I think I figured out why trading can never work for so many people

C

ChkitOut

Simply put, they grow to hate it.

After a while, a trader will sit at his computer and say, this stuff is so beyond stupid. They will never be able to tolerate dealing with a probabilistic work environment every single day enough to get over the big hump and into profitability.

And to take it a step further and probably more important, they cant work in a world of subjectivity. You can have 10 different traders giving you 10 different reasons why a trade may or may not be ok. And maybe all 10 of those traders are profitable but the lack of clarity and subjectivity are enough to drive a learning trader nuts.

Imagine working at a pizza shop and everybody in the room is giving different instructions on how you need to cook the pizza in order for it to come out good. You would take off your apron, throw it on the floor and storm out yelling, 'you people are a bunch of wackjobs!"

Well, this is the trading world. And quite frankly, it sucks.
 
i dont think its about being hard or easy. there are a lot of hard things that people love to do, like playing piano, like learning about biology and dna, or computer programming. All those things are hard to do and take years to get good at BUT the rules are clear, there is nothing hidden, the text books are clear, people see other successful piano players and chemists and programmers.

In trading there is zero clarity about anything and most dont know any traders making money so that imo, is a big reason why they will grow to hate it before they can make it. among other reasons but sticking to the point of the thread....

most people will argue that trading is plain hard and thats why most will not do well, but hard is the wrong word. too mysterious is more so the right word i think. people dont like investing a ton of time into mysterious things that are not clear.
 
Maybe if you tried to figure things out for yourself instead of soliciting the opinions of others maybe you could bake a good pizza by now and maybe learn what works in trading. :D

You can post this reply on your wall. I won't mind.:D
 
Quote from hoodooman:

Maybe if you tried to figure things out for yourself instead of soliciting the opinions of others maybe you could bake a good pizza by now and maybe learn what works in trading. :D

You can post this reply on your wall. I won't mind.:D
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sure, thats absolutely true, figuring out how to make a good pizza on your own probably wont take too long and not be all that expensive to do.

trading on the other hand, well, it could take 15 or 20 years and by that time you've gone broke.

so probably not a fair comparison.
 
If you can't find someone to show you how to do it then you will need to think creatively.

If you are "book smart" but not creative you might never learn to do it.

In other fields these people have other means of getting ahead, like going to law school or getting a phd. In this country, you don't need to be creative to be financially successful. Try one of these fields.
 
Quote from ChkitOut:

i dont think its about being hard or easy. there are a lot of hard things that people love to do, like playing piano, like learning about biology and dna, or computer programming. All those things are hard to do and take years to get good at BUT the rules are clear, there is nothing hidden, the text books are clear, people see other successful piano players and chemists and programmers.

In trading there is zero clarity about anything and most dont know any traders making money so that imo, is a big reason why they will grow to hate it before they can make it. among other reasons but sticking to the point of the thread....

most people will argue that trading is plain hard and thats why most will not do well, but hard is the wrong word. too mysterious is more so the right word i think. people dont like investing a ton of time into mysterious things that are not clear.
More...

As a total beginner, I watched successful traders in action through ET's old chat room (and later 1R's chat room), but I had no idea what they were doing. Eventually, I learned what they were doing but it was too uncertain for me. Their trading involved losses, sometimes several losses in a row. I was a perfectionist and I wanted certainty. I wanted to find setups where I absolutely knew that price would eventually do X, so I didn't have to take a loss. I wanted to be right all the time, the same way you can pull off a piano recital very nicely if you practice enough, or the way you can get an A on a biology exam if you study enough, or the way a computer program will run flawlessly every time once you test it enough and fix the bugs.

After making a mess of things, I had a choice: Quit trading or learn to trade profitably.

By then I had enough knowledge about trading to believe I could come up with a plan based on probabilities, and I worked very hard to do that. I saw clearly how I could develop a plan that could produce consistent profitability and allow short term traders to make a very good living, and to accumulate significant wealth.

At this point I had to deal with developing the trader's mindset necessary to executing a solid trading plan properly. This was the most difficult thing I ever attempted. I was amazed how most of my beliefs were 180 degrees from where they needed to be for success.

Turns out that, contrary to my own beliefs at the point I'd reached my emotional "bottom" in trading, trading is neither mysterious nor unclear.

Consistently profitable trading seems mysterious because there is a random distribution between wins and losses for any given set of variables that define an edge. That doesn't mean price action is random; it means the distribution of outcomes is random.

Consistently profitable trading seems unclear because at any point in time price can move up or down from the current level and there's no way to predict with certainty whether it will do one or the other.

Once you've done the research to determine the odds of one thing happening over another and develop a trading plan based on that research, the only clarity and certainty you need is a set of rules for execution. The only talent you need at that point is the ability to execute without hesitation when the conditions are met.

It works so well, it seems unreal at times.
 
Quote from NoDoji:

As a total beginner, I watched successful traders in action through ET's old chat room (and later 1R's chat room), but I had no idea what they were doing. Eventually, I learned what they were doing but it was too uncertain for me. Their trading involved losses, sometimes several losses in a row. I was a perfectionist and I wanted certainty. I wanted to find setups where I absolutely knew that price would eventually do X, so I didn't have to take a loss. I wanted to be right all the time, the same way you can pull off a piano recital very nicely if you practice enough, or the way you can get an A on a biology exam if you study enough, or the way a computer program will run flawlessly every time once you test it enough and fix the bugs.

After making a mess of things, I had a choice: Quit trading or learn to trade profitably.

By then I had enough knowledge about trading to believe I could come up with a plan based on probabilities, and I worked very hard to do that. I saw clearly how I could develop a plan that could produce consistent profitability and allow short term traders to make a very good living, and to accumulate significant wealth.

At this point I had to deal with developing the trader's mindset necessary to executing a solid trading plan properly. This was the most difficult thing I ever attempted. I was amazed how most of my beliefs were 180 degrees from where they needed to be for success.

Turns out that, contrary to my own beliefs at the point I'd reached my emotional "bottom" in trading, trading is neither mysterious nor unclear.

Consistently profitable trading seems mysterious because there is a random distribution between wins and losses for any given set of variables that define an edge. That doesn't mean price action is random; it means the distribution of outcomes is random.

Consistently profitable trading seems unclear because at any point in time price can move up or down from the current level and there's no way to predict with certainty whether it will do one or the other.

Once you've done the research to determine the odds of one thing happening over another and develop a trading plan based on that research, the only clarity and certainty you need is a set of rules for execution. The only talent you need at that point is the ability to execute without hesitation when the conditions are met.

It works so well, it seems unreal at times.
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You are probably one of those who did it without knowing how it was done. For those who are conscious, it took longer time.
 
Quote from profitloss999:

You are probably one of those who did it without knowing how it was done. For those who are conscious, it took longer time.
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Yes,she`s one of those poets.
 
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