Can You Learn to Trade? If he can, why not you?
4 Months of Consistent Profit...
I took this picture of the member’s chat last week. I get messages/emails like this every week and I’m going to do a better job of making sure I share them.
The fact is, learning to trade and getting to the point of profitability is very difficult.
Seeing other traders who have made it to the point of consistent profitability should not only serve as encouragement, but it also points to what is required to become a successful trader.
So then, how the hell do profitable traders get to that point?
While this article could never break down every point required, I have listed 3 key areas I see time and time again with the profitable traders who come out of the DTFL Membership and I’ve broken this down in detail below.
How the hell do they do it?
So what separates the traders who come to DTFL and end up jumping to another system, and those who stick around and become profitable traders?
Let’s break down 3 parallels I see in almost every single example.
1. They apply themselves to learning 1 strategy for an extended period of time.
As an example, the trader above signed up around February of 2018. That means he had a little over a year’s worth of time put in before seeing consistent profit.
I don’t know how long it’s going to take you to learn to trade, but I can promise it will take longer and be more difficult than you think.
Because of this, traders often system jump long before they should due to unrealistic expectations about the time required to learn to trade.
Additionally, there are always ups and downs in the learning process.
There is nothing more discouraging than doing well in the market, thinking you’ve finally made it only to have a large draw down.
There will be ups and downs along the learning process. Focus on progress and eventually those mistakes begin to fade.
Find the trading strategy you believe in and the educator you trust, and then stick to it for at least 6 months.
2.) They all take the time to WRITE out a trading plan.
Every single profitable trader to come out of DTFL has a written trading plan.
A plan allows you to quickly review what is required for a trade to be valid. Additionally, it keeps you focused on 1 specific trading strategy which is essential for preventing boredom trading, as well as the revenge trades that tend to follow losing boredom trade 🙂
The bottom line is all profitable traders I know have a clear trading plan that they continue to update and edit as necessary.
3.) They take far LESS trades than average
Another very strong parallel is the number of trades being taken. On average, I would say our best traders are taking less than 20 trades per month (some even less).
Taking fewer trades was 1 of the 4 major factors in a recent video I did titled Forex Beginner’s Guide: 4 Pivotal Rules to Trading Success.
I’ve been teaching for nearly a decade. During that time I’ve probably spoken with 50,000 traders or more, with 5,000 being members of DTFL and there is 1 rule that consistently holds up…
Traders DO NOT lose money because of too few trades, they lose money because of taking FAR TOO MANY trades.
Trading strategies that produce a ton of setups will have razor thin margins that are impossible to be consistent with.
Therefore…
Rule #1 – Only take very specific trade setups that are designed to target high reward to risk ratios…
Rule #2 – Repeat rule #1 🙂
One more point on this topic is the number of pairs/markets they trade. By a significant margin, I find the best traders focus on the least amount of pairs and they master them.
In other words, mastering your craft while trading just the major pairs isn’t a bad option. Again, a reduction in the number of trades you’re taking is going to be a good thing for 95% of traders.
Happy Trading!
-Sterling