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How long to be profitable?

  • #41
  • Oct 13, 2009 3:44pm Oct 13, 2009 3:44pm
Quoting supremeChaos
much more in the Cable & GBPJPY threads
For those trading daily charts - presumably you'll need to play with minimum stops of 100+ pips?
  • #42
  • Oct 26, 2009 5:30pm Oct 26, 2009 5:30pm
Quoting kk007
Who are those can be consistently profitable after less than 6 months of working? Perhaps, most of these people receiving good and close mentorship from someone successful and they know very well.
It is really simple.
You can learn how to trade from someone successful. Or you can learn by trial and error.
I could not afford the time and the costs of all the trials and errors.
  • #43
  • Oct 26, 2009 5:36pm Oct 26, 2009 5:36pm
Quoting fxterrapin
A more interesting question would be: How long can you stay profitable once you have reach this stage? If you are starting out with around 10,000 USD it will still take you quite a few years to compound this to a sizeable sum.

Almost nobody thinks about this .
What other business can you start with 10,000 USD?

Almost nobody thinks about that
  • #44
  • Oct 26, 2009 9:02pm Oct 26, 2009 9:02pm
Quoting fxtrader29
It is really simple.
You can learn how to trade from someone successful. Or you can learn by trial and error.
I could not afford the time and the costs of all the trials and errors.
  • #45
  • Oct 26, 2009 10:59pm Oct 26, 2009 10:59pm
Quoting fxterrapin

Assuming that you can consistently rake in 100% annually, it will take you quite a few years to compound 10,000 USD into anything serious.
I think what fxtrader was trying to say was that it would be difficult to find ANY business that was started for USD10,000 to be compounded into anything serious.
But of all the potential opportunities, forex trading would be at the top of my list
  • #46
  • Oct 26, 2009 11:06pm Oct 26, 2009 11:06pm
And in addition, how do you even know you are profitable trader, when all you do is taking signals from someone else.
  • #47
  • Oct 27, 2009 12:47am Oct 27, 2009 12:47am
Quoting ALThau
And in addition, how do you even know you are profitable trader, when all you do is taking signals from someone else.
As long as he's making profit, should he really care how it gets it?

As your signature says...can't beat them, join them. And no I haven't joined whatever service he's signed up to.
  • #48
  • Oct 27, 2009 1:25am Oct 27, 2009 1:25am
Quoting DubaiTrader
As long as he's making profit, should he really care how it gets it?

As your signature says...can't beat them, join them. And no I haven't joined whatever service he's signed up to.
They may as well, just give their money for someone to manage.
That doesn't make them traders.
So, please don't use my signature out of context.
  • #49
  • Oct 27, 2009 1:25am Oct 27, 2009 1:25am
Quoting fxtrader29
I must be one of the lucky ones here. I went into profit straight away....
What you have posted in terms of your trades means absolutely nothing in this business. You have made claims, that's all. Not that I care personally - but if you really want to be taken serious, you have to substantiate your claims by putting up some verified account statements of your broker for scrutiny.

And please don't start with the 'troll-speech' again - that is only to fend off people digging a little deeper in your case. Unless you have signed some kind of confidentiality clause, why don't you begin to make some real contributions to the forum instead of waving your (and other people's) flags continuously?

Unfortunately, I can see posters like you taking over the forum space and filling up threads with nothing but blah blah about nothing - and strangely enough, it seems to attract more and more of the same.

I can of course speak only for myself here but it is very disconcerting to see the quality of the 'trading discussion' deteriorating to the equals of the Sun newspaper in the UK.

P.S. I will be the first to publicly apologize for what I have written here in case of you being able to prove me wrong in both cases - your quality of contribution as well as the reality of your trades.

regards
daytrading
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  • #50
  • Oct 27, 2009 5:52am Oct 27, 2009 5:52am
Quoting daytrading
What you have posted in terms of your trades means absolutely nothing in this business. You have made claims, that's all. Not that I care personally - but if you really want to be taken serious, you have to substantiate your claims by putting up some verified account statements of your broker for scrutiny.
This is an interesting read, but it is getting aggressive and personal. The thread is titled is How long to be profitable. A poster says that he is profitable. That sounds reasonable to me. The alternative is that everyone here is a loser trader.
But you immediately ask him to publish his account statements. Now I am not a friend or foe, but that seems to be over the top. Why are you assuming that every trader here is a loser?
  • #51
  • Oct 27, 2009 6:14am Oct 27, 2009 6:14am
Quoting capitalx
This is an interesting read, but it is getting aggressive and personal. The thread is titled is How long to be profitable. A poster says that he is profitable. That sounds reasonable to me. The alternative is that everyone here is a loser trader.
But you immediately ask him to publish his account statements. Now I am not a friend or foe, but that seems to be over the top. Why are you assuming that every trader here is a loser?
Agree. Although I am still not sure if I am consistantly profitable after 1 year, I am not surprised at all if a minority of people can be profitable immediately. As far as a person rides on a currently present trend, he will be profitable while the trend lasts.

Real trading skills required for being consistent profitable. If a person trades with W1 chart, it may takes years to see if he really has the skills or just lucky. But for a person trades with M5 chart, he cannot be consistently profitable for one month without the required skills.
  • #52
  • Oct 27, 2009 6:37am Oct 27, 2009 6:37am
What does it mean to be 'profitable'? Just because you have made money up to this point, or are currently yielding positive results from your trading does not mean you will continue to do so in the future. The term 'being profitable' suggests some sort of arrival at a nirvanic state at which you just log on each day and pick up what is owed to you from the market. If you hold this sort of attitude or this is your goal, then you will likely become complacent and fail to constantly evolve as you must to succeed in this business. It is my opinion that if you're not constantly on your toes then you'll soon be knocked on your arse as the market teaches you another important lesson, probably something about taking things for granted.

