Loser 2 Winner

Pipsaholic

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Hi,

For those who have made it or near making it in trading what changed it for you to make you profitable?

Thanks.
 
Hi,

For those who have made it or near making it in trading what changed it for you to make you profitable?

Thanks.

In my experience it's not a sudden change or a " seeing of the light". It's what has been said many times before -- a long hard slog of study and practice. The thing that helped me most was to approach trading in a scientific and logical way: decide what you're going to do, analyse the results and amend your approach based on experience -- successful or otherwise. Above all, keep it simple. Change only one thing at a time and see what effect it has.

One of the things you need to do psychologically is to prove to yourself whether you can or cannot trade successfully. A good way to do this is to take a proven and simple system e.g. The Three Ducks, and make it work for yourself. If you can't do that then you have a serious problem -- perhaps regarding sticking to the rules, analysis or just plain common sense. I don't believe there is any point in proceeding beyond this stage until you can master the basics and understand them. When you have done this, you can move on to more esoteric methods which will give you hours of fun and experimentation and most likely lots of losses.:LOL:
 
Human nature is to buy when something is high and everyone else is buying.
Then sell low when everyone else is selling...

Don't do that!

Rather do the "Walmart shopping thing". That is when there is a sale at Walmart - 25% off on that new TV, buy!

So when everyone else is doing panic selling, do panic buying.

When everyone else is doing panic buying, do panic selling.

(Buy low, sell high. Then you make a profit.)

Also helps to do your homework. Find an industry or a particular stock. The read EVERYTHING you can about that. News stories, company's financial reports, etc. Learn what makes the stock go up/down. Could be someone sneezes in Europe - Whatever...
 
I have a market view, and perhaps a knack for a certain type of trade. I "clicked" on it a couple weeks ago when I understood a fundamental part of this view in its relationship with the market.

What this view, method, and type of trade is, is irrelevant. What matters is that you find a way to be "synched" to the market, and that you are capable of psychologically following this view.

That, to me, is key. Everything evolves from that.

For example, I go by Support & Resistance. But everyone looks at that too, so why should I be profitable? Well, that has to do with my time frame, which S/R will give me the best result, and I also add in some visual elements you can't exactly quantify.

Your method, on the other hand, could be more scientific by measuring the relationship of different market's S/R and how they would correlate. Both methods here are fundamentally different, but could arrive at the same result using the same tool -- S/R.

As I recall, you're a system trader. The trick here is going to have to be to develop systems in line with how you do things and that you can adapt to your market view. Then you have to test it and acquire skills that will make you profitable.

There isn't any one thing that will make you "click". You have to find that out yourself, and only experience provides that.

Good luck!
 
Even if someone told you, you wouldnt listen to them, or believe them. :LOL:

I wouldn't listen - I wanted to try all the wrong ways and let Mr Market teach me. Once I couldn't take any more (it was a brutal way to learn), I started listening and following the rules.
 
When I realised that, for all my clever analysis, all I was really doing was making an assumption about where price was going next. Once that dawned it became far easier to cut or run.
 
Hi,

For those who have made it or near making it in trading what changed it for you to make you profitable?

Thanks.

Interesting question. I doubt that many people will have one particular thing.

Certainly this 'becoming profitable' isn't some overnight experience that comes as a result of some blinding inspirational insight.

In my experience, there's lots of small positive things that accumulate and help over time. There is also a gradual maturing in terms of no longer doing stupid things that lose you money - dumb and/or poorly thought out trades.

Still, these things will only happen if you are on the right path in the first place. If you are trying to trade Horoscopes or biorhythms, you will more than likely never get there. Getting on the path was one of those blinding inspirational insights for me but it took a long time from that insight to being able to make money.
 
Interesting question. I doubt that many people will have one particular thing.

Certainly this 'becoming profitable' isn't some overnight experience that comes as a result of some blinding inspirational insight.

In my experience, there's lots of small positive things that accumulate and help over time. There is also a gradual maturing in terms of no longer doing stupid things that lose you money - dumb and/or poorly thought out trades.

Still, these things will only happen if you are on the right path in the first place. If you are trying to trade Horoscopes or biorhythms, you will more than likely never get there. Getting on the path was one of those blinding inspirational insights for me but it took a long time from that insight to being able to make money.

You know, all this stuff about insights got me thinking about Zen and the concept of enlightenment.

I won't bore you with the precepts. The idea here is that some people find enlightenment early... Then struggle later. Others find it late, and everything clicks in place and they are at peace with the world.

The difference between each group is that one suffers early on for a long time until they just become enlightened as a result. The other "clicks" early, but then finds it hard to put this enlightenment to use (probably by lack of experience).

The parallels to trading are unmistakeable here, and it just goes to show that perhaps only experience it the true driver of success in anything you do -- not insights as you say. That's not to say that insights are not a fundamentally important part of anyone's development, just that it's only one of the necessary elements to becoming profitable.
 
Losing trades are the norm and not the exception. My win rate is about 43%

Drawdowns, especially long ones, are part of the game and not the end of the world/ start of a death spiral.
 
Losing trades are the norm and not the exception. My win rate is about 43%

Drawdowns, especially long ones, are part of the game and not the end of the world/ start of a death spiral.

that's when i first realized i had a chance when I started tracking my trades on myfxbook and realized I could make a good profit with a 40% hit rate .
 
