MobileTrader1

THE "CONSISTENTLY PROFITABLE" SKILL GAP & THE MYTH OF SUPPLEMENTAL INCOME FROM TRADING For many new traders or part-time traders, there is this pervasive belief that with some time and effort, they'll be able to make "just" a few grand per month to supplement their income. Or they "don't want to aim big, they just want to replace their current salary via trading so they can have more freedom." This is because people mistakenly believe that trading is like most other jobs, rather than it being a winner-take-all performance endeavor more akin to becoming a professional athlete. 99.9% of athletes will never make a dime professionally. There is no market demand for your average high school or college player. To even make league minimum in the NBA, you are still in the .0001% of basketball players. There is no such thing as just deciding to casually make a few grand as a pro athlete. Think about what it takes for someone to make $50k/yr as a golfer? The skill gap to earn an income or make the league minimum is crazy to comprehend. The analogy I gave with @AT09_Trader was the story of Brian Scalabrine. Even though Brian Scalabrine “sucked” in the NBA, he would absolutely annihilate 99.9% of the people calling him trash. He once said the famous line that he’s closer in skill to LeBron James than his haters are to him, and that line perfectly explains trading. The gap between unprofitable and elite looks massive from the outside, but the real canyon is between unprofitable and making any amount of money consistently. People look at a trader making $1M a year and think that’s a different species. They assume someone doing $100k a year is basically the same as the guy still blowing accounts, just with better luck. That’s like saying Scalabrine and your friend who plays pickup on Tuesdays are basically equal because neither is LeBron. Going from $0 to consistently profitable is the hardest jump in trading. You CANNOT just casually make a few grand per month or supplement income part-time. The skill level needed to consistently make ANY AMOUNT trading is the equivalent of being in the league. A trader who can pull $100k a year out of the market is not “kind of good.” They have competency in finding edge, executing trades, handling their psychology and risk management, and are competing in the league. From there, scaling to $300k, $500k, even $1M is usually a function of size, capital, and refinement, not a complete identity shift. But the trader still stuck at breakeven or red? They’re not one tweak away from $100k. They’re not “basically there.” They’re still trying to prove they belong on the court at all. The uncomfortable truth is this: the distance between $0 and $100k is far greater than the distance between $100k and $1M. One requires becoming a professional. The other simply just requires becoming a more refined one. My confidence in taking a trader from $100k to $1m is probably 10x higher than my confidence in taking a trader from $0 to $100k.

x.com/i/article/2046…