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There are only two types of traders. Informed traders and noise traders.
All noise traders of course believe themselves to be informed traders.
Once you accept this you can start forming strategies around modern reality. If you stick with 300 year old rice farmer strategies don't complain when it doesn't work.
" Get to a point where you can describe your one instruments typical behavior and feel the way it moves. Know if a certain day is moving faster than usual. Know if a certain day is choppier than usual. You will never learn any of this if you're trying to follow 6 instruments"
You walk into a franchise expo with the intent of finding a business you could start up that would support yourself and your family. You talk to one fellow who tells you the sky is the limit on profitability for his franchise and would only cost you $30k to become proud franchise owner. They would provide you with 10 weeks of intensive training, help you set up the right equipment, help you set up your accounts. They would provide you with a 1yr enrollment in their mentorship program where a successful franchisee would be available to talk with you several times a week and help you work on your motivational issues.
Sounds pretty good huh?
And then you find a economics study that compares franchise success rates and you look at the top of the list where you find a host of familiar names with rates > 70% and down at the bottom of the list...the very bottom of the list...you find TradersRUs with a success rate of 9%.
What are you going to do?
I've used this example quite a bit when meeting someone who wants to learn how to become a trader. They will talk about it enthusiastically as a business they would like to get into. That's when I pull out the franchise analogy to make the point that it is misleading to view trading as an owner operated business like any other owner operated business. If it were like other businesses and was compared with the same success/failure metrics...you would be a fool to even begin.
I confess to having played the mentor role on several occasions over the years. There have been times where I have become so committed to helping someone succeed that I'd spend weeks sharing desktops with them for 10hrs/day. Always I could get the person to the point where they understood the why and the where of a trading opportunity. I'd even reverse roles and had them mentor me just to be sure they got whatever it was I had to give. But no matter what I tried it was just not possible for me to help them punch through the final psychological barriers to successful trading. In the end I found the whole process very frustrating and depressing.
There is an element to being a successful trader that is very difficult to quantify. I think it has to do with what you learn from the experience of actual trading (as opposed to sim trading). In part this explains the importance placed on risk management. You blow up you account you can't trade. You can't trade you don't acquire the experience. Persistence was mentioned earlier and it is really the same argument. You have to keep at it to acquire the experience. In many ways this suggests we are self taught in that we learn how to be successful from the doing of it. It comes from within.
And, just as I could spend many years applying oil paint to canvas and never be able to make a living as a fine artist, you could spend many years looking at charts and never make it as a trader.
But sometimes in life the best thing to do is give it a go and see what happens.
You must find your own way. What works for you, how you think , do not feel, and react.
take what you have learned from these courses and make it your own.
and...
If those self-professed trading educators were even fractionally capable of what they proclaim to teach you, then they would be sufficiently profitable themselves that it's unlikely that they would even spend time on teaching you (to share and diminish their own secret sauce).
Thank you for your frank response and openness of mind. I don't think this is anything to be alarmed by. A significant amount of "algorithmic trading" volume merely represents manual trading decisions. Many options market making firms remain mainly manual trading shops because it's still extremely difficult to replace the human mind.
Markets, by design, become more efficient over time and I agree with you that there could be many reasons for the predictive power of any patterns to diminish. I will simply reiterate that I don't think fast trading firms are at fault for this. I agree, we should stay on-topic for the threadstarter.
Do you have the capital to survive until that happens?
Let's do some basic math. Say you were trading with $10k. You need that money to last 5 years. So you can lose $2k a year, divide that by number of trading days. I did a rough number of 140 trading days a year (not for sure on real number). So you could afford to lose $14 a day for 140 days a year for 5 years. That is the max you need to trade to ensure your capital last your time period.
Just some food for thought. That will determine what you can trade, Spot FX, Futures, Stocks, etc.
This must be the first sound, sensible and thought provoking reply I have received to my “original” post to date. You have laid it all out in a very clear and understanding manner, and makes perfect sense.
I must admit, I have only recently got to the stage where I have started to look “within myself”, for the “reasons” for taking the entries, rather than just because the “setup” is there! (If that makes sense)
I can fully understand your franchise analogy. I am a “blue collar” worker myself, having had my own plumbing business for the last 25yrs. So, I can well understand where you are coming from. One thing I am definitely not afraid of is hard work, together with perseverance and determination. Whether that will be enough, only time will tell?
In closing, I would appreciate your opinion on a piece of software I purchased recently - “The Profit Finder”. It is designed to work on the NinjaTrader platform, and is used to back test different strategies. I have been using it to try and find my own methodology and strategies. Are you familiar with it? And would you have an opinion on it, or similar software packages?
In closing, I will most certainly give it my best shot, and see what happens. The response and positive feedback I have received from my posts on “futures.io (formerly BMT)” have been a real eye opener, and something I should have done a lot sooner! I am seriously considering becoming an “Elite” member. I am in this for the long haul!
Once again, thank you “glennts” for taking the time to give me your honest feedback.
First off you need to become a Elite Member. What you get in return for your investment will make it one of the better trades of your career.
Second. About software packages.
You need to be like a sponge and absorb anything and everything you come across. This is how you find what works and does not work for you...an important point SMLMikXL brought up. If you can accept that the means to being successful as a trader is going to come from within you, then you need to recognize that the solution doesn't exist outside of you. The problem with 2nd party systems / software packages / educational programs is that they are marketed to you as the solution to the problem. This is an absurd notion. If any particular approach was the correct approach for all of us then everyone would use it and the markets would cease to exist.
Within the ranks of futures.io (formerly BMT) you have traders who collectively have tried everything under the sun. What they have taken from those experiences, the lessons they have learned along the path you are now beginning, has been distilled and presented in the comments made above and all throughout the Elite section of futures.io (formerly BMT). Make that your primary source for understanding, take a look at all the trading approaches discussed but embrace none of them as the perfect solution for you. Out of everything you learn and the experience you gain from trying different things, over time pieces will fit together in a way that is unique to you. Over time. Being persistent. Being patient.
There is no quick fix.
Another analogy.
In general it is true that financial compensation for the work done is in proportion to the difficulty of the job and the skill required to do that job. An occupation that requires little training and that anyone could do is going to pay very little money. Spending a few hundred dollars for a software package or to attend a training program is something anyone can do. How much compensation do you think that will qualify you for?
Earlier someone referenced Android programmers starting off at > $100,000. That programmer probably had 4 yrs of advanced education and likely more. What were the costs of the education and living expense during those years? Maybe an upfront investment of $150K < $200K. Chances are that programer started writing code when they were 12 yrs old. It was a result of the work they have done and the money they put up that the compensation they receive can be justified.
Think of your own experience. How many years of hard work went by after you started plumbing and before you began your own business. Once you began that business, how many years went by before you really hit your stride?
Why is trading seen as the only (legal) occupation on the planet in which, relative to other occupations, one can walk right in, sit down and start looking at yacht brochures?
Does anybody really think that this is how life works?
I've met quite a few people who have realized impressive success in earlier careers who have been reduced to tears over their failures as traders. There is no carryover. It is unlike anything else you have undertaken and you will probably learn things about yourself that you may not like to know. Earlier life experience not with standing, lack of discipline will likely be on the top of the list.
I take this dour tack to make the point that you must not underestimate the difficulty of the journey. It's doable. But every dollar you make and keep will be hard won.
The good part is that once you figure out how to make it work for you, it's actually pretty easy.