Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
Is definitely without a doubt true. But does it matter? I mean think about it, the failure rate for becoming great at ANYTHING is probably around 90% or higher.
How many people become professional actors?
How many people become professional singers?
How many people become professional athletes?
How many people become professional poker players?
When people start trading they act like they should be profitable immediately. But if you started playing basketball for the first time, would you expect yourself to be amazing at the start? Of course not, you're development will only happen over a good amount of time.
What I'm trying to say is that the 90% statistic shouldn't scare you. If that's what is pushing you away then don't even start this journey. You won't make it. The statistic is there to show you that like anything worthwhile in this life, it will be a long difficult journey.
This post got me thinking about who is in that 90%. How many people in that 90% were never really serious about trading, but just wanted to 'try their hand at it' and see if it worked out? Should those people be counted?
I wonder if there is a statistic covering only 'serious' would be traders. How many traders who completed some formal trading education (either technical or psychological or both), started with realistic capital and stayed with it for at least 2 years succeeded? That would be a statistic worth considering.
I'm sure some of the trading coaches/mentors/educators have this data as it applies to their students but are probably reluctant to share it, and no overall source of data for generating this statistic exists. This is just what came to mind when I read this post and I thought I'd share.
The 90% thing has become a meme, like the 10,000 hour business. A statistic such as that which you suggest would be far more useful.
As for how many students "fail", tons. But the chief difficulty has less to do with trading per se than it does with fear, and this likely permeates their lives, cropping up in all sorts of places. Once the student grapples with and banishes his fear, the trading miraculously improves.
I've heard that its as high as 99%. Fact is the path to becoming a profitable trader is a grueling experience for most of us and it takes a lot of work over a sustained period of time before you start getting results and I think the reason most people fail is because they just aren't willing to put in the work. Also there so many pitfalls... the bullshit guru's selling rubbish, but probably the biggest hindrance is your own mind. Human brain isn't wired to trade, if you got emotional baggage that makes it tougher and we all got baggage to one degree or another. And the more desperate you are for results or money the worse you trade because your mood and performance is influenced by your pl. But I think all of this can be overcome... for mindset and psychology, the most helpful books for me is mindset by Carol Dweck, daily trading coach (Brett Steenbarger) and one good trade (Mike Bellafiore). If your emotions and psychology are straight, then its a matter of trading everyday, evaluating performance and making improvements. As for the methodology or style, I think thats something you have to find for yourself through trial and error, if you hear an approach that makes sense to you try it out, over time you will adjust some stuff and make it your own.
Understanding yourself is just as important as understanding markets.
In one sense, we're not altogether comparing like with like, here, and it's a sense which is highly relevant to the context of the discussion.
"Becoming a professional poker player" is (within in the context we're discussing) similar to "becoming a professional trader".
The first three examples listed above really aren't, because they all depend on either "assessments by others" or "visible/public results of competition with others", which confer some objectivity and proof.
Playing poker and trading, in contrast, are both fields of self-employed endeavour at which people can delude themselves about their prospects for many years or even decades without any realistic, objective inputs into the equation at all. If that's what they choose to do. And many do.