Can a newbie be a successful trader within a year? | Forex Factory

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Can a newbie be a successful trader within a year?

  • #1
  • First Post: Aug 14, 2014 12:19am Aug 14, 2014 12:19am
Have read some books (technical analysis, psychology of trading, etc) and come up with this question:

Equipped with a simple but comprehensive trading plan, discipline and emotional stability, can a newbie be a successful trader within a reasonably short time, say under one year?

I'll appreciate straight answers based on your own genuine experience.

Thank you.
  • #2
  • Aug 14, 2014 3:27am Aug 14, 2014 3:27am
My answer, just my humble opinion, would be no. The reason - if you have only one year of experience, you have only experienced a limited subset of possible market conditions and honed your trading according to that. The market will behave differently next year than it did this year.... if your trading is optimized to perform in the current market conditions, it likely will fail over a longer period of time. To trade with long term profitability, your whole trading approach must be robust enough to survive various swings and cycles which occur over many years, decades ... to do that you kind of need to experience some of those swings and learn to ride them.

Also, since the market goes through these medium/long term cycles, you don't really know if you are 'successful' or not until much later. Many people have raised the victory flag prematurely.
si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes
  • #3
  • Aug 14, 2014 4:02am Aug 14, 2014 4:02am
Quoting numbnuts
My answer, just my humble opinion, would be no. The reason - if you have only one year of experience, you have only experienced a limited subset of possible market conditions and honed your trading according to that. The market will behave differently next year than it did this year.... if your trading is optimized to perform in the current market conditions, it likely will fail over a longer period of time. To trade with long term profitability, your whole trading approach must be robust enough to survive various swings and cycles which occur over...
Wise words.. can't beat experience
  • #4
  • Aug 14, 2014 10:44am Aug 14, 2014 10:44am
no .. even if he is profitable in the short term .. he will need more time to confirm he is profitable in the long term .
  • #5
  • Aug 14, 2014 10:53am Aug 14, 2014 10:53am
I doubt you will find many profitable traders who have been trying to trade for 5 years, this game is very difficult and full of surprises.

Best of Luck, you will need it.
Asw
  • #6
  • Aug 14, 2014 11:25am Aug 14, 2014 11:25am
Quoting numbnuts
Many people have raised the victory flag prematurely.




@banglubos


Collecting knowledge, always draw your own conclusions !

One year is not enough, because as already said numbnuts : You must have gone through several phases of the market.


Regards
  • #7
  • Aug 18, 2014 12:53pm Aug 18, 2014 12:53pm
for me, I can not make it.
for others, I am not sure. different people has different stories.
Be successful in one year is kind of miracle, and miracle do happens sometime. However, miracle is something that you may meet but you can not expect.

What I want to say is:
1,for those legendary traders (like those so called top 5 traders, etc), it seems that their trading career progressed and developed from small success to medium success and to big success and then to large and even huge success. I mean, they grew up from success to success. That is called nature gift or talent. They were born to be a trader.
2,while for most of the others, like me, we can only grew up from failure to failure and to more failure and .......maybe someday, we arrive at success.

Both the two ways will lead to success.
  • #8
  • Aug 18, 2014 1:21pm Aug 18, 2014 1:21pm
Quoting banglubos
Have read some books (technical analysis, psychology of trading, etc) and come up with this question: Equipped with a simple but comprehensive trading plan, discipline and emotional stability, can a newbie be a successful trader within a reasonably short time, say under one year? I'll appreciate straight answers based on your own genuine experience. Thank you.
Shall I understand your question like this: now you only want to spend one year on this fx trading, and one year later, if it is not successful, you will quit. If it is successful, then you go on.
Is my understanding correct?

If my understanding is correct, then I will say that your plan is a smart plan, and just go ahead. The time will lead you to where you belong. (Do not rush into any "forever". Let's do and see)
  • #9
  • Edited Aug 19, 2014 12:07pm Aug 18, 2014 6:54pm | Edited Aug 19, 2014 12:07pm
Quote
To trade with long term profitability, your whole trading approach must be robust enough to survive various swings and cycles which occur over many years, decades ... to do that you kind of need to experience some of those swings and learn to ride them.
I agree with numbnuts.

For example, over the last 2-3 months forex markets have been experiencing their lowest volatility (daily ranges) for a very long time. Successful systems that rely on large intraday moves will be underperforming, and possibly even failing, under the current conditions.

I've posted this link many times before. It's a must-read real-life story about a very experienced group of traders, who developed an automated system whose goal was to turn £10k into £1m. Everything stayed perfectly on target for around 3½ years, and then unexpectedly fell apart completely in the next 4 months.

Their conclusion:
"One thing is for sure. no matter how good your system appears to be, no matter how much money it has already made and no matter how much confidence and testing you put into it - sooner or later a market condition will surface which you haven't seen before. we never know what is around the corner, you could run the gauntlet and have 10 years or more of great results. but sooner or later the market will throw off a wild one.
........
System designers need to add one more thing into their arsenal. They ask these questions when designing a system
1. When to enter a trade
2. How much to trade
3. Where to place a stop
4. Where to exit a trade

they are missing part 5 and part 6

5. How to identify when the market conditions cause the system to fail.
6. What to do when it's failed."

Sobering words indeed. Especially when you consider how knowledgeable these traders were.
  • #10
  • Last Post: Aug 18, 2014 8:14pm Aug 18, 2014 8:14pm
It's possible but a very small percentage will be consistent in that first year. I look at it this way...

The guys who are "gifted" or stick it out are the 5-10% taking the 90-95% money. As a new trader you are trading against other traders who most likely have several years of trading experience. Nothing out there can prepare you for learning experience other than actually doing it. Six months into trading I could have written a book and taught classes on how to trade but it didn't mean I was profitable or consistent.

Hope that makes sense
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