I have to agree with you on all points, when I started I thought I was very intelligent, a lot smarter than the old men at the brokerage I use to hang out. I started in stock long term cause the commissions on just about anything was over $100, and I did very well just using EMA, trendlines and a little fundamentals. Where I made a huge mistake was venturing into futures after I had built up a very nice account, lost it all in first year and next six years in futures, stock trading was paying my "habit" in futures and the comm were coming down big time and using home computers. The "old men" who traded futures spoke of trading spreads and selling covered calls, making it slowly, screw that was in my mind. I was going to make a gazion bucks in short order. And end of each losing week, my favorite saying was "I am so close". It takes incredible amount of time to separate yourself from the truth, to acknowledge all the weaknesses you have and own up to them, "they" are not trying to take away your money cause "they" is really your subconscious. I believe every person knows why they lose, either pure laziness of not backtesting the crap out of their ideas before using real money, stop thinking of how much you can make and concentrate on not losing. When you find what works, add more shares or contracts, but jumping around to different markets or indicators will only do more harm that good. You really have to learn who YOU are before the money starts increasing your account. You have to learn to accept, you have to overcome your emotions, you can't be staring at the screen and be thinking "oh boy now it is going my way I will stay in" when your rules say to take one tick profit (I have thrown away so much money staying in, could have bought 1M mansion). Homerun trades are for last one of your runners or for the dreamers, but consistency of having each day a profitable day has to be your Goal.
That's one way of looking at it. The reason why 95% fail is simple: THEY DONT'T HAVE "IT". "IT": 1) intuition 2) guts 3) perseverance (thru the drawdowns) 4) instinct 5) patience Look, There's no way this game could ever be simple.
If you have intuition, guts, perserverence, instinct and patience, I'll be more than happy to comp you at my casino.
There are very many more reasons why successful trading is very difficult. When a new trader get involved , there are personal biases which sometimes accidentally drive people to this game.A tip from an insider to buy buy some shares which fly to the moon and give the beginner trader a huge profit for doing nothing , or a banker who processed transactions for clients thought it was an easy game to trade , or a programmer who wrote financial programs easily gets hooked or farmers , oil merchants , students ,gamblers and many others.Most people get hooked into trading with a taste of huge profits for doing nothing , and everybody wants easy money.All these people end up as losers. These people lack the experience , knowledge and skill to successfully trade financial markets.The also lack a game plan , a successful trader's game plan , which is unlikely to be available for free ,or on forums or anywhere.The game plan of a successful trader includes all contingency for failure , losses ,draw-downs and preparation for psyche , ego and emotional well being during trading ,plus the preparation of the disciplined mindset and trader.All the personal traits have to be controlled i.e revenge trades , greed ,fear , emotional and instinctive trading .These successful traders would not bother encouraging any one , and would spend their time on leisure , and size up to make more profits ,not give away trading successful trader's plans. This trading is full time job , requiring full undivided attention and concentration in the shark pit.When there are drawdowns and losses , traders need some sort of income to sustain themselves , so most keep other jobs and do this part time.This is not a part time job , so most lose. There is more to trading than reading books which paint a rosy picture , most of the books contain garbage and too much misinformation to be of any use .This misinformation is about incorrectly using indicators , strategies , technical analysis and set ups , and traders use it and lose money. There is lack of knowledge about stops ,entries , exits , methods ,systems risks , reward, probabilities , failure of trends ,failure of technical analysis , changing market conditions with variable volatility , failure of indicators , dealing with uncertainty and unexpected market conditions . In addition most people end up reading snake oil on trading , automation snake oil , trading snake oil and end up as losers. Most traders start with systems and methods which fail in live trading , theses methods are not back tested or forward tested .If any any methods of systems work , they eventually fail when really adverse market condition arrive , and traders lose. Mastering trading requires a load of skills to succeed in the above aspects. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=252185 http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=248499
Mistakes , execution errors cost Mark Douglas - The Disciplined Trader Great interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIJVoydf444
According to feedback section the OP has been banned by Joe for spamming. Therefore I am closing this thread at this time. If I here back from super mod or Barron that this was not true, I will re-open the thread. The following is a link to the thread about him being banned. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=253177