What should a successful Trader's day/week look like?

It really depends on your approach and what you're doing. If you're consistently profitable as a technical trader, have your methodology fully worked out and have answered all the questions that needs to be asked, it's only a matter of executing your strategy/system for as long as you desire or need. If you're sufficiently capitalized, you can do very well just trading the initial 60/90 minutes of the daily market session. You can then choose to quit for the day or you may trade the full session. Some even trade multiple sessions, i.e., USA, Asia and Europe.

However, you will never get to this stage unless you work 24/7 for a long, long time. Or less than 24/7, but for a far longer time. And you may never arrive anyhow. Especially if you don't have a mentor or guidance from someone who knows what they're doing. Most don't get that.


I think the reason many don't get a mentor is because they not ready to get one, "I recall back in 2008 when i first started trading i asked someone who i though to be a trader (not sure if he was or not) but he gave me an answer and said "When the student is ready the teacher will appear" Funny thing fast forward to 2016 when i was still trading but not yet successful and had a job a coworker asked me to teach him how to trade, i chuckled and laughed about it and said to him "When the student is ready the teacher will appear." Today 5 years later he is trading, he knows a lot more than he did before which was nothing, yet he is stuck at one strategy and one style he learned from a class which isn't wrong but he has no idea of the whole picture or other strategies for the sake of knowing them or improving what he already does, for example he knows delta but doesn't know extrinsic. The point is, i would be willing to teach him except that he is stuck doing what he does which will work modestly but after 2 to 4 years in my opinion he will realize its not making the gains he expected and or so much time has passed without progressing. Thus many of those so called "looking for mentors" are stuck in their ways, which only time changes, As Richard Dennis has said that if you get them young enough (fresh mind) you can teach them anything but most people are printer perennial bulls. Thus as one said above if you do it less than 24/7 its gonna take reaaaaaaaaaaaaaly loooong time, i know that was the case at least for me, 10 years of zero success, never even got lucky on that "one trade"
 
Yes. That was a great interview.

If you remember another interview, Bill Lipschutz, he also had his house stacked with screens just like you do. He was also a currency trader.

I don't think I've met or read about many successful traders who didn't spend all waking hours on it - at least until they finally made it and had made their pile.



Would you still trade if you didn't make money doing it and were consistently losing?
you beat me to it it was bill, and yes i would still trade if i consistently lose, i think after 10 years of trading any one that lasted that long if they keep losing consistently all they got to do is flip the switch and do the opposite and boom they become consistently winners, trading is like building muscles at the gym, if you believe you can lose forever then its a belief of being unable to do it rather than it being a thing that is unable to be done
 
Also, I think that luck plays an important factor, too. If you started when DTB first went electronic and turned into EUREX, chances were rather high for you to make it.

10 years later it was a fking grind.

i got to disagree with you on this one, luck might play a role in making money, but keeping it is no luck whatsoever, also having more money gains or other in your early trading in my opinion will only delay your educational journey which is more important
 
It took the greater part of my young adult life to get where I am today. I was dead broke, worked shit jobs and took whatever I had left to the markets. I think about 3 years to break even and another two years until I made ok money.

Most of that time I tried to figure out with kind of trader I can be. Took a while until I arrived at market neutral derivatives trading and market making.

The better question would be: Would you do it again? And knowing what I know today I'd probably say no. Way too many sacrifices and an insanely hard life until you make it. Probably the same like becoming an actor


I got to assume your in your thirties maybe early forties, and i got to say that you would probably do it again, you just haven't seen the long term results of it yet, trading in my opinion is an exponential growth type of results. Wouldnt you agree? Would you not do it again after seeing it?
 
Entirely agree on opportunity cost.

Re "day" trading - is it really any different for swing trading or investing?

It's not like making it there doesn't consume all life and requires no sacrifices. I'd argue that the only difference is time spent executing. The rest is still filled with research and related activities.

All trading is very life consuming. Probably, most universally, till money is no longer a worry. That moment can be different for everyone. When that is achieved and there is a perception of consistency - trading can take very little time and the rest now can be spent on trying to gain what was lost during years of sacrifices.

Val


Re "day" trading - is it really any different for swing trading or investing?


i got to say drastically different in my opinion, day trading reminds me of a job, you got to clock in at this time clock out at that time except now you got a more ruthless boss. Basically garbage in my opinion. Also if your trading in general and ultimate goal is to manage MORE AND MORE N MORE money whether your own or not eventually you hit a problem moving such size both liquidity wise and mentally the numbers get ridiculous since you can only trade so few things at a time where as swing trading you do your research any time through out the week, place your orders at night to get filled the next day, you sleep through market hours and you can constantly expand by taking similar positions or bigger positions. Financial freedom might by the same but i wont say the time freedom is the same in day trading as in swing trading.
 
So why would anyone opt to be a day trader if it is more difficult and the returns are less than longer duration approaches?

I am not hating at all, not one single bit on intraday folks as I have an extreme level of respect for anyone trying to make it as a trader...but I think day trading is popular due to the instant gratification we all desire as well as a possible lack of patience. From what I have seen and experienced myself, there is a higher concentration of new/inexperienced traders doing the intraday thing than longer duration trading.

Concerning difficulty...I consider being able to hold a winner for days, weeks, months is top-tier emotional control and an ability very lacking in most people. One might say: "that just isn't the trading style for me". Where I tend to say: "I need to develop my level of patience".

Our lord and savior Jesse Livermore said 100 years ago:
“It was never my thinking that made the big money for me, it always was sitting.”

precisely like you said those attracted of day trading think they can make money faster that is in what i have seen is rarely the case, let aside opportunity cost and time consumption

i think most day traders those that make it or dont eventually switch over because they get burned out or their account size gets too big to day trade so the question is why opt to day trading any ways when there is a detour you have to take any ways in the long run??

regarding holding of winners, i agree and i am with you i used to define it same way, however i got to tell you, i got to do it without mastering that emotions of it. For options traders, implementing such can be encapsulated in the position structure itself thus don't beat your self too hard if you haven't been able to do it, research instead different position structures for yourself to obtain its results
 
i have never heard anyone who has earned a net worth of say 8 figures or more trading say “it becomes very easy almost like printing money””.”


maybe soon you will hear it, the process becomes very easy, the stress becomes perhaps bigger because now your dealing with bigger numbers but i am no 8 figures trader so dont quote me but i would agree it has become significantly easier
 
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