Alexander The Trader

@MoneyTradeEdge Forcing trades is a sign of lacking clarity in your edge. Any trader who can consistently execute their plan can do so because they know, inside & out, how their edge works. They know exactly what they're looking for. Anything less and they can comfortably let it go.

@jtrader This is exactly why people who go into trading for the flashy lifestyle will fail. This job is not at all flashy, instead it looks like consistency at boring things. Thing is, these boring things are not at all boring to those who succeed. If you don't love the job, stay away.

Trading success usually looks unimpressive in real time. Quiet routines. Controlled risk. Repeated execution. But those boring habits compound into extraordinary outcomes over years.

@tradermike1234 Truly inspiring stuff mate

+58,448 yesterday 🟩 All 1:1 trades btw ;) Crazy right? How I started with just 2k and now to be pulling shit like this with BASE HITS They add up folks. Just gotta stay consistent The level up has been major but regardless must stay detached Business as usual 🫡 (all plugged in discord beforehand)

I do have a different take here. I've found that having some novelty in your daly routines helps with creativity and work ethic, instead of living the same exact days over & over again. Now this might be due to m ADHD, but ive tried doing it the way @jadecap_ talks about in this post and it didn't work for me. I just ended up being so bored after a quarter of living the same exact days. Now I instill some freedom in my daily routine: I still get my Top 3 Goals done every single day, I just do it in slightly different places, like my co-working space or maybe a Cafe, or even working in my living room instead of my home office all the time.

Kyle (aka JadeCap), the trader behind the world-record $2.5M single payout, drew a line between discipline and ego that most traders miss. "I think that's the male ego talking." He wasn't being harsh. He was being honest. Ryan, one of the 15 unprofitable traders in the room, felt like surrendering to his environment was a weakness. That a real trader should be the anchor. Unshakeable. Anywhere. Kyle understood the feeling. But he'd seen what happens when traders convince themselves the environment doesn't matter. The best traders he knows? Boring. Same meals every day. Same schedule. Same environment. Not because they lack ambition but because they understand what consistency actually costs. He didn't leave the country until he was 31. Friends were travelling through their 20s. He stayed locked in, because he knew what slipping out of routine did to his performance. Ryan pushed back. Said he should be the pillar. Shouldn't need the room. Kyle's answer was simple: that's not discipline. That's ego. Your diet, your sleep, your relationships; all of it bleeds into your PNL whether you recognise it or not. So ask yourself this: Are you disciplined enough to control your environment, or just too proud to admit it matters? Full Episode 👇

@ohiain Comparison is the thief of joy. It is insane how applicable this truth is to all aspects of life, not just trading. Whatever you do, just focus on your own progress, f* what anyone else thinks.

> Am I slinging six figures a month trading? Not yet. > Do I take losses? All the time. > Do I hold my winners longer than my losers? Absolutely. Trading is still the hardest thing I've ever done. Just remember...you're about to see a lot of gain p*rn & loss p*rn on your timeline today. Don't let someone else's chapter 20 make you hate your chapter 3. Comparison is a thief! Keep showing up, my friend.

@ohiain The market can take your life if you let it. Always remember that the whole point of doing such a difficult job is to enjoy the rewards, both intrinsic & extrinsic. I love this job because it fulfills me intellectually and monetarily!

This last week was a good reminder that there's more to life than charts. Take time off the screens, spend time with friends & family, explore God's creation, put yourself in uncomfortable situations that help you grow. Pay yourself, enjoy the rewards of your labor, + love people well without expecting anything in return. The whole point of working hard is to build a life you don't need a vacation from. The market will always be here.

@TheShortBear So pumped to read this!!!

Happy official book release to all Market Wizards! Proud to have been part of history with a majority of friends.

For me it's because I start to feel invincible after a series of winning trades. This makes me take more trades than I should, trades that don't truly fit my edge. Now, every time I go on a winning streak, I start the trading day by reminding myself that one bad decision can undo months or even years of hard work. That is a terrifying reality in our line of work, so it's something that snaps me back to reality and prevents me from overtrading out of overconfidence.

