How long before consistently profitable??

After reading the excellent book Enhancing trader performance by Steenberger and was just wondering how many people tried different strategies en route to achieving consistent profitability?

I myself tried a few styles out including:
Long term trend trading- quite a profitable strategy but felt like it wasn't right for me. Also quite volatile at times as was trading futures.

Have also traded intraday for over a year- grew account to the point of covering desk fee and then some but the fact of being committed to Two to three k a month disturbed me in terms of desk fees quite honestly.

Finally I have arrived where I am now after much tweaking testing and prodding using an end of day combined with weekly analysis focused on the top 100 stocks I the uk. This has taken me since 2009 to get here and be consistently profitable as well as get into a position where my rules are hard and defined in the sense that they are ingrained in me due to previous experiences of painful trading decisions where I didn't act as I should have...

How long have you guys tweaked or traded before you got to a stage of being comfortable with your strategy and finding it to be part of you as well as consistently profitable ?

Just over three years, from starting off knowing nothing to being able to make a living.

About 3 years.

The Leopard said:

Just over three years, from starting off knowing nothing to being able to make a living.

Click to expand...

Over three years is a long period of consistently profitable. What strategies are you using?

Patricia12 said:

Over three years is a long period of consistently profitable. What strategies are you using?

Click to expand...

Just to clarify, I meant it took 3 years from being a complete clueless beginner to being good enough to make a living of some sort. The learning process is very far from over - in fact, I would be surprised if it was even half-way done.

In terms of strategies, I suppose you could call it price action, although it is probably not what most people here would call price action - i.e. nothing to do with candles, pin bars etc.

That is not to say that approach can't be useful. It probably can, and can be a good way of starting. I think it begins to inhibit your thought process after a while though.

The Leopard said:

Just to clarify, I meant it took 3 years from being a complete clueless beginner to being good enough to make a living of some sort. The learning process is very far from over - in fact, I would be surprised if it was even half-way done.

In terms of strategies, I suppose you could call it price action, although it is probably not what most people here would call price action - i.e. nothing to do with candles, pin bars etc.

That is not to say that approach can't be useful. It probably can, and can be a good way of starting. I think it begins to inhibit your thought process after a while though.

Click to expand...

Thanks The Leopard for pinging back to my reply. I got your point with "Price Action".

The Leopard said:

Just to clarify, I meant it took 3 years from being a complete clueless beginner to being good enough to make a living of some sort. The learning process is very far from over - in fact, I would be surprised if it was even half-way done.

In terms of strategies, I suppose you could call it price action, although it is probably not what most people here would call price action - i.e. nothing to do with candles, pin bars etc.

That is not to say that approach can't be useful. It probably can, and can be a good way of starting. I think it begins to inhibit your thought process after a while though.

Click to expand...

Where can I find some info about Price Action without candles and pin pars?

I´m studying about PA and that focus is new for me.

Thank you very much.

Gredos said:

Where can I find some info about Price Action without candles and pin pars?

I´m studying about PA and that focus is new for me.

Thank you very much.

Click to expand...

Candles and pin bars are also part of price action, but not all of it, of course.

You can't magically become consistent. That has to do with a lot of different factors.

As for me, been at this for 5 years and just barely starting to become consistent.

Most people think they are consistently profitable - until finally they are not. It's the nature of trading - it'll welcome you in and you'll feel nice and warm and toasty, encouraging you to take bigger risk until suddenly it throws you into the cold having taken all your money.

I would say most so called "successful" traders here have found a strategy that makes them money for months - but eventually they suffer a setback that causes a rethink. It's easy to think you've made it when you've been profitable for a number of weeks. Been there several times.

So I'd take what people say here with a pinch of salt.

Hoggums said:

Most people think they are consistently profitable - until finally they are not. It's the nature of trading - it'll welcome you in and you'll feel nice and warm and toasty, encouraging you to take bigger risk until suddenly it throws you into the cold having taken all your money.

I would say most so called "successful" traders here have found a strategy that makes them money for months - but eventually they suffer a setback that causes a rethink. It's easy to think you've made it when you've been profitable for a number of weeks. Been there several times.

So I'd take what people say here with a pinch of salt.

Click to expand...

