Anyone can have a good year. But how many years are necessary to consider yourself a successful trader?
Last night, while chatting with a trader acquaintance of mine who is starting a option trader group, he approached me as "successful trader" to raise funds. First time, I was referred to as a successful trader. I just dont see myself that way. It was just a series of risk-calculated moves, correct position sizing and lot of luck in bull market.
I was lucky enough to get into trading during the February 2016 dip, where the market was debating heading into bear or a new bull run. Also, had the advantage of not having to use my trading profits to make my living, but resorted to my real-estate income. At the time, most of my positions were bullish. Benefited for 3 months, then vol spiked with Brexit; learned hedging. Lost money in the early stages of the Trump rally; learned proper way to leverage longs while still hedging risks. 2 years and after 40,000 trades, with near triple digit annual growth, I feel this will take atleast 10 years of similar returns to call myself a success.
However, it depends on what your goal is.
- Weekly Income (It used to be 1% per week of capital, but I don't look at this anymore)
- Reduce Drawdowns (The 19% drawdown that I sufferred in June'17 still gives me nightmares)
- Recovery period during drawdown
- Capital Preservation
- Better strategy diversification
- Get the Sortino and Calmar ratios up to the point that money managers are going, I-wanna-be-that-guy
Personally, I just strive to get all my ratios on my TWS PortfolioAnalyst report higher!
And most importantly
- Portfolio value going up when the markets are down. And going even higher when market had a major correction! <--
THIS IS TRUE MARK OF A GREAT TRADER
But as seen in
@learner2007 list, once someone can claim a handful of those items, then they have achieved some level of true success in trading.