My Advice

One of the best pieces of advice I ever received from a fellow trader was this. Start by lowering your expectations to a win rate of 50%. At 50% immediately you are forced to do a few things. Your Trades: - let winners run - cut losses short - put s/l in a place that gives your trade the best possible chance - look for good r:r - be selective with your trades Your Mindset: - accepting that chance of loss is high, and planning for it - accepting as per your thread title that "knowing" is a fools game - realizing that you don't need to "know" where the market is going next to win - no longer a victim of false expectations and heart ache You might say "well what is my edge if I only need 50% wins, why not flip a coin?" Your "edge" whether that be candlesticks or fundamentals or sentiment trading or whatever it may be, will hopefully be able to beat the spread in the long run and hit out enough returns that exceed your risk (r:r) of at least 1:2. That is all you need to slowly win, compound and yes make lots of money. Indeed, there is no holy grail but there are no shortcuts as well (as far as I am concerned). I am a successful trader but I have studying and practicing years to get here. In my opinion, if trading does not become your second nature, it would be very hard to succeed. After years of studying and practice I have finally quit my job and work as trader from home. But I have done that only when I realized that I have many months of solid consistency. Bigger winners that losers and very few losers. I sticked to one system and one system only and learned it and practiced it inside out for years. Today I can proudly say that I hit an average of 8 wins out of 10 but there are days when I sit on my hands and not trade at all. This is the most difficult part in trading. I know, we all want to make big money as fast as possible. Patience is the biggest player in trading and sometimes I need to wait days for the right setup. I am looking back to these years and I realize how much I did not know. The main question is: if 95% of traders fail, what the rest of 5% do differently? Well..if I can point my finger to something is: Patience - loadS of it. Tons of it. Take your time, trading is a difficult job. There is no difference between becoming a good trader or becoming a doctor or an engineer. It takes time. Long time. Years. And there are no shortcuts. After all these years I still have ''a-ha'' moments and continue learning - everyday. What I am doing differently than years ago - I trained my patience. I am simply waiting to see what I want to see. The right setup. The setup which will trigger other traders attention to trade. I stay away of markets if the trading day has no news to move the markets. I am very careful with Friday trading. I have seen too many pips lost on Fridays. I stay away of unclear charts with long wicks. Long wicks represent indecision in the markets. Why in the world would you get into an indecisive market?! As I said before...patience brought me where I am today. Patience will help you stick with one system and perfect it. If you want to be successful then take your time, don't rush it. Learn to read your charts, understand what is behind them. Don't rely all on the indicators. Indicators are good, yes, BUT ONLY to confirm the move you red and understood already. Pick higher time frames. There are the bigger wins at lower noise. Make your analysis before any trading day. If you don't see the right setup then simply don't trade. Analyze your trades, understand why did you enter, where and why did you exit. Do this exercise everyday and then check your equity curve. This is what 5% of traders do. They simply do it right and trade only after years and years of study and practice. Remember that you don't get paid for your time, and if you did we'd all be sitting here in front of our computers all day long. Wait, that's right, we are sitting in front of our computers all day long, so I implore you, I beg you, spend less time in front of the charts just for maybe a week or two weeks to make the experience really useful, and see how you do when you have to walk away, setting your profit target, setting your stop loss, and letting the market pay you.

Daytrading is crazy. I tried some, didn’t demolish my account (really had good periods making some money) but realized that this is not trading at all! This is time consuming, addictive and mentally exhausting. Even when you make money your broker make even more, and it’s so absorbing that one moment you hate this. Stops are hit so often that you are on emotional rollercoaster.

One can daytrade from time to time for fun, but as a trading method it’s not best idea. Instead I like this idea of minimalistic, “purist” trading. Or better to say “risk manager”. Idea that trading can be peaceful and that “less can be more” really opened my eyes. I feel that mystery of good trading lies in psychology and emotional aspects of human nature. 

Real Estate is to location.

Trading is to patience. Tons of patience.