Just out of interest Hoggums, what timeframe accounts for the bulk of our profits? Is it intraday, swing or position?

Hoggums said:

Most people think they are consistently profitable - until finally they are not.

Click to expand...

great post. You cant underestimate the importance of knowing when something is no longer working

Hoggums said:

Most people think they are consistently profitable - until finally they are not. It's the nature of trading - it'll welcome you in and you'll feel nice and warm and toasty, encouraging you to take bigger risk until suddenly it throws you into the cold having taken all your money.

I would say most so called "successful" traders here have found a strategy that makes them money for months - but eventually they suffer a setback that causes a rethink. It's easy to think you've made it when you've been profitable for a number of weeks. Been there several times.

So I'd take what people say here with a pinch of salt.

Click to expand...

Good post.
Since my last trading attempt (my journal in my signature) I had a break and then started again at small stakes using spreadbetting rather than futures contracts.
This time around, I have currently had 21 profitable weeks in a row so far.
However, I'm constantly expecting it too all go wrong and to hit a huge losing streak.
I don't think i'd ever have the guts to call myself ' a consistently profitable trader' no matter how long i'd been trading well, lol.

"The first 10 years you learn. the next 10 years you trade and the last 10 years you spend the profits"

Quote from a famous trader.

alexander said:

"The first 10 years you learn. the next 10 years you trade and the last 10 years you spend the profits"

Click to expand...

I hope so

alexander said:

"The first 10 years you learn. the next 10 years you trade and the last 10 years you spend the profits"

Quote from a famous trader.

Click to expand...

Then you die smiling of a sex, drugs and rock n roll overdose.

Hoggums said:

Most people think they are consistently profitable - until finally they are not. It's the nature of trading - it'll welcome you in and you'll feel nice and warm and toasty, encouraging you to take bigger risk until suddenly it throws you into the cold having taken all your money.

I would say most so called "successful" traders here have found a strategy that makes them money for months - but eventually they suffer a setback that causes a rethink. It's easy to think you've made it when you've been profitable for a number of weeks. Been there several times.

So I'd take what people say here with a pinch of salt.

Click to expand...

What about if some strategy works for years and before that worked for decades for traders who shared it with the one now being consistent for years?

Markets change much slower than many think. Simple things worked in the beginning of XX century and still work just as well. Edwards & Magee is as actual now as it was many, many years ago.

If something works for months, but then suddenly stops it's just a sign of poor strategy, tactics and testing it under the different market conditions.

I think the "strat stops working eventually" thing is for algo, quant, mechanical, and arb traders. And other similar stuff.

Of course, the one killer is that volatility just dies out and markets stay flat. But that would mean there's hell on earth in the form of WWIII or something...

So long as there's volatility & liquidity, you'll have tradeable markets. And the way to trade them is to focus on the fundamentals of all markets, which is the interaction between buyer and seller and nothing else.

That's what I think anyway.

VielGeld said:

I think the "strat stops working eventually" thing is for algo, quant, mechanical, and arb traders. And other similar stuff.

Of course, the one killer is that volatility just dies out and markets stay flat. But that would mean there's hell on earth in the form of WWIII or something...

So long as there's volatility & liquidity, you'll have tradeable markets. And the way to trade them is to focus on the fundamentals of all markets, which is the interaction between buyer and seller and nothing else.

That's what I think anyway.

Click to expand...

Yes, edge disappears mostly for unique edges, for example Oanda mispriced it's box options very seriously in 2005-2006 and I exploited it for several months in a row nearly doubling the account once a month on NFP release, until they fixed their stuff.

As for classic technical patterns, they are consequence of typical human behaviour, which does not change fast if changes at all.

Volatility can be an issue, yes, but at the times of low volatility you simply scale up on time-frame and trade slower, exploiting the bigger swings and eliminating the noise, typical on small time-frames during such times.

Gredos said:

Where can I find some info about Price Action without candles and pin pars?

I´m studying about PA and that focus is new for me.

Thank you very much.

Click to expand...

It's tricky to be honest. The best way to learn is to spend time in front of the screen - in fact, I don't really think there's any substitute for experience.

That said, I recently read three new books by someone called Al Brooks that aren't bad. I don't necessarily agree with a lot of the stuff in them, but I think they might encourage you to start thinking about the market in the right way.