How long before consistently profitable??

[Cornix]

It's tricky to be honest. The best way to learn is to spend time in front of the screen - in fact, I don't really think there's any substitute for experience.

That said, I recently read three new books by someone called Al Brooks that aren't bad. I don't necessarily agree with a lot of the stuff in them, but I think they might encourage you to start thinking about the market in the right way.

I agree. His first book is nightmare to read, but contains very good example of how to observe price action in a certain way, which is close to optimal way of viewing it I think.

Didn't read further books written by him, but people say they are written better.

 

[mvtrader2000]

"The first 10 years you learn. the next 10 years you trade and the last 10 years you spend the profits"

Quote from a famous trader.

I hope to goodness that this is a fact with a money back guarantee. I've been at this for 12 years, so the past two must have been great. :clap:

 

[Bint_Crusher]

I will take you at least a year to evaluate whether or not you are consistently profitable, but you must also be aware of what consistent profitability actually is.
1. Trade using consistent percentage risk management.
2. A breakeven is as good as a profit, you have not lost anything.
3 Your methodology must be consistent, not just "I like the look of this today"
4. Your plan must be followed.

I have been consistently profitable every year since I started, that was nearly 5 years ago, don't listen to those who say it is not achieveable. If you can remember the rule that "We are ALL Greedy and Lazy" and you address this issue with ALL of your trades then you will not go far wrong.

 

[tonster01]

I will take you at least a year to evaluate whether or not you are consistently profitable, but you must also be aware of what consistent profitability actually is.
1. Trade using consistent percentage risk management.
2. A breakeven is as good as a profit, you have not lost anything.
3 Your methodology must be consistent, not just "I like the look of this today"
4. Your plan must be followed.

This is a very good point actually

Consistency isn't just about profits, its actually about adhering to your rules, execution of your plan and ensuring you stick to what you know makes you money the majority of the time!

As a further question, how many people have tried altering the instrument of choice when losing as opposed to sticking with the same thing blindly etc?

Eg trading futures initially and losing money over say a year or 2 then tried same strategy with stocks/bonds etc??

 

[Bint_Crusher]

To consider price action start at the right hand of the chart mechanically travel to the left until you find a place where price suddenly falls then bounces back up this indicates buyer seller imbalance typically caused by a large number of buy orders at that price easily filling the smaller number of sell orders placed by pboils is a sockpuppet throbbers at that price calling the bar in the center of this price the controlling price action range and taking a firm rule based managed risk trading plan to trade when the price first pulls back to that price range taking again advantage of the throbbers who are prepared to sell into a range where price action dicktates that there is more buying pressure than selling activity

 

[vergis92]

After reading the excellent book Enhancing trader performance by Steenberger and was just wondering how many people tried different strategies en route to achieving consistent profitability?

I myself tried a few styles out including:
Long term trend trading- quite a profitable strategy but felt like it wasn't right for me. Also quite volatile at times as was trading futures.

Have also traded intraday for over a year- grew account to the point of covering desk fee and then some but the fact of being committed to Two to three k a month disturbed me in terms of desk fees quite honestly.

Finally I have arrived where I am now after much tweaking testing and prodding using an end of day combined with weekly analysis focused on the top 100 stocks I the uk. This has taken me since 2009 to get here and be consistently profitable as well as get into a position where my rules are hard and defined in the sense that they are ingrained in me due to previous experiences of painful trading decisions where I didn't act as I should have...

How long have you guys tweaked or traded before you got to a stage of being comfortable with your strategy and finding it to be part of you as well as consistently profitable ?

It took me over 8 years of circumstantial learning, trading, then more and deeper learning, and more trading, and finally learning some things from other traders, to achieve consistency at highest confidence. I can trade with confidence and use any single setup available in the markets out of several completely different trading techniques.

But if you consider the stress I went through, the time I have devoted, I may have been better off doing something else in my life, and still do want to do one more thing than just trading, even successful trading is not mentally satisfying, there's no much challenge involved, as there's in science or engineering.

 

[Mike Kshemaraja]

It's tricky to be honest. The best way to learn is to spend time in front of the screen - in fact, I don't really think there's any substitute for experience.

That said, I recently read three new books by someone called Al Brooks that aren't bad. I don't necessarily agree with a lot of the stuff in them, but I think they might encourage you to start thinking about the market in the right way.

I agree on that, also the fact that you have read them, to me shows that you are serious about your work, I read his first book and find it difficult to digest but useful.

I think there is a big misconception about trading and setups in general. Traders rely very much on set ups to initiate a position. But in my humble view, set ups will not give a true reality of the market condition but the overall chart will. The pressure is either up, down or neutral. If it is pushing prices more one way than the other, without much resistance in sight, a trader simply sit tight until he spots a tradable setup that offers him a good entry to participate. The actual shape of the set up is quite irrelevant.

 

[The Leopard]

I agree on that, also the fact that you have read them, to me shows that you are serious about your work, I read his first book and find it difficult to digest but useful.

I think there is a big misconception about trading and setups in general. Traders rely very much on set ups to initiate a position. But in my humble view, set ups will not give a true reality of the market condition but the overall chart will. The pressure is either up, down or neutral. If it is pushing prices more one way than the other, without much resistance in sight, a trader simply sit tight until he spots a tradable setup that offers him a good entry to participate. The actual shape of the set up is quite irrelevant.

I think that is a very good post.

 

[Gredos]

It's tricky to be honest. The best way to learn is to spend time in front of the screen - in fact, I don't really think there's any substitute for experience.

That said, I recently read three new books by someone called Al Brooks that aren't bad. I don't necessarily agree with a lot of the stuff in them, but I think they might encourage you to start thinking about the market in the right way.

Thanks for the answer, The Leopard.

Al Brooks is one of my favorite inspirations in trading. I specially like his red light on barb wires.

 

[ph_trader]

I think there is like a million and one factors that may determine the constant profit! but its just me

 

[arn8701]

For some people it will take weeks, some months, and some years...there are many consistent traders out there, anyone who says that most are not is just basing things on their own trading experience. ...it all depends on the person and how they deal with losing trades and not taking profit from winning trades and also not taking enough profits. If you dont curse yourself when things go wrong, it can be very easy.... all you need is two good opportunities per day...and pennies will make pounds....as you will discover at the end of the week.

step 1 work out how much you can potentially take on average on one trade...
once you know this, your stop will be 75% - 100% of that amount.
second thing, everytime you get in on a trade, put your stop at entry when you are onside a certain amount of ticks....also sometimes dont be scared to take some profit, even if you are looking to make more.