dbphoenix
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I've posted this before, but it won't hurt to post it again:
How long it takes to become a consistently-profitable trader depends in large part on how many detours the wannabe takes, how many dead-ends he winds up in, how susceptible he is to the con. If he's blessed with common sense, a finely-tuned bull**** detector, and a basic understanding of what an auction is, it will take far less time than if the beginner takes many detours, is easily snowed, has little or no common sense, has no idea how an auction market works, and has "psychological issues" playing Monopoly, much less trading the markets. In the latter case, he will very likely spend years trying to cobble something together, at least until he runs out of money.
The trust that beginners place in what they read in books and online and hear in seminars and courses and on CDs and DVDs is at the very least puzzling. Without having the least idea whether Joe or Mary is a successful real-time trader or even can trade at all, the beginner will invest years of his time following these messiahs, and often invest thousands of his dollars as well. He can't or won't apply his own intelligence to the task and determine for himself whether what he's being fed is twaddle or not. He will, for example, believe with the fervency of the zealot that expectancy is critical and that entries don't matter, even though expectancy’s chief proponent can't trade his way out of a paper bag.
The beginner cannot trust anyone, regardless of who that anyone is, how many posts/blogs/articles he's got, how many thanks he's got, how many times he's been nominated for Post Of The Month, whether or not he's a moderator, how long he says he's been trading, what kind of or how much experience he claims he has, what he says his results are. That guru the beginner follows so devotedly could very well be a teen-aged girl posting messages with her parents' laptop. But the beginner doesn't have to trust anyone or anything but himself. What with replay, the beginner can test any idea he encounters or dreams up and determine whether or not there's anything to it in no time at all. If he is intelligent and sensible, he may make that determination in even less time than that.
It is ironic that those who want the most the fastest with the least amount of work wind up with the least and spend the longest time getting it, usually with more work than if they'd had a proper start to begin with. There is simply no getting around the fact that the beginner must have an edge. There is no amount of work or dedication or counseling or expenditure that will turn a losing strategy into a profitable one. Nor can the beginner assume that if he instead chooses to buy something that is purportedly successful for somebody else that it will be successful for him, even if he has indisputable evidence that that somebody else is in fact successful with whatever system or indicator or strategy it may be.
You will read, or hear, that it takes “years” to learn how to trade, much less become consistently profitable: “I've been trading for years and have not yet proven to be able to make a living. I’ve been working on it full-time for about 17 months but I’m not yet profitable. The costs so far have been several blown-up accounts and a lot of pain.” Or you may read some variant of “Took me three years (or five or seven or whatever) even to get to breakeven (therefore it will take three years – or five or seven – for anybody to get to where I am).” You will read that study and practice and simtrading (paper trading) are a waste of time, that you’ve got to have “skin in the game”, that you can learn to trade only by trading, using money that you “can afford to lose”, advice proferred by those who’ve spent years at it and even at their writing may not be consistently profitable, much less making a living off their trading, well past the point of trading with money they can afford to lose, but if they can persuade others to follow the same path, perhaps they won’t feel so stupid. Or, another favorite, “it takes 10,000 hours to learn how to trade” (actually, this particular meme originated with the amount of time it takes to master the violin and has nothing to do with trading). You will read tales of the courses taken, the DVDs and software purchased, the indicators tried and tossed, the mountains of books read, the trading rooms, the news feeds, the blogs, the newsletters, the alert services, the plug-ins. But you will rarely, if ever, read or hear of studying the market, the subject and object of all this endeavor. No books, DVDs, YouTube videos, complimentary training sessions. Just the student and a free, streaming chart, a legal pad, and a box of pencils (or pens, if you prefer).
And if one is eager, he can investigate brokers and services which provide “replay”, sometimes for free (at least on a trial basis, which can often be extended). And if one determines that the first 90 minutes of the trading session are generally the most active and potentially the most profitable, he can replay two sessions of 90 minutes each in one evening. If he plays them at 2X (two times normal speed), he can cover them in 90 minutes total. That is at least 14 sessions in one week. And as there are 250 trading days in a year, he can cover that year in 18 weeks. Four-and-a-half months. And if he logs in extra sessions on the weekends, he can cover a year in even less than that. And at the end of this time, if he has not done so already, he will be in a position to begin formulating a trading plan.
