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Traders with 5-10 years of experience but still not profitable
Seeing as how I wanted to leave but this thread blew up, I'll bite. I rarely do this so why not?
Your acquaintance is a loser. An unmotivated loser. Patience has nothing to do with it.
My lack of patience drives me to understand and finish things quickly, rather than linger on for months/years. I had, for example, zero patience to sit through class in high school. Too much of the time was wasted on just trying to get people to pay attention to what the teacher was talking. The time spent in class wasn't a good return on investment. I opted to spend my time in the library, reading about the topics the teacher was "teaching" in class, and graduated 2 years early from High School. I am no genius; not by a long shot.
Your friend is still running the family liquor store because he has no greater ambition. Wanting things NOW rather than wanting things NOW but willing to work hard for them is his problem. I never said I wasn't willing to work hard. I just don't want to work stupid.
I have no patience for bullshit. I want to make money. Lots of it. I want to fund biomedical research and I need to gain a certain amount of power/influence/money in order to do that. Waiting 20 years while trading 'high probability setups with a proper RRR while working a dayjob" isn't going to happen. I refuse to let it happen.
I'm going to spend the next week or so figuring out whether or not making consistent, sizeable gains and scaling up is even possible in ES. If not, I'll look into investment banking. If not, finding funding in other ways. In no way, shape, or form am I going to turn into the typical retail trader, which is nothing more than a statistic.
It's either millions or bust. I'll figure it out, one way or another. I think I'm just done with the internet and all the fanboys that are on it. It's time to get real.
Thanks for the insight. Are you currently profitable to the point where the reward for trading well offsets any professional career you may or might have had? (Doctor, Lawyer, Engineer, VP of some company, etc.?). For the mind-fuck this gives the potential rewards must be worth it.
I'm also not some greedy asshole. I had a run-in with severe health problems and realized how broken the healthcare system is in the USA. I'm trying to make a stake so I can take a run at biomedical research to fix health problems, rather than treat symptoms. Trading seems to be one way to make a lot of money very quickly, so I want to make a shot at it. I just get annoyed because it seems like it's always one step forward and two steps back. I mean, even on this site, it keeps pestering me for $100 for an Elite Membership. And for what? To watch webinar after webinar? How many webinars do I have to watch before I "get it"? Is there a conflict of interest here? I wonder how many professional traders at Goldman Sachs come futures.io and watch their weekly webinar series. See my point? We're all being royally fucked.
If you can muster the patience to read for 20 minutes, here is a very worthwhile read about the personality traits that make up the core of human beings. It is widely accepted in general psychology, though the link is to a site geared specifically toward traders. If you have ever taken a Myers/Briggs evaluation, that is what this link is about. Everyone should understand their personality type, recognize that there is no right or wrong one, but that certain personality traits are better suited to certain activities. You may find some benefit in finding out what your core is and then pursue a suitable career. It sounds like Medical may be a better fit. There is nothing wrong with that! But, as someone with a degree in Ultrasound technology, healthcare is very labor intensive, even at the technician level. If patience is a problem, medicine may not be the answer.
Granted, he is also hoping to profit from people interested in trading for a living, but the science of personality traits that his teaching is based on is well-established and peer reviewed.
I'm guessing you've never started your own business? It's not easy. It usually requires working 60-80 hours a week for a couple years, investing and losing tens of thousands of dollars with no guarantee for success or even a salary, and unless you buy a franchise doesn't really come with ready made strategies for you to just start enjoying a lucrative income. Even franchises usually take time to become profitable. Many or most business self-started, fail.
I'm guessing you're in your twenties. If so, I get it. You're frustrated. There are fewer and fewer opportunities than what my generation had. The price of education has soared, even if you're one of the lucky ones to be accepted into a good school. The price of housing and car??? Forget about it. You have to be rich to be 18 years old to stand a chance.
Maybe try starting a youtube channel? You definitely have the requisite qualities of being well spoken and strongly opinioned. Seems to be about all the opportunity available to young adults these days. I don't exactly see people university courses for how to start a youtube channel either, but maybe there is.
Whatever you decide, I wish you the best of luck and much peace.
Solid advice. Thank you. If I came off as rude, I apologize. I've had to fight for everything I've had my entire life and was never given an inch. I just hate bullshit and this profession seems to be full of it. I'll re-evaluate what I want, how I want to get there, and who I want to get there with and make a decision. Thank you for your time, and you take care as well.
