It is not about dumb or smart. It's about seeing things (relations) that others don't see. Try out or do things nobody else ever did before. Think out of the box. As they don't see the relations, they conclude everything is random. If they would see them they would say things are not random. I always think about the hoax form Russian using a pencil in space while Americans needed to invest millions to be able to write on a paper in space. The Americans never thought about the simplicity of using a pencil.
%%. Good trends can pay a dividend-SPY does + has. And like DR. L Bates, banking committee noted ,some hedge fun d managers traded something like a non liquid $2,500 dog, for 2 $ 1,250 cats.....
Why is hard to make money? The biggest reason is that trading is more of a 50-50 proposition than you've come to believe. For every transaction... buyer is convinced enough to put money on it, the price is going up. Seller is equally convinced, the price is going down. Has to be that way or there wouldn't be a market. One of your tasks as a trader is to tilt 50-50 odds in your favor. Easiest way I know is to learn "Price Chart TA". (And no, it's not possible to tilt the odds to 90-10.)
Trading has more "stumbling blocks" than Carter has little liver pills. (You probably have to be old to get that reference.)
Easiest way can be different for another trader. Depends of a lot of factors. Tilt 50-50 odds in your favor is irrelevant if you don't know how much a winning trade will bring and how much a losing trade will cost. I always calculate my total profits from all winning trades and deduct the amount I give back in all losing trades. If I give back less than 10% I am happy.
HOGWASH! You ALWAYS know how much a losing trade will cost... it's called a "STOP". You NEVER know how much a winning trade will bring... unless you're naive enough to use "targets". And no, you don't need to have >50% winners if your wins are bigger than your losses. But wouldn't it be better to have 55-60% winners than 40% winners if you could orchestrate it?
That statement alone says, "I trade with tight/very tight stops". If so, you always know what your loss potential is. Otherwise, I smell BULLSHIT!
A stop is only activated if i am really wrong. Over 75% of my losing trades are never stopped out. I always know my MAXIMUM loss, but never the REAL loss. A STOP is the theoretical maximum loss, it can even bi bigger, you are never 100% sure, even not with a stop. I never use targets. I never said that I know how much a winning trade will bring. I see from past how much the total profit of winning trades is and also how much my total losses are in the losing trades. I continue to add up profits and losses and see how the ratio is changing. If in a month I win $10,000 and give back in losing trades $1,000 I have a good ratio. No matter if the odds are 50-50 or 75-25.
Pardon me if I call BULLSHIT on this. Highly unlikely. You're claiming your profit/loss ration is 10:1. You should already own the WHOLE FUCKING WORLD! I get the impression you're spewing from your fanciful imagination rather than actual results. Apology in advance if what you say is true... 'cause if so, we should all bow down and kiss your ring... you're one HELL-OF-A-TRADER!