How many years are necessary to consider yourself a successful trader?

I think it probably has more to do with numbers of trades and variability/steadiness of results than with years?

It's going to take a swing-trader from weekly charts far longer to feel confident that s/he's a successful trader than someone trading 10 times a day from 2-minute charts (a "semi-scalper", let's say), because the evidence for that belief is clearly going to take hugely longer to achieve statistical significance?



(and more specifically, I think it's right for the "results component" of the definition to be described in terms of drawdown-avoidance rather than in terms of profit achieved - though doubtless some people here will disagree with me about that, too).



.

Good points! I resonate with that last point in particular. It took me a while to understand that capital not lost is "more important" than capital not gained (opportunity cost). Mathematically, they are the same but, for a reason I can't articulate well, I agree with the emphasis on "drawdown-avoidance".
 
Depends. You could have had a string of good, consistent profitable years during this raging market. (Note the expression, "confusing brains with a bull market".) You won't know where you stand as a trader until you experience a big smashola and come out of it relatively unscathed.

Over your trading career, the market is going to "take a run at you"... the kind that could leave you bankrupt and in tears.... perhaps a half-dozen times. It only needs to nail you once or twice to ruin everything. Until you have dealt with that, you don't really know where you stand.

Stated another way... "One bad year, Hell... even one string of bad short-term decisions, could wipe out 20 years of success".

You haven't "won" the game of trading until you quit and are holding the market's money. It's like poker. You've only won when the game breaks up and you're the one with the chips.

This was going to be the basis of my comment! Definitive "success" can only, sadly, be declared when you are dead and and all the chips have been counted...

...or you could define success over a given period of time/sample size. But I think most people are looking for the former.
 
How many years are necessary to consider yourself a successful trader?

More than how many years, it's

When you can identify the reasons for your losses.
When you don't look at the prices on the menu.
When you have more followers on ET than the number you follow.
When you feel you don't have to trade today.
When you no longer feel the market is rigged.
When you are happy to find manipulated stocks.
When you stop worrying about what they are doing.
When you have no need to hedge.
When you no longer dream of making it.
When love is the only emotion you can't control.
When you stop giving tips to your friends.
When, with the exception of a stop loss, you don't need risk management.
When you stop trying to copy what the banks and hedge funds are doing
When you stop trying to be like those you read about in Market Wizards.
When you don't give a rat's ass about the small loss you just took.
When you no longer fear or blame HFT, AI, algos and the like.
When the obvious is obvious.
When you no longer creep up to your computer.
When you've read 100 market books and feel you could write the best one ever.
When there are only a few on ET that you pay attention to.
When you don't get the urge to trade Bitcoin.
When you realize that there is still a lot left to learn.
When you stop looking for the best trading platform.
When you are really proud of your plan.
And last but not least,
When you have the time to write stuff like this on ET!!

(to be continued)


this is the voice of a successful trader. don't have to agree on every point, but aspiring traders take note.
 
this is the voice of a successful trader. don't have to agree on every point, but aspiring traders take note.
Not all points are from personal experience. A number of them are points that I have repeatedly seen mentioned as 'growing pains' on ET.
 
Not all points are from personal experience. A number of them are points that I have repeatedly seen mentioned as 'growing pains' on ET.

fair enough, and i don't think it matters. whether it comes from you or other sources, i see wisdom in the attitude these statements project. i have reached many of these goals, and have yet to reach many others. and it is from my personal experience that i recognize the value of your post.
 
Disagree.

Once you figure it out, "K.I.S.S." style, there's virtually nothing left to learn. Candidly, I doubt I've learned anything "new" about playing the markets in the last 10 years or more. I suspect that's because everything important about trading could be printed on a 3"x5" index card.

Recent story about famous Linda Raschke... claimed she "learned something new every day". How can that be??

LOL, In my way, I actually agree with most of what you posted but I doubt most will understand what I post cause you have to have the time and the knowledge to be able to write it on the 3"x5" card, and that my friends takes an enormous amount of time and study. But I still learn new "tricks" or just have new ideas that most of the time becomes trash, the "OMG" moments become fewer and fewer- years go by, but you stare at same chart formations every day, even in one's dreams, then one day...BAMMM, you chalk up another what this trader builds in his toolbox of own "patterns" that I consider major for my style of trading. My latest which still being tested is a pattern based on little used indicator that shows either reversal after the fact, or more importantly a pattern that price will continue trending.

It is very easy to get use to doing same things when you develop consistency patterns, do your hours and leave. Some of us tackle the game much longer as most "toys" I have grown out of playing. A nice friend, good conversation and hot peppermint hot cocoa to me is a perfect evening. But in an instant, I see patterns everywhere.

You are making ten times what you been making working "day job" for five years in a row.

Knowing when to sell short in huge Bull market and be consistent profitable, cause one day the Bear will emerge and if all you know how to buy, trash can here you come.
 
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My first post here. Have been doing trading / investing for about 10 years. Don't have a really good year. But I am still net positive in my trading account.

I agree ten years are enough (significant in statistical terminology).

For example, compared 2007 index of 14000 with current Dow of 24000, you are even if your account with seed of $14000 at 2007 is grown $24000 now. Of course $28000 should be $48000 now.

Did you?

If not, then you are under the index average and therefore are losing.
 
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Recent story about famous Linda Raschke... claimed she "learned something new every day". How can that be??
I would agree with her. There are so many things happening in the markets, there is always something new. There are new strategies popping up, new ideas, new directions, some things stop working (and you want to know why), some things start working (and again, you want to know why), new markets becoming liquid, new instruments getting popular.
 
I would agree with her. There are so many things happening in the markets, there is always something new. There are new strategies popping up, new ideas, new directions, some things stop working (and you want to know why), some things start working (and again, you want to know why), new markets becoming liquid, new instruments getting popular.

I guess that she change her trading logic new every day.

However, the OP means ten years with ONE SINGLE logic is meaningful or not, I believe.
 
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