There is only one statistic that will really show whether you were profitable - how much money you put in and how much you took out at the end of your trading life. Livermore might have been the best when he was good, but still ended up topping himself with a suicide note that his life was a failure.

Adversity is the greatest teacher I have ever come across. It is the most important element in the construction of character. If you haven't faced it then I do not personally believe you can be a great trader. Adversity makes you humble, takes away that pride that comes before a fall. But then maybe I have built this belief to justify the path I have taken.
  • #53
  • Oct 27, 2009 6:44am Oct 27, 2009 6:44am
Quoting birdt
What does it mean to be 'profitable'? Just because you have made money up to this point, or are currently yielding positive results from your trading does not mean you will continue to do so in the future.
Nice post Birdt, i feel it will be lost on many though, especially here.
  • #54
  • Oct 27, 2009 6:44am Oct 27, 2009 6:44am
no poll for 20+ yrs but still unprofitable?
  • #55
  • Oct 27, 2009 6:47am Oct 27, 2009 6:47am
This poll is about "consistently" profitable, although to keep it short the thread title has not included the term "consistently". I haven't discussed how to statistically classify a trader to be consistently profitable, since this may be out of the scope of this thread.

Quoting birdt
What does it mean to be 'profitable'? Just because you have made money up to this point, or are currently yielding positive results from your trading does not mean you will continue to do so in the future. The term 'being profitable' suggests some sort of arrival at a nirvanic state at which you just log on each day and pick up what is owed to you from the market. If you hold this sort of attitude or this is your goal, then you will likely become complacent and fail to constantly evolve as you must to succeed in this business. It is my opinion that...
  • #56
  • Oct 27, 2009 6:52am Oct 27, 2009 6:52am
Quoting capitalx
This is an interesting read, but it is getting aggressive and personal. The thread is titled is How long to be profitable. A poster says that he is profitable. That sounds reasonable to me. The alternative is that everyone here is a loser trader.
But you immediately ask him to publish his account statements. Now I am not a friend or foe, but that seems to be over the top. Why are you assuming that every trader here is a loser?
cos no one can ride cycle without falling down at least one time in the learning process...
To Live is the rarest thing in the world , Most people exist , that is all
  • #57
  • Oct 27, 2009 6:56am Oct 27, 2009 6:56am
Quoting kk007
This poll is about "consistently" profitable, although to keep it short the thread title has not included the term "consistently". I haven't discussed how to statistically classify a trader to be consistently profitable, since this may be out of the scope of this thread.
A consistently profitable trader would be one who has been profitable each year. I doubt that there are many traders that are profitable every month or every week
  • #58
  • Oct 27, 2009 6:57am Oct 27, 2009 6:57am
Quoting woopypooky
no poll for 20+ yrs but still unprofitable?
Sadly, such a person cannot take this poll.
  • #59
  • Oct 27, 2009 7:00am Oct 27, 2009 7:00am
Quoting capitalx
A consistently profitable trader would be one who has been profitable each year. I doubt that there are many traders that are profitable every month or every week
I know that there are daytraders being positive every week and almost every day. Of course, they are minority.
  • #60
  • Oct 27, 2009 7:08am Oct 27, 2009 7:08am
Quoting capitalx
This is an interesting read, but it is getting aggressive and personal. The thread is titled is How long to be profitable. A poster says that he is profitable. That sounds reasonable to me. The alternative is that everyone here is a loser trader.
But you immediately ask him to publish his account statements. Now I am not a friend or foe, but that seems to be over the top. Why are you assuming that every trader here is a loser?
There is neither anything aggressive nor personal in what I see as perfectly legitimate questions and comments.

I am not assuming anything with regard to the poster, hence the post script. Further to that, not everything is black and white, i.e. there are neither only losers nor only winners as you chose to describe my views - which you evidently don't know.

To make matters clearer for you, I will elaborate:

Experience tells me when individuals in this business are genuine - sometimes I am wrong of course, but that is very infrequent. I won't know for sure unless I will be proven wrong, but that is a trade-off I am more than willing to take for the sake of so many new and inexperienced readers of these threads who in my opinion have a right to genuine and truthful pieces of information. That is what they come here for.

Besides that, I am always wary of so called results that look too good to be true - because most of the time they are fake, non-existent, made up or simply only constructed to boost the posters ego/ profile whether that is to the community or to himself/herself.

I believe that there is a dangerous imbalance inherent in this forum (and others), between members who deliver answers (as opposed to the people who come here to ask questions). There are those who deliver answers to questions, give comments and genuinely post to help, and there are those who think they are in that position but they are not - and worse, they believe that by affiliation to someone supposedly successful they have earned the right somehow to give advice. That advice is extremely dangerous for those who cannot distinct between the two.

Now, I am not in here to make friends or get appreciation, applause or anything of the sort - and I am well aware that in return for this post, I will get tons of flack - but I thoroughly believe that in order to uphold a certain amount of quality in this forum we have to speak out.

I sincerely apologize to the OP since (as correctly stated) my posts are only remotely connected with the thread by way of picking up on contributions that leave room for too much (mis)interpretation to novice readers.

regards
daytrading
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