The one thing: When I absolutely and completely abandoned the mechanical approach to trading...it has taken years for me to fully understand what that really means...
 
You know, all this stuff about insights got me thinking about Zen and the concept of enlightenment.

I won't bore you with the precepts. The idea here is that some people find enlightenment early... Then struggle later. Others find it late, and everything clicks in place and they are at peace with the world.

The difference between each group is that one suffers early on for a long time until they just become enlightened as a result. The other "clicks" early, but then finds it hard to put this enlightenment to use (probably by lack of experience).

The parallels to trading are unmistakeable here, and it just goes to show that perhaps only experience it the true driver of success in anything you do -- not insights as you say. That's not to say that insights are not a fundamentally important part of anyone's development, just that it's only one of the necessary elements to becoming profitable.

Really? I thought there was no suffering and hence no struggle after enlightenment (as you can tell I'm unenlightened). Assuming for a second enlightenment does exist, are you sure you're not talking about people who think they are enlightened but aren't? Not the easiest thing to measure I'd imagine.

I can remember a few breakthroughs and then plateau's along the way with my trading, not one thing. First was getting an understanding of the markets and money management. Second was realising not to fight against the trend, but to go with it (most of the time!). Third was realising my initial understanding was in fact a complete misunderstanding, despite appearing valid. Fourth was moving to a proper broker rather than spreadbet and making my life easier to enter and adjust trades by using a ladder etc. Fifth was fine tuning. I'm confident there will be a 6th, 7th and on...

And through all those steps, there have been some gradual changes in personality, and how I trade and think about trading and handle losers/boredom etc. There's still some way to go though. A long way in fact. I'm nowhere near the trader I want to be, or can be.
 
Really? I thought there was no suffering and hence no struggle after enlightenment (as you can tell I'm unenlightened). Assuming for a second enlightenment does exist, are you sure you're not talking about people who think they are enlightened but aren't? Not the easiest thing to measure I'd imagine.

I can remember a few breakthroughs and then plateau's along the way with my trading, not one thing. First was getting an understanding of the markets and money management. Second was realising not to fight against the trend, but to go with it (most of the time!). Third was realising my initial understanding was in fact a complete misunderstanding, despite appearing valid. Fourth was moving to a proper broker rather than spreadbet and making my life easier to enter and adjust trades by using a ladder etc. Fifth was fine tuning. I'm confident there will be a 6th, 7th and on...

And through all those steps, there have been some gradual changes in personality, and how I trade and think about trading and handle losers/boredom etc. There's still some way to go though. A long way in fact. I'm nowhere near the trader I want to be, or can be.

Zen enlightenment is, imo, greatly exaggerated for marketing purposes.

Think of it as one of those "clicks" you get when studying X or Y subject. At one moment, you're struggling with concepts. Then you come to a sudden realization as a confluence of disparate elements suddenly appear in your mind, and.. "click"... it all comes together!

The subject here, though, is life. What Zen wants you to find is peace with yourself and the world. So in theory there is no "struggle" following enlightenment. But in practice, anyone would say that's BS. It does, however, make it easier to deal with stuff because you just recognized your "niche" between yourself and the world. Not a bad place to be, imo. But I can sincerely tell you it has been vastly overblown by the literature for it is in reality a simple concept (I imagine the imagery of the emotional weight of enlightenment has lent itself to this. Then you add in a dash of mysticism, a pinch of art, etc. and you have people going "whoa, man!").

Anyway, "second" (and third, and fourth, and fifth) enlightenments are very definitely possible since there is no end to the material you can learn. Each step is an insight in itself, where disparate elements you were viewing suddenly come together. Each step has a period of very rapid progression followed by slower and slower absorption... Until you find your next impasse. Then it's enlightenment all over again, AWW YEAH BABY! :cheesy:

I love me those "clicks", though. It's right then that you do your biggest bits of advancement in XYZ subject and also the point at which your mind is the most creatively "malleable" until you get down and learn the new subject. I imagine any training regiment that can minimize the time between each successive "click" could be incredibly powerful. If you were to train people as such, they would call you... The Buddha. And you would have the world's women at your feet. :cool:
 
Find a time frame that fits your nature. That in it self can take a blown account or two.
Nasty losses make you think hard. A blown account will change you.
Daniel Kahneman was not a trader but what he said is very true
Check my sig....
Look over your trades...Would you have made money if you had done the oposite thing.
 
well once you have mastered going from a loser to a winner...you can then look forward to the more important matter of going from a winner to a loser.
 
Really great advice guys so in summary:-

Gradual Changes
Keeping it simple
Mindset, Risk & Management
Backtesting
Own Experience
Abandoning the mechanical approach
Stop listening to others

One of the best ones I heard was to look for things that you don't see changed it for him not just in trading, but life.
 
Really great advice guys so in summary:-

Gradual Changes
Keeping it simple
Mindset, Risk & Management
Backtesting
Own Experience
Abandoning the mechanical approach
Stop listening to others

One of the best ones I heard was to look for things that you don't see changed it for him not just in trading, but life.

All very well but if you actually listen to the last one (stop listening to others) then you'll ignore all the advice listed above.
 
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