Why 99,9% fail

Really the only way to learn is to dive in and train yourself to keep your emotions in check.

Maybe some people are smart enough to just pick it up on the side but I don't think I would have learned as much in 4 or 5 years trading in my spare time as I did the past year just throwing myself at it.

I graduated college the end of 2008 in chemical engineering and moved back to my parent's (i really just needed a break and I knew that'd be one of my last chances for one....money in the bank and single) and threw myself into the market early on in 2009 with a few thousand I'd made Co-Oping in college.
I was hoping I'd be one those one in a million people who'd instantly catch on and be able to support myself but I'm a realist for the most part and I figured that was just a pipe dream and it'd mostly just be a learning experience kind of like another year in college

I feel like I have a pretty good base now to kind of practice some more with smaller amounts of money the next few years while I work a real job building up some savings on the side to be able to eventually do something major with in another 4 to 5 years.
 
Hey everyone, it seems that this thread is 4 months old and was resurrected by someone who didn't want to create his own thread for some reason...

I didn't notice it at first either...
 
Back in the day, as a prop we had 95% attrition rate with day traders - why? almost all had unrealistic expectations of fast money and F'cars. The ones (like me) who succeeded knew it would take 1-3 years of hard full time work to get comfy and find consistency - just to get started.
As far as systems" go, you can make a system out of just about anything - gap fills, engulfing candles, whatever....as long as you take the time to learn how to use it, when to use it, what to use it on and proper trading money management techniques.
 
OR... they just aren't cut out for it. failure doesn't always = stupid
But i take your point -alarmingly large numbers of humans roam the earth in a state of stupidity.. but we've come a long way from the caves:)
 
The reason why 99.9% fail. Just a suggestion. The educational systems of school, college, university teach people what to think, NOT how to think. Trading requires critical thinking.
 
Say you have a $50k to invest, then you need to make large % gains each month just to live, in this game money makes money.

The more you have the more likely you are to succeed as the less profit you need to make.

Hell someone with $200k could have bought a single share last January then gone on holiday and returned to sell for a $100k profit.

Anyone thinking of personal investment for a living needs a war-fund over $100k or they're going to live on beans and die from the stress.

If you have $50k to invest you keep your current job and use it to supplement your income, maybe allow you to retire earlier or go on longer/nicer holidays.
 
Quote from lynx:

So what books do you recommend?

I've been struggling and it's hard to know what to do. The thing that works best for me is reversals at support, resistance and trendlines. All of the progress that I've made has come from honing my mental filters about which trades to take.

Oh wait, here I am looking to message boards for advice... :)
More...

Except for John Hill's books made in late seventies, I don't know of any books that deal with just price action.

What you describe are entries, but entries are only 10% or less of a good trading system, 90% of your trading method should be Money Management rules, what do you do after you are in.

One way to understand price action is to have a name for each bar, I trade off five minute bars, there are 81 bars in a day session. Long ago, I gave each of them a name as I saw them in the course of the trading day. Just as you have identified reversals at S/R.

To become good at day trading indexes, takes many years, but we live in a microwave world, so there will be many who lose their 50-100k accounts and will say the game is rigged, if you don't take the time to learn the nuances of the game, you will never become one of the five percent.

Many video games have "tricks" that once you learn them, you can get to next level, trading is no different. Ex. Few traders use yesterdays' close on there trading chart, but it is another nuance to learn. Today shows balance compared to yesterday, can also show good S/R and can be used as a target to get out. If Price opens so many points away causing a gap, often times, price will fill the gap. The more times during the day price hits yesterdays' close, the more chop there is for trading.

Americans lack patience, it is tough to sit here all day long and not have a trade, but I don't force anything. Too many young traders concentrate on having high winning percentages of trades and it never works out. I concentrate on keeping weekly losing trades under 15%, which means 85% are wins and many breakeven trades of one tic. Good profitable trades allow me to get in and price takes off almost immediately, when price just hangs around entry price for too long, seldom work out for me, get what I can and get out.
 
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