Looking for success in all the wrong places. This is the description of 95% of those wanting to be full-time traders.
Sorry novice traders, but there is no magic sauce or quick fix on the way to a career as a full-time trader
Novice and wannabe traders believe that successful market speculation is all about knowing where markets are headed or about having a secret formula or about skill or about finding that one “killer” trade or about finding a guru to follow.
After 50 years as a career trader I refute these ideas.
Successful market speculation is about surviving challenging periods with trading capital still intact until a trader stumbles into luck with a few trades. This can take years.
This, then, is the starting point of a career.
Then success is maintained and advanced by figuring out and exploiting small advantages that compound over time.
So, this is the formula that produces most of the career traders I know:
Learning to lose on trades while still preserving capital…
Plus…
Getting lucky with a few trades almost by accident…
Then…
Figuring out a small edge that can be compounded over time.
There is no quick fix. No instant success. No 10X after 10X years. The tombstones in the “failed traders” graveyard are filled with those thought they could outsmart the markets. This is not to say there are not a selected few (perhaps 1%) who make it this way — but this too is the result of luck.
Over the years on social media I have been exposed to hundreds of “one-year wonders” who claim to have all the answers. One-by-one they disappear. Gone to never again been heard from. Although some return again and again with a new gimmick for those suckers also looking for easy answers.
Believe me or not at your own risk.
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