How long does it take to become a successful consistant day trader?

[the blades]

No, not exacly, that is back to front.

First of all through cognition a situation is assessed very very quickly to determine what potential there is in it and in which direction, and at the same time what could go wrong and how, and at the same time what escape can be planned in advance if the unforseen happens and a stop, a very tight stop established, all of this in one go. You don't have much time so all of this has to be done very quickly and accurately.

The next stage is to assess the order of magnitude that the potential offers. Then a point of entry to best advantage is quickly established and snapped at immediately it manifests itself. This response has to be quicker than you can even think of talking it through, because it is so fast. The commitment, rather the act of committing is super fast. The verdict unfolds. If the verdict is in line with expectations it is allowed to run, if not it is cut, again with lighning response wilth the smallest practicable stop loss that can be enacted. Bear in mind that the verdict appears before the trial is held , which is the opposite to everything that is normal in ordinary life.

When the verdict is in line with expectations a target is set to exit. When very near this target it is reviewed again as to whether it ought to be modified. The act of remaining depends upon this crucial judgement, but the act of exiting is just as fast if not faster than the act of entering. If the original entry plan is not fullfilled because the price runs away out of reach, however attractive, the trade is not chased, because there are many other opportunities just as good to follow that can be snatched provided you have all the correct information. This "information" is encapsulated within knowledge + cognition + familiarity + experience + awareness + intuition = the edge, which is the ability to act seamlessly and in a supercooled mental state, on command, at will, with faultless replication as and when required,

>1000.....+1


UTB

 

[pb]

Soc - it seems 99% of your >1000 posts have been long winded, sermon like rants about how difficult trading is. We get the picture - will another 1000 posts actually add anything?

Another 1000? God save us!

 

[SOCRATES]

Soc - it seems 99% of your >1000 posts have been long winded, sermon like rants about how difficult trading is. We get the picture - will another 1000 posts actually add anything?

Your opinion about the majority here is clear. What's also clear is that you aren't here to help - so why bother?

As for hard work - you have no idea what work other people are putting in behind the scenes. You make sweeping judgements based on what you read here. Yet you are clearly annoyed when others judge your motives.

You've made your point - endlessly.

UTB

It is not that I am not here to help, it is that I am not able to help, because you are not me,
therefore I cannot be you, which is probably what you want, that is to have all your riddles solved for you, as if the faily godmother were to wave her magic wand and all problems disappear. You have to confront and to unravel them yourself by confronting, not me, I may add, but yourself. But I concede that you are right, albeit not in the way you percieve or think you are.

 

[the blades]

It is not that I am not here to help, it is that I am not able to help, because you are not me,
therefore I cannot be you, which is probably what you want, that is to have all your riddles solved for you, as if the faily godmother were to wave her magic wand and all problems disappear. You have to confront and to unravel them yourself by confronting, not me, I may add, but yourself. But I concede that you are right, albeit not in the way you percieve or think you are.

erm....thanks.........errrm

so where should I put my stop?

 

[SOCRATES]

Another 1000? God save us!

This is not correct either. Let God save you in his infinite wisdom, but at least leave the others to make the intellectual effort to save themselves by applying correct thinking instead of resorting to blind belief, and hope eternal.

 

[SOCRATES]

erm....thanks.........errrm

so where should I put my stop?

Immediately below the position you take if you are long and immediately above the position you take if you are short, and as tight as possible, so if you are right well and good, wonderful, and if you are not, your losses are minimal.

Kind Regards.

 

[the blades]

Immediately below the position you take if you are long and immediately above the position you take if you are short, and as tight as possible, so if you are right well and good, wonderful, and if you are not, your losses are minimal.

Kind Regards.

there is a God.

It's taken 1,184, but at last one I understand!

UTB

 

[SOCRATES]

And, by the way none of this nonsense about putting in a stop below the previous low in an ascending bull phase and above the previous top in a descending bear phase, because this is going looking for trouble purposely where none exists. This is because if the outcome you expect, for whatever reason does not immediately materialise, your loss which would have been minimal is not unnecessarily magnified. I have seen this idiotic advice repeated in many textbooks. You ought to engage reason and not follow blindly nonsense of this sort.

 

[SOCRATES]

there is a God.

It's taken 1,184, but at last one I understand!

UTB

Good, I am pleased. Everything I tell you is for your benefit, so that you do not have to suffer pain, stress and loss, as none of it is necessary if you go about all this in a correct manner.

Kind Regards.

 

[SOCRATES]

I must go, I have dinner guests. They have just arrived and I am being called.

 

[Mr. Charts]

And, by the way none of this nonsense about putting in a stop below the previous low in an ascending bull phase and above the previous top in a descending bear phase, because this is going looking for trouble purposely where none exists. This is because if the outcome you expect, for whatever reason does not immediately materialise, your loss which would have been minimal is not unnecessarily magnified. I have seen this idiotic advice repeated in many textbooks. You ought to engage reason and not follow blindly nonsense of this sort.

Absolutely correct. Following all that nonsensical advice in almost every book about trading is GUARANTEED to cause ongoing and inevitable losses.
And as the longs all predictably exit with substantial losses just under so-called "support", who is buying their shares from them...........
And then the price often starts to rise again wrong footing all those people who have followed the text book advice..............
And who is taking the other side to all those trades............
People need to think about what the smart money is doing, not all the half baked advice in books.
The latter is one of the reasons 90%+ of wannabee traders fail.
Richard

 

[nobrainer]

''I'm inclined to agree with nobrainer about this, though not necessarily with a risk of 2% per trade since if you are short four open trades for example and the market heads north suddenly that degree of risk seems too great for my taste.''

