Trader in Year 1: Seeks reasons to trade to test 'signals', aiming to grow the account quickly. Believes technical signals are the 'holy grail' and key to financial success. Sign up for courses believing in replicable shortcut and trading signals. With a small account, the financial risk per loss is minimal, leading to a mentality of acting on every signal. 'Plant the seed, grow the tree, YOLO' mentality. Trader in Year 2: Experiences account blowup from over-risking (all-in style) in a single trade to recover from a drawdown. Realizes the need for risk management, adopting a philosophy of risk per trade relative to equity. Ready to fund and top up account again. Continues to take every trading opportunity but with controlled risk. A new found belief that he will make it, but continue to lose money, just much more controlled and in a slower manner. Trader in Year 5: Looks for reasons not to trade, maintaining discipline to ensure high-quality trading data for self-evaluation and growth review. May not be consistently profitable year-over-year yet, but is close to breakeven with substantial improvement in identifying and executing quality setups. Average Profit factor exceeds 2.0, but win rate % remains volatile in quarterly basis. Low quality trades can be further sniffed out and reduced with more experience. Not defeated, he know this is for him with more work and minor adjustments/tweak. Trader in Year 10+: Becomes much more cautious and mellow. Experienced unprecedented event, eg. crude oil crash below $0, brexit referendum, BOJ & swiss banks negative rates, Covid-19, Donald Trump elected, $GME led meme short squeeze. With a significant account relative to net worth, each loss poses a substantial $ risk to mortgage repayments/lifestyle/biz & investment plans, leading to a preference for missing trades over losing money. Have a strong passion for the game, love the intellectual challenge it offers, and willing to offer advice hoping to help others shorten their learning curve. This was my inevitable journey, and it will be yours as well.
"the beautiful thing about potential is the closer you get to reaching it,the further you get from reaching it. because the more capable you become, the more you become capable of"
A+ Post. Reminiscing on experiences similar as I read further. Moments of celebration, despair, frustration, and overjoyed. Picturing myself at my desk head in hands and heart in stomach. Asking myself when. Asking myself why. Promising dedication and determination even more resolved. Day by day the progress is unnoticeable. But in deep reflection it is amazing to feel and see the here and now. Minimal fear, minimal celebration. Seeking out counter arguments as to why trades should be avoided until the only option is precise execution and risk acceptance. Weeding out subpar ideas allowing only 5star setups optionable. You will never arrive. But you are always getting closer and closer. -Patrick (TSDR TRADING)
@jfsrevg Most traders dont make it to year 5 realistically.
@jfsrevg Trader in Year 5 description is literally me and I'm currently in year 5.
@jfsrevg Personas along the journey. There could exist an effective way to develop software around these phases to enhance a trader’s situational awareness as they scale their skills along the journey.
Trader in year 1-10: Trade solely on newspapers' recommendation and own emotion, paying no heed to fundamentals or technical. Trader in year 11-20: Took various investment courses, joined various investment groups, invested tonnes of time and resources in trading system, learn many indicators and drew charts like a spiderweb. Trader year 20+: Understood the limitations of various methods, resort finally to just raw price action and trend. Can now trade independently in his own unique way. And still learning.
@jfsrevg At last position sizing is what matter , ppl test their strategy mostly without brokerage, regulation fee and required margin and this allow them to go for 50X leverage , if they put all fix expenses in calculation while sizing their position it will hardly 7X to 10X leverage!!
@jfsrevg year5 but i feel like i just got started
@jfsrevg Thank you Jeff for taking the time day-in and day-out to willingly share your hard won lessons….much appreciated!
@jfsrevg I'm at that stage where I am still trying to filter out the worse setups. Am putting in hours to try to hone my intuition on worse vs better setups.
@jfsrevg So good thanks Jeff. Do you recommend to use any index like qqq as benchmark for comparing own results to know if one is doing good or needs improvement?
@jfsrevg Thanks for sharing as always! How about the number of pull-ups over the years? :)
@jfsrevg I'm 1.5 years in and I feel like I'm near to year 5 and yet I don't feel like I've improved fast enough. Perhaps I have
@jfsrevg almost a 5yo trader - "looks for reasons not to trade" -- so true!
@jfsrevg Looking back, were there any habits/techniques u wish u implemented from the start? Also, iirc you shun paid courses. Are you a believer that paid mentorship/community would shorten the learning curve? P.S from a Y1 trader with -8% equity YoY despite +ve trading envt.
@jfsrevg How did Quallamgie and Minnervini reach the super trader status in a few years ?