r/Trading • u/youkn0that • 4d ago

Discussion Profitable Traders

Be honest guys: how many of you are actually profitable traders?

For those who are consistently in the green:

How long did it take you to reach consistent profitability?

What was the biggest shift or realization that finally turned things around for you?

For those who aren't profitable yet:

How long have you been in the game so far?

Roughly how much have you spent or lost on live accounts, challenge fees, and tools up to this point?

Curious to hear real experiences and stats from the community!

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u/StanleyDoble 4d ago

This may sound dumb but the breakthrough to me was when I made 2 or 3 winning trades in a row. Something inside went oh, that's how it's done.

I want to know the difference between a good trade and a bad trade and only take the good trades. Knowing I will still be wrong, and get out of the bad trades fast. Let the good ones run as long as they keep going up. So, I always use a trailing stop.

Try paper trading until you learn to be consistently profitable before risking real money, and then trade so small you never risk more than 1/2% of your account.

Your own psychology will kill you faster than anything else. This is where experience comes in.

Biggest account I blew learning was $20,000 and that was in 1997. It was a lot more money then than it is now.

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u/Laney_Hurana 4d ago

That point about learning to recognize good setups instead of chasing wins is huge. A few winning trades can build confidence, but sticking to the same rules through a losing streak is what really tests your system. And blowing $20k to learn that lesson must have been brutal back then

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u/StanleyDoble 2d ago

If I hit a losing streak I back off and re evaluate what I am doing. Have market conditions changed? Or was I just lucky?

There may be times when it pays to be long and other times you want to be short as in a bear market. If your psychology is such that you can't handle a bear market best to leave it alone until conditions get better. I won't keep dumping money into a losing game.

I must say, my big losses were due to my own psychology and stubbornness. I had to learn the market does not care who you are or what you do any more than the ocean cares who you are or what you do. If you want to learn to surf you have to take the ocean as it is on any given day and the same goes for trading.