How do u know u have made it in daytrading?

Quote from gettinglucky:

Rudyard Kipling

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

great stuff.
 
I thought I had "made" it a number of times and I fell flat on my face. I ended up "making it" when I stopped thinking I had made it. You have to stay humble throughout your trading career if you ever want to "make it."
 
Quote from Scataphagos:

You haven't "made it" until you quit and still have the money.

There are tons of examples where traders did very well for years then blew it all in one bad patch.
I would like to hear some of these examples you speak of.
 
Quote from jinxu:

I would like to hear some of these examples you speak of.

Try Google. Ever hear of it?

You hear about them anecdotally as they occur. History's losers are often lost "into the ether"... especially true for market players.

Try Victor Niederhoffer... or all of the hedge funds which went bust or closed up.
 
Quote from Scataphagos:

Try Google. Ever hear of it?

You hear about them anecdotally as they occur. History's losers are often lost "into the ether"... especially true for market players.

Try Victor Niederhoffer... or all of the hedge funds which went bust or closed up.
How would contacting the company called Google help? I'm more interested in stories about the average retail daytraders.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Niederhoffer:
On October 27, 1997, losses resulting from this investment, combined with a 554 point (7.2%) single day decline in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (the second largest point decline to date in index history), forced Niederhoffer Investments to close its doors.
I guess this confirms there's something supernatural about the number 27.
 
No, this isn't true. People who make it initially are indeed lucky but if you're able to make it long term then you have developed the ability to adapt, which is the key. As an example, prior to 2007 the market was non-volatile and very trendy intra-day, which is where I spend most of my time. In this type of market I follow the move and use close stops.

Fast forward a few months and the market went bipolar. Up, down, up down....in this type of market I trade counter to the move and scale in and out of positions with virtually no stop. I do place a stop but it is far away from the market and it's sole purpose is to prevent a disaster. 99.99% of my losses in this type of market are manual when I hit the trade out button. One of my primary strategies in this type of market is to enter counter positions where I know stops are placed. If the market puts in a hard low I would buy and when it goes below that low, where the stops are placed. Watch the spiders for blocks on an uptick and I'm long.

Now I'm back to following the market with stops most of the time.

Now here's the rub....even though we are in a non-volatile trending type market you will still find days where there is chop, which triggers my counter move strategy. The movement as the Dow has been challenging the April highs has been similar to what it was like in 2008 and 2009 but with much less intra-day volatility.

In 2008 and 2009 I made 90% of my money in the first hour fading reactions to news. I just loved that 10am econ number. Nowadays, I make 90% of my money after the first hour. Currently, I have a number of algo's running that crunch data and tell me what kind of day to expect -- trend or chop? One thing I was track closely is T&S that execute on an uptick vs. a downtick. Another thing I watch is where price spends most of it's time - i.e. f-distributions and t-distributions.

To wrap things up, you have to develop a strategy that virtually no one else is using and you have to develop a level of sophistication that is superior to the competition. The biggest assets I have are my ability to program and my knowledge about statistics. After that it's just a matter of analyzing data and having the ability to adapt, adapt, adapt.

Quote from pocketmoney:

Yuk!
I hate hearing that sort of thing.
That says to me that there really is no edge and that people who make money are just lucky (and will lose if they play long enough) and we may aswell be all playing roulette.
I hope not! lol
 
Quote from innovest_11:

Have been trading for few years already, recent 2 months have been quite profitable for me in daytrading, but I seems not convinced, how many months/years of consistent big profit are needed to prove that you have succeeded in daytrading?pls comments

You will when this very question stop arising in your mind.
 
Exactly! You will find the answer when you stop asking the question.

Quote from jokepie:

You will when this very question stop arising in your mind.
 
To follow up on my earlier post, it's important to work the markets but much more important to work yourself. With that in mind, the best book I can recommend to accomplish that is:

http://www.amazon.com/Trading-Zone-...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1288883921&sr=1-1

And for personal and spiritual growth (two <b>extremely</b> important ingredients in the recipe) I would recommend starting with this:

http://www.amazon.com/Autobiography...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1288884061&sr=1-1

I have been asked to mentor many students and one of my requirements is to read Autobiography of a Yogi. Most refuse and all of them fail. It's a big mistake to underestimate the importance of personal growth and maturity.
 
Back
Top