Transition: loser to winner
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Have a nice day too, arnegr.
PEG LEG
I started trading in the late eighties. my first winning strategy was trading the 30 year treasury bond from watching CNBC and plotting the interest rate with paper and pencil. The first year I made almost 50% on my money with only 4 trades.
My next winning strategy came from trading closed end funds. I was so confident in this strategy that I would risk my entire life savings on it. When they stopped acting right, I got out and then the bottom fell out. Scared me so bad that I never bought another one.
I thought that I had found the holy grail when I started swing trading. I worked for hours writing stock scans. The best I did was 21 successful trades in a row without a loss. Then that went sour.
I had a daytrading strategy that was based upon price action alone. Its the best strategy that I ever had. I made an average of 100 trades a day. It doesn't work any more.
I now have a working strategy but it is only good for one or two trades a day. I'm finding it harder and harder to make money.
It certainly hasn't been a bike ride for me.
regards
My next winning strategy came from trading closed end funds. I was so confident in this strategy that I would risk my entire life savings on it. When they stopped acting right, I got out and then the bottom fell out. Scared me so bad that I never bought another one.
I thought that I had found the holy grail when I started swing trading. I worked for hours writing stock scans. The best I did was 21 successful trades in a row without a loss. Then that went sour.
I had a daytrading strategy that was based upon price action alone. Its the best strategy that I ever had. I made an average of 100 trades a day. It doesn't work any more.
I now have a working strategy but it is only good for one or two trades a day. I'm finding it harder and harder to make money.
It certainly hasn't been a bike ride for me.
regards
Why lose your time hanging around at ET?
nononsense
To answer your questions in the order asked:
No it was not a single insight, but a long process of study (too much of that - big mistake) followed by trial, error, small insights, learning, growth, and finally realizing the problem was not find a system, but handling myself and most of all my fear, greed, perfectionism and ego.
My mentor was my day to day experience. Took some courses, but never really learned much of real use.
It took about 7 years of transition from stocks to options to futures. Once in futures, it took another 2 years to define the "problem" (see thread: How I developed a winning system & overcame fear & greed). then about 6 months to develop a system that met the criterion, and another year to perfect it.
I oscillated between profit and lose for about a year, as that was how long it took me to completely trust in the system, and "forget" everything I had learned about Gann. Elliott wave, retracements, support and resistance, MA crossovers, etc., etc.
Once I developed absolute trust that the system worked as long as stayed within the guidelines I stopped having losing weeks. I have not had a net losing week in over 4 years.
Yes, I believe it like riding a bike, only once in while my mind slips in and I react to the market instead of adhering to system guidelines, but I catch myself quickly and exit the trade.
But, I must admit the destination was worth the journey. It cost me more than college and professional school, but took a little less time, and is so much more enjoyable and productive in the end!
Wishing you a successful, and shorter journey than my own.
IN2WIN