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)
Regarding the stats of 95% failure among traders, i think it's similar in other business. I have read somewhere that nationally in the US over 90% of new restaurants fail in less than 2 years.
1. Is trading your primary source of income? (Yes or no): NO
2. Do you make over $100k/year in trading (Over, under, NA): NA
3. How long did you trade prior to making trading your primary source of income - or if not primary income yet, number of years trading? (Approx. # hours on screen): 6 months
Platform: NinjaTrader (It's a love/hate relationship)
Trading: CL, TF, 6E
Posts: 169 since May 2010
Thanks Given: 60
Thanks Received: 314
I'd be willing to bet that those who own the restaurants in the 10th percentile tanked several before finally succeeding: Most people assume that 90% of businesses failing means that 9 out of 10 people fail at starting a business & the goal is to be that 10th person. The reality is that most of those who are in the 10% were not successful on their first several attempts. Success rarely comes without several failures before it. It is for those who persevere.
William Hershey went bankrupt twice before finally succeeding at creating Hershey chocolate.
Henry Ford was bankrupted five times in his effort to create the Ford Motor Company
RH Macy lost 7 stores before finally launching Macy's in New York
Walt Disney went bankrupt several times before Disneyland
"Harry Potter" was rejected by 12 publishers. Gone With the Wind: rejected 36 times
If anything it's encouragement to get back up after our failures and try again. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever give up.
“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” -Thomas Edison
1. Yes.
2. Can't say.
3. Spent nearly a decade in financial markets. Which includes Blowing up account to regain and again blow up. Then left thinking about Rocket Science. Started trading with Simplest way of thinking and put it into action. Took me some months/years infact to get trades profitable more then 90% now ( Discretionary trading with ease of self coded indicators as per my understanding of market ).
Now final words , My morning breakfast bread butter to end of day toilet paper. All comes from trading. So , I may not agree with traditional thinking that its impossible to live on trading income or building up wealth. Yes , its just a matter of time and some work. Unfortunately there is no short cut to success.
Oh yeah I use market profile , Basic price action , Tape and some basic indicators for trading.
I spent 15 years in the mortgage business. Even when money was falling into our wallets, the fail rate was around 87% nationwide for new people coming in the business. When times got tough, it went up to around 95% or so. For those of us that had debt to service, it was probably closer to 100%.
In every business that depends on performance for income, the failure rate is high. Those that have the guts to stick it out and work on themselves as people first are the ones that make it.
The ones that give up, are looking for the easy score or don't/won't do the hard work necessary WILL fail. Its not easy. But after the required learning curve, industry mastery, self mastery and practice, you can make it look easy.
The best always make it look easy. The reality is they slaved away with no reward for sometimes years before they made it.
Why would we expect trading to be any different. Its even harder because the feedback loop is instant. In other businesses, you can take a risk and not know if you made a good decision for days, weeks, months or even years. By then it could be too late to change paths. In trading, you know right away. This should make learning faster but I think instead it causes people to become disillusioned with trading when in fact it's themselves they are disillusioned with because they failed at something that should in theory be so very simple.
Anyway, I think it takes an incredible determination to be one of the 5% or you'll never make it. Just hoping or giving it a try will surely fail.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
1. Is trading your primary source of income? (Yes or no): Yes
2. Do you make over $100k/year in trading (Over, under, NA): Over
3. How long did you trade prior to making trading your primary source of income - or if not primary income yet, number of years trading? (Approx. # hours on screen): 5 years (total trading experience about 10 years)
I am kind of curious about the ones who have made it. Do you trade naked(charts that is), one or two indicators, or multiple indicators?
Also Higher time frames or multiple trades within lower time frames.
You can make money with 10 3-tick trades or 1 20-tick trade.
Just trying to find out what the majority that consistently make money do?
Please - to all the negativity in this thread please refer to aztrader9 below . . . OK? He hit the explanation right on. And as my earlier post stated in short:
Upon speaking to my broker, he said the 95 / 5 is probably very close however . . . he feels these numbers are greatly skewed due to the number of people that come into trading with visions of "raking in windfall profits in a few months on a $2K - 10K account". He said they are your failed traders. They max out on contracts (leverage) not knowing what they are doing, blow out an account or two and say this doesn't work then move on to something else.
So this gets to the root of what aztrader9 states, "The ones that give up, are looking for the easy score or don't/won't do the hard work necessary".
ANY self-employed business probably mirrors these stats. . . just that there aren't forums all over the Internet telling everybody how hard it is to be successful at a business. It's so easy to get caught up in the negativity. If you are NOT willing to sit in front of the screen and learn (I have thosands and thosands of hours of screen time) then yes, maybe you should not be trading - it is not an easy business but worth it in the end!