Yes agreed ,Mr. Charts, I should have clarified that I only run 1 daytrade at a time esp. when they are very large.

 

[Hulk]

Working at a day trading prop house in the City, the average is about a year i'd say. With hefty desk fees, lack of experience and small lot sizes traders such as myself tend to dig a hole in the trading account which takes about a year to clear. After that it's usually happy days. I'd reccomend you sign up with a web-site offering simulated trading, which you can do when not contracting, allowing you to trade a range of markets and find the ones you like. futuresbetting.com offers a good simulator environment. In terms of contracts i'd avoid the Dax and EUR USD as they are really volatile, the Eurostoxx is the product that people are most consistent on here as you know when you are wrong really quickly, and can often queue up for a scratch. It doesn't have the massive moves the Dax does but it's possible to get some juice out of it.

 

[jolor]

thanks Hulk.

 

[stoic]

Dear Socrates,

For the good of this board, and everyone else for that matter, please BTF off. I mean that sincerely with no intention of insulting you, nor any anger.

Off topic I now push for your motion:

If you are a totally successful trader why are you:

1) trying to give advice to people who you patently know will not take it, or just get angry at you for being "holier that thou" attitude as if you know it all, which by the way you don't since not. Even the great Jesse Livermore eventually had to understand that you simply cannot fully understand the market. You are always its student. The human condition is that all the great thinkers realise that they really know very little. We are human beings and being human beings we are biologically bounded by our scope of ability and comprehension.

2) trying to win friends here. It's sort of like a popularity contest. Your methods probably works, but there is not reason for why other methods shouldn't. Is this your ego acting here? Because I'm almost certain that there are better traders than you, does that make you jealous so you have to make up for it? I speak from experience of being in academia for some time.

3) trying to impart your knowledge as if it's the only real truth? This could stem from insecurity from childhood. All human beings are, deep down, egotical. It's not nice, but it's a truth that took me years to finally accept. We all want things our way. Sad thing is that life might not give us it. What can you do?

4) that if we followed you we would succeed? I doubt that. Usually people succeed because they WANT to succeed. Because they have what it takes. It's like trying to ask a girl out, hoping she'll say yes. You may try all sorts of social manipulations like trying to impress her, getting your friends to say what a great guy you are, giving her attention or making funny remarks to her face in order to pique her interest. None of that matters a damn thing if SHE isn't interested in the first place. And what one can have and what they can't is sometimes beyond one's control. Everyone is subject to this. Even you. You can't escape from this, it is the human condition. This took me years to accept.

Does being successful at trading make your life better? Materially yes. You are not obligated to work for anyone anymore. You are not bounded by the contraints that most people are bounded. But on a social level I believe you stay the same. Money changes people, usually for the worse, like power. It can also dull your senses because the competitive stumulus to better others is gone (we all have this, don't try to deny it), if you don't know how to manage it.

Physchologically we know next to nothing about ourselves for the simple reasons that human beings are deceptive creatures and our emotions and actions are often contradictory. We bring all that when we trade. When we are losing we get angry, or make the anger worse by thinking about painful past experiences etc. . . I know you've all been there.

As an answer to the origjnal question I took about 2 years, and I will never master this game, only learn. Idiots will say they've mastered it since they value what others think of them.

 

[Salty Gibbon]

In BTF, I reckon I know what TF stands for but I can't for the life of me think what B is.

Could you please elucidate for me Mr or Madame Stoic, as the case may be ?

 

[SvenFoster]

In BTF, I reckon I know what TF stands for but I can't for the life of me think what B is.

Could you please elucidate for me Mr or Madame Stoic, as the case may be ?

My money is on "mugger" with a B

 

[Salty Gibbon]

Gotcha, and TF stands for "The Fish".

Yup, it's all beginning to fall into place now.

 

[stoic]

For the good of this discussion let me put forward the people who I respect on this board:

Trader333

Skimbleshanks (who unfortunately does not post any more)

Frugi

I really have nothing against Socrates, and having looked over a lot of his posts it seems to me that he probably is a very good trader.

Don't miss understand me. I have nothing against him, and he deserves my respect for what he has been through (if it is truly what he has been through?). But the way he treats his position is typical of someone lacking in humanity.

For the good of all let me patently state that I would not hold it against anyone who is more successful than me, and I'm sure Socrates would feel the same. The reason being is that, to be blunt about it, this is a bloody difficult game. It's NOT easy, and if anyone reading this thinks the journey is easy I can assure you that it is not. Hence any trader who trades better than me deserves my admiration and respect, because only the best go through, and they have a bloody good reason to do so. There is only one thing harder that I know than trading, and that's scientific research that I do when I have the spares moments.

I went on loads of courses, bought loads of books. The turning point came when I paid for a course and realised it was just going to be a complete waste of my time, that I would never take it in or see what the speaker would see, it was more of a comfort factor in spending money on a course hoping that you would see the light. I had to do it my way and take what I can make sense of from the stuff that's freely available - which is around if you look hard enough. In the end all the indicators went - they just prejudiced my view and lag too much for me - and I ended up on price and volume only.

You all have to find your own way and be prepared to be ruthlessly disciplined and patient, with a calm demeanour (sort of a good poker if you know what I mean) and great humility. The latter is what you'll find in all the people who make it. If you think paying for a course, buying a special inidicator, buying a special book is the solution then you've already lost. There is no substitute for studying the markets and there never will be.

You'll also note that Skimbleshanks and the other posters are only too wiling to help, this is because they too don't resent anyone potentially being better than them. Trading may be a zero sum game but no one grudges anyone their right of place if they can make it, because this game is that hard. And that's the irony.

 

[fudgestain]

What happened to femme fatale Skimbleshanks?