Learning Curve for sucesssful trading

Quote from Don Bright:

I don't really think it's that bad, although the retail (or the wholesale) success rate might indicate that. ...

Don
More...

Italics mine .

Let's see, were those guys at LTCM, Societe Generale, and Ameranth, and that guy Nieder.. something or other, retail? I forget. :D
 
Quote from DuyLe:

In my first two months of trading, i started out with 80k. i was up 20k, now i am down 20k. I am going to take a long break and trade a lot smaller...How long did it take for you sucessful traders to become consistent with what you are doing? Also, in the beginning while you were learning, how big were the losses you first took?
More...

I started actively trading YM on 1/2/08
Starting account balance --- $10,000
Current account balance ---- $12,764


Largest single day losses in the prior 5 weeks

-$625 on Fed Day
lesson learned: dont trade fed day


-$590 holding a position overnight -
lesson learned: dont hold YM positions overnight

-290 made 32 trades one afternoon lost track of open positions
lesson learned: One trade at a time. 3 losers and quit for the day

happy to share other rookie lessons learned - let me know
 
Quote from RL8093:

Although new traders are seemingly always motivated to find out how quickly someone else did something, at some point, they realize that what others do (or have done) is virtually irrelevant to their own success & learning curve.

Everyone brings their own unique set of skills and motivations to the trading arena. They learn at different rates, have different biases, absorb information differently.... Some very successful traders took many years to 'make it'. Others had to lose everything (sometimes multiple times) before finding their way...

What matters is how strongly you are driven to be successful. How much do you want it?

R
More...


I have realized that the reason no one else can teach you this stuff is - no one else can teach you how to get up the next day after a losing day --- and trade your plan the same way again

you can read that in lots of books --- but no one can help you do it
 
Quote from Don Bright:

The obvious answer (to me) is lack of discipline and expecting too much too soon. A little knowledge is dangerous, and can certainly cause problems. One step at a time, developing a comfort level with the basic strategies (opening only, MOC imbalances, all the basic stuff), and then and only then, spreading their wings to include the more sophisticated techniques (M&A, pairs, automation, etc.).

Which instruments are more a factor of the traders capital and where they fit into the whole equation. A CME member firm trader with super low round trip costs (about 1/5th of what I pay) is tough to beat, no matter how good you are. Options are priced at fair value when looking at conversions and reverse conversion pricing.

I may be accused of being biased, but I honestly think that trading equities, while using the e's as leading indicators is easier than trying to trade the futures. "Back in the day" when on the CME floor, we had a much bigger edge with the arbitrage opportunities - still there, just not as big.

All that being said, the instrument and the strategies should match the traders personality and level of patience.

(as you can easily see, there are so many factors, hard to define - and there is always that "X" factor that some traders possess).

FWIW,

Don
More...


In my own experience - which is all of 1 month actively day trading futures is: you have to stay small enough so that your (or at least my) inevitable mistakes dont kill you

I was extremely fortunate the market was chopping yesterday when I lost focus and I only lost 290 bucks

had the market moved against me I could have lost thousands
 
Quote from igotbadbeat:

You don't know poker. The best bluffer is not the best player. How do you assume that everyone knows how to extract maximum value from their hands? Mike Matasaw is one of the best bluffers and he's hte biggest loser, else your definition of a bluffer is different. Trust me when I say the best bluffer is not the one who wins in poker. It's the best poker player who does.

I personally think poker is alot like trading, but I donno anything about trading yet.
More...

my observation would be:
trading is alot like blackjack - with the trader sitting in the dealer seat

as long as others keep coming to the table and the dealer is not stupid.... he will win
 
Quote from mgabriel01:

I have realized that the reason no one else can teach you this stuff is - no one else can teach you how to get up the next day after a losing day --- and trade your plan the same way again

you can read that in lots of books --- but no one can help you do it
More...

A teacher can teach a student to apply his intellect so that he may objectively analyse his trading results. This is how attention is diverted from the pain of a losing trade and kept on track in order to improve the execution of the student's plan. A succesful trading method can be shown to work and bad results will have logical causes.

Pointing out the improvements a student has to make will be the student's motivation to get out of bed the next morning.
 
Great thread. My bit: Be in control, you make the decision whether to enter or not. Not trading is a legit option. Wait for momentum to develop then make perhaps just one trade (after waiting for 2 hours this can be dificult). Remember that 1% a week =52 %?/year. Not Bad for a business. FEEL the market. It is telling you things all the time, try and decipher the language and be really conservative. Come away with a small profit each day, especially on a friday.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top