Trading will not make you rich if you do it properly (risk management), but occasionally you may happen to strike it lucky, nothing to do with your system, you just happened to be at the right time at the right place.
I use only a small part of my capital to trade. Every week I put away part of my profit and use the remaining money to grow my account again. I do this already several years now, and till today every week I was able to put away some money. That proofs that it's not about luck at all. Because if it was luck I would have some awfully good weeks but also many awfully bad weeks, which is not the case. I make money, every week, over and over again.
About your rich friend. Take a way the money he made with these bonds and see if he will be able to repeat this lucky shot again. The answer is probably NO. He was lucky.
Take away all my money. Give me $ 5000 to start trading again and I will repeat what I did the previous years. It was not luck, it was a systematic mathematical approach which is self adapting to the trend in the market.
At the start central heating could only be switch on or off. So most of the time it was or too cold, or too hot. Till one day somebody invented a thermostat. From that day on, the temperature was always good. The thermostat adapted automatically the heat production depending on environmental conditions. My system has a thermostat too.
An important reason why some people stay blocked in a certain situation and cannot improve their trading,is because they are stubborn, not open minded, have too big ego... They don't even want to think about what others might tell. They already know everything (they think). That's the biggest handicap to become successful. Nobody knows always everything, even the smartest man on earth does not. I still learn, but that is not a good reference as I am not so smart. So for me learning is obvious and still necessarry.
