How much did you spend before you became a consistently successful trader?

I watched for 3 months without opening an account. Two weeks after I started trading the Asian Financial Crisis occurred. I just happened to luck into the market at the right time. The mentor I was following for three months carried conversions so I did as well. Thus I didn't have any losses, a monkey could have hit the bid and made banana trees full of money.

When the market did turn around and start going up I then had to learn to make money to the long side.

I have probably spent $300 on books. The best way to learn how to trade is to sit beside some one and duplicate their style.
 
I spent 2 years, pissed away about $50K in bits and pieces (thank goodness for real jobs while learning), and didn't really go for seminars or expensive books (maybe that was the problem, but I doubt it). I probably learned most of what it took to be successful from thestreet.com*** and other similar sites, watching CNBC, etc.

Made it all back, and plenty more, in the first profitable year.

Biggest problem, I think, for newbies, is not seeing the forest for the trees. It's a zero-sum game, and you have to be able to describe to yourself why you are right, and the guy on the other side of the trade is wrong, in order to have a shot at winning.


***Whether you like Jim Cramer or not, and whether you think he can trade or not, he's one of the few that actually wrote coherently (and prolifically) about some of the real mechanics of trading.
 
Started Trading in 2002 ( stocks )

Lost about 200k (@ about 50k per yr in living expenses and 52k in trading losses )

# yrs = 36 months plus

training = $5140

Did not account for the loss in earning oppurtunity during these yrs ( was earning 220 K per annum before i was layed off. Now if u take that into account my total expenditure in this field would have been 220k times 3 + 200K )

Just about turning around profitable for a WHOLE WEEK NOW. @ a cost of ? ????????????????

Guess mine is a unique case but i hope that this at least gives an idea to all the newbies about what it takes to be a profitable trader
 
mi -

thx for bumping this thread with an update. surprised it didn't get more attention originally. interesting thread, though ...

take care and gtty -

omni

BTW: i'll be happy to post my tuition stats once i graduate to consistently successful. so check back in 2007 or so :D
 
Quote from InTheZone:

A successful trader is one who can consistently pull money out of the market over a time period that is appropriate for one's trading methodology, in my opinion.
More...

I believe that what you are refereing to is: Who among us is a proffesional trader, (which I believe would be anyone who can support his lifestyle and has done so for more than certain number of years.) and their story....

I imagine most people who were trading three or more years ago do not read ET anymore.....

Not because they became rich.....

But because they went broke:cool:
 
Couple years and 30 grand.

This was in the 80's before prop shops existed, or at least any I knew of. Pure trial and error. Lots of error.

Futures trading.

I would trade anything. Didn't quite understand liquidity for awhile. Case in point: market orders in stuff like juice or bellies. Talk about slippage! Used to do the same thing with currencies after trade reports, only I had to call them in back then, so I may have lost 30 tics just while waiting for my fill. Its amazing that I lasted long enough to figure out what I was doing wrong (still working on that little problem actually). In case anyone is wondering, I started with a 50K inheritance, and was willing to burn the whole thing.

Jay
 
A.
About 2-3 years. I only traded a few months two times, and slowly eroded my account down to trade pennystocks. In between I beat myself up a lot, read more material, watched the markets and convinced myself that I had to work on my discipline. (And I had a job all the time). I also controlled with great success some long-term investments for my company.

B.
Just enough to be painful at the time. I think the first time was about 12.000 USD, second time slightly less. However, the next time I started to trade I had about 200.000 USD, and was profitable immediately. I guess being low-capitalised made me chase riskier trades.

C.
I've only spent money on books, and over the years have collected about 100 trading books, and I guess I've spent about 3.000 USD on that. Probably 30-40 of those were bought before I became profitable. Seminars and courses: I've never been to them, and suspect they are mostly a waste of time.
 
I started from scratch.
First 5 years to develop a system that prevented losing money.
I had 2 computersystems: one in my office and one at home. Average more than 10 hours a day/6 days a week minimum.

After these 5 years another 5 years to make the system perform as it does know. Returns grew exponentially.

So 10 years to get a performing system , starting from zero.

Total losses before becoming successful: approx 250 000 $.
This amount includes over 150 000 $ for renting online powerful computersystems. Effective losses were under 100 000 $.
 
Quote from InTheZone:

How much did you spend in terms of:

A. Time - How long did it take before you became consistently profitable?

B. Lost capital - How much capital did you lose before you figured it out?

C. Educational materials - How much money did you spend on books, courses, seminars, etc.?

... before you became a consistently successful trader?

I thought the results might be interesting.

-- ITZ
More...

Wow, reading through some of the
posts, most of the ppl are much better
than me.

Let me see:

a) 5 years

b) Around 100-150k, probably more.
Was choppy for a long time, what
Sharpe ratio?

c) $0. I always worked on Wall Street,
so I learned from some of the best
ones, not necessarily the more
famous ones. And reading leading
finance journals, part of the perks
of working in a investment bank.
 
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