i think certain styles of trading make for different percentages.
I'm at a prop shop where our commissions are absurdly low (by the order),and you basically learn to flip large size.
Before I got here, every place I interviewed with (sig, smw, altea, assent, echotrade, ghco, even citigroup) told me the same sad story...it will take 1 year to become profitable....fastest would be 3 months. And by profitable, they basically meant take home a check at the end of the month. (except the folks that paid a salary obviously...)
Now when I got to the shop I'm at, I talked to these folks about getting anther job to support myself because of the learning curve, ect....and the were like, "uh....welll...why?"
Going over things, they just explained that if you just DO WHAT YOU ARE TOLD, (which by the way is fairly boring...scalping/rebating stocks like LU), then you'll make money.
And its true. Folks are making money...right from the get go. (within 1 month, sometimes sooner) Its brainless stuff really. Its just that i'd bet 99 percent of traders can't do it. Either commish isn't low enough, they don't have the patience, or something else.
Now the shop has mentioned that you can move on to do other kinds of trading....trade other stocks, or do whatever the hell you want. But they simply warn that it would be difficult to do so headfirst. Most folks that tried to scalp nasdaq or something that moves fast/hard to read had serious problems /lost money. They idea is to just do the thing that even a monkey could do, learn about other kinds of trading, and then try it out later.
It might sound stupid flipping around 10k lots of NT....but thats 100 bucks....and you have to be a moron if you can't route your order to take a flat on a stock that moves in a 1 cent range outside of the open.
some styles, some places help a trader more than others. It would be ridiculous to say that 90 percent of traders here fail WHO DO WHAT THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO DO....and omg...you would be shocked at how many people just run off and break rules....its silly.
I think as a newb, your success rate is determined largely by what kind of style you learn and how that style is supported (your commish, peers/other traders, payout....ect...)
I can't imagine a shop where a newb is told nothing...and just decides on swinging around 1 lot of GS....theres so much bs that could happen in a trade like that...could just hold on to it forever....now you might see how different styles/support determine a newbs ability to win....where the hell is NT going to go in the next 30 min outside of the open?....it moves against you? ...take a flat...big deal....commish is a non issue. And even after seeing folks blotters during training, showing other newbs trying to play with GOOG or YHOO, losing 200 bucks a trade, folks still try and do that shit....its amazing. Especially when you see a blotter for 10 different traders pulling in 400-2000 bucks...only trading a volume stock.
i would say that most traders trade to be right, or for excitement...and not to simply make money. Its no wonder that so many traders don't make it.