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To be fair, doctors "help everyone", and traders more or less help only themselves, so some difference in attitude is perhaps justified? (From me, that's a legitimately observed comment - being in both groups, myself.)
People in this forum are collectively far more helpful than anywhere else I've ever seen online, and your $100 for elite membership was a very good investment.
I offer one book recommendation: Profitability & Systematic Trading by Michael Harris (publ. Wiley) (not so much his other books, yet, perhaps). At some point, whether from that source or somewhere else - and there's plenty of choice - we all had to understand and learn what's in that book.
actually it's not that. If there is a Drive in one self to be the BEST trader there is...<< i firmly believe they will achieve it. you cannot be taught to trade...it has to come from within & coupled with knowledge, tenacity, great perseverance, sacrifice, no guarantees, self discipline, luck, determination, attitude to learn, humble, mentality who is not risk averse "means can take losses". these are just very few traits of some of the Best out there in the field. They normally have many more characteristics which is beyond scope.
if the above was not true..... you would find many from the academics field in the forefront of trading. Yes there are many from the academics side who have formed great HFs and are traders.....but not all academicians are traders though they understand micro structure and markets to the t.
In trading i believe one cannot get or take an edge unless its a holy grail indicator. in discretionary trading...You can be literally within a shout out from the worlds best traders spitting out their entry/exits....but one may still not be able to make it. THIS is a FACT.
also many people get into trading and look for indicators. I did that too. Ofcourse i use indicators....but now its with Market Micro-structure knowledge.
From what i have seen so far......the ones who make it.....put everything into it w/o any guarantees. And the ones who dont may not put that effort. Life itself has no guarantee "0".....why should trading be.
very few places will one get true good advice. one such place is fio. i think all the posts out here given by people are great. Only +ves...no -ves.
@paps i know this is not the tread for it, but i do have interest on the knowledge on what you said market micro knowledge. I think I read somewhere here you were talking about it, but honestly I don’t quite get it. I’ll get back to you on that later for questions if you don’t mind. Thanks.
Payback:-
well if I knew what i know today....this is what i would have done. ANyways what we learn thru experience is invaluable:-
1. I would have googled "mastering the markets" & read it cover to cover many time. And would have known exactly …
check point 1. Googled << And read it to understand every word. Thats what i meant. Having read countless of books...this finally formed my basis. A free book on the web. often overlooked
I did make 3 suggestions to you in my initial post:
1. turn off your charts.
2. burn your TA books.
and...
3. watch order flow.
Which market should you watch order flow on?
The thick and the 'slow', the treasuries (ZN / ZB).
What should you watch for?
You should watch for the intention (the # of orders sitting on different levels and being removed / added) vs. the actual execution (the market orders ripping into the levels). With order flow, you are looking at what is happening RIGHT NOW in the market, looking for signs of immediate strength / weakness.
Once you think you are getting a bit of a feel for what's going on, look for the edge (i.e. pick places where a level is about to go, so if you jump in, you will be sitting on a break-even trade). This is the most basic skill for order flow trading.
If you are looking for a mentor, get John Grady's basic order flow course. it's a great start. Take it from there. That alone should save you several years of wasted effort.
Is this the only approach? Certainly not. But it is the best one I found in the 10+years of trading.
You are never in the wrong place... but sometimes you are in the right place looking at things in the wrong way.
Don't be afraid to hit that little "Thanks" button down in the lower right corner, people appreciate it
There's an almost infinite number of ways to skin this cat... no "one size fits all" way of doing it, period. You need to explore them and figure which one best suits you, which one makes the most sense for you. Lots of great suggestions in this thread... I think you've struck a nerve