the biggest problem with backtesting is curve-fitting.
When I was 13, I went snowboarding with my older cousin who deliberately took me to the black diamond slope. He left me alone with these words, "see you at the bottom." Later he told me that was the best way to learn. I still think about this incident..........and when I relate it to trading, it kinda makes sense. You either want to get knocked off right away, or pick it up quickly. It's true that 99% of mentors are losing traders and best traders want privacy.......if they make $$$$$ anyway, why bother waste their time on you? Don't look for the holy grail....and I assure you whatever edge you find from others won't be an edge anymore. I, like many, went through few bumps here and there and found ways to make money no matter what. that's all that matters. I still don't know what the crap I'm doing, but i don't remember the last time I had a losing month, and so my life goes on.