Edit: Business seems to be easier than trading. You at least have leverage and can take action to make things happen in your favor, where trading seems to be more about patience and waiting for other people to do the heavy lifting while you jump in for the ride. Please correct me if I'm wrong. If a bank decides to short 1000 contracts of CL (WTI Crude) it's going to inevitably move the market. Me trading 1-5 lots has no effect, essentially meaning I have no say in what is going to happen. However, if I have an idea to start a software company the barriers to entry are much lower, plus I can influence my outcome more than I would if trading futures. Let's say I have a workaholic attitude, a good idea, and the ability to receive clients. I have more influence over my future (plus my peers today are lazy, so I can outwork/perform most of them, so I get to the top of the heap faster) than, say, trading 2 contracts of oil in the market and told to just shut up and take the movement the banks/hedgefunds/prop desks are directing. I feel like I'm the market's slave, so to speak, and I don't particularly like that.
I was in several startup businesses for software, some went bust, some did well, so I'm doing alright at 25, but not anywhere where I need to be to heave a meaningful impact. Trading was a means to an end to make an impact, not just to buy a luxury yacht and live the good life. I'm trying to figure out how to realistically make money and quickly without having to slave away like a drone. I'm former Army and I'm done with the slave lifestyle. I hate being told what to do, despise authority, and am looking to go my own way and I thought that tradnig might be able to do that.
I think I'm going to sit and do nothing but absorb information for the next week and see if it leads anywhere, then re-evaluate if this trading thing is really for me.
For me, the switch from upper management for an aerospace company to trading was great. Work from home, pick my hours, no more travel. I do also teach others about trading, so for me it is just not full time trading.
BUT, it took time to get to that point. I didn't just wake up one day and say "I am going to be a trader."
This is true for very, very few. And my guess is for every trader that makes a lot quickly and manages to keep it, there are probably 99 others who make it quickly, only to eventually lose it just as quickly.
Trading is a tough racket. Anyone who says it is easy probably has ulterior motives.
Can I ask you what is reasonable to trade? How many times a week/day/month? Where do you get your ideas for trading from? Is it the same approach every day or are you constantly changing and looking for new ideas that you eventually capitalize on?
Should I look and watch the same symbol/chart/security every single day and only one until I can trade it, or do you trade all sorts of things based on what you a looking for?
If you can switch from upper management to full time, at-home trading, then I salute you. The calculated risk mindset of trading would be a nightmare for me, I think, at least at this stage. I don't have a family to worry about yet, so for me to switch I would have to make sure I knew what I was doing before I took the plunge.
I know that you said you got better over years and were able to make a go of it. Do you mind if I ask if your success happened in some sort of 'light-bulb' moment? Six years and then BANG, overnight success? Or was it gradual over time? Did you instantly get better overnight after some realization or was it just steady progress?
I was looking at charts all day today. Stocks, bonds, commodities, ETFs, Indices, you name it. They all seem to follow a familiar pattern. They trend, they range, and they reverse. Not in that order. How do you know what it's going to do and when? Is it literally just waiting for a range, buying the low, selling the height of the range? Or when it's trending just hang onto a position in the direction of the trend? Just basic 101 type stuff? Or is there some deeper, Ivy-league type meaning that you have to get before you can become profitable and be able to read the market?
It seems to me that trading options/shares in a company, ETFs, doesn't seem to matter. It seems like you use the financial instrument to get the best risk/reward on your trade. I was googling trading educators today as well and many of them are selling "options strategies" or "how to trade the commodities market" but I don't think many tell you when/where/how to place a trade. It feels like everyone is teaching how to hold a hammer rather than how to build a house with blueprints, etc.
I had some other people write here earlier and talking about auctions. It makes sense. I'm still at a loss as to how you can properly evaluate a stock/commodity/bond's price and then make an educated guess about the timeframe in which it can go up/down to profit on. Does this get easier based on feel the more time you do it or is there some sort of research that you do?
A lot of these questions are about me, and I don't want to derail this thread by talking about myself or specifically how I trade (you can find plenty about my specific trading journey out on the Internet). What I do, and how I've done it, might not appeal to you anyhow.
I would recommend the following for you:
1. As @chipwitch stated, treat trading just like you would starting a business. Figure out what you want to trade (you listed many different markets, they are all different). For example - trading options is a whole lot different than trading futures, although both are still trading.
2. Learn the ins & outs of the market you want to trade. Things like reverse splits, ex-dividend dates, contango, implied volatility might be important for your market. And they might not be.
3. Figure out how you might want to trade. Stare at a screen all day? Write some algos to trade for you? Scalp for tiny profits? Swing trade? Use market profile? The variations are endless. The best way to trade is something that feels comfortable to you, and that is not always easy to determine at first.
4. Put a plan together that encompasses your desired market and your desired style. See what others are doing as a starting point.
5. Try something, adjust, repeat, try again, etc.
Trading is not something you just start doing, just like you would start a software company without knowing anything about that field.
I hope this helps a bit. Trading can be overwhelming for sure. Just try to be a sponge at first - soak up what you can - and soon enough you'll start to see an appealing path.