One of my traders sent me this today from Peter Brandt's book. (Shoutout Raymond hit me if you're on twitter) I just scrolled my timeline and see nothing but traders talking about dealing with extreme emotional pain after today's session. Timely. A simple reminder nobody is forcing you to click the buttons when the action is most difficult after a prolonged period of "easy" momentum action.

@RealSimpleAriel Setting clear stop losses for our trades is the only way to guarantee long term survival, which is the most important thing because without it, nothing we do will matter since it's all going to be taken away from us one day. Good to remember next time we get pissed from a loss.

Being forced out of longs is never fun but arguing with the market is not an option.

@TradingComposur I've made a habit of telling myself that I will behave like a professional before every trading day. It's crazy how beneficial such a small habit can be, it serves as a reminder of your objective for the day, it sets your intention.

Decide that you're a professional. And every day, think and act like one.

Analysis paralysis is a deadly issue with being addicted to information. Trade 1 or 2 clear setups that fit your character, gather as much data as you possibly can on them, then iterate accordingly to improve your edge. This is literally how simple trading is, but it's hard work

8-Figure Day Trader Umar Ashraf broke down the silent habit that's keeping most traders stuck, and it's not what they think. "More information in trading doesn't make you a better trader. Less information will always make your life easier." Every time traders have a bad week, they go looking for something new. A better strategy. A missing concept. More education. But Umar says the problem was never the knowledge. "Some days you cannot read the market. At times it's random. Those are the days you accept it." And it goes deeper than that. Most traders are looking at five different people's viewpoints and trying to trade all of them at once. When it doesn't work, they blame the strategy. But the data tells the truth: Out of 20 days where you stayed at the screen past your rules, you might win 1 or 2. But across all 20? Net negative. Every single time. So Umar makes it clear. "If I have two bad trades, I walk away from the computer. I don't care what I miss. I'd rather walk away and miss the best trade of the day than overtrade 100 different times." He doesn't enter a trade thinking about what he'll make. He enters already accepting the loss. Because the moment you're attached to the outcome, you can't take the loss when it comes. And if you can't take the loss, the rules mean nothing. Most traders are looking for more. The best traders are learning to want less. So ask yourself this: What are you really missing, more knowledge or more discipline? Full Episode 👇

@ohiain Love how transparent you are, bee loving your posts! Sizing up on your best ideas is a great strategy though, sometimes we will take bigger Ls but that is a normal part of risk. As long as no loss will destabilize you, we should all try sizing up on our best trades.

Losses are inevitable. Took a larger loss than I hoped on $AAOI this AM. It rarely happens, but that's exactly why I ALWAYS size positions to an amount I'm comfortable losing. No matter how "good" a setup looks, no matter how much conviction you have, the market always has the final vote. Protect your capital first. There will always be another trade!

@AlphaMind101 The optimal way to learn how to trade is purely on a personal account because you are focusing purely on performance instead of the gamification built into prop firms. Prop firms are best used as boosters to your skillset as a trader. Only take them if you're already profitable.

I often get asked by prospective clients whether they should be learning trading at online proper firms, and taking their challenges. My response is to try and steer them away from these routes. Whilst I accept that these are valid businesses, and become an opportunity to learn trading 'on the cheap' relatively speaking, I have my issues with them. The first concert is the pass rate reality: Most estimates suggest that somewhere between 5% and 15% of people who attempt prop firm challenges actually pass and get funded, and of those, a significant proportion either blow the funded account or get cut off before making meaningful withdrawals. - Independent researchers and journalists who' ve looked at the payout data from some of the larger firms suggest that the vast majority of revenue comes from challenge fees, not from paying out profitable traders. - That is a red flag. Nonetheless the question becomes are they a good place to learn? In my view, mostly no: The challenge format creates a very specific psychological distortion. You are not learning to trade well over time, you are learning  to pass a test. - And the test has very clearly defined criteria that they specify. This doesnt allow you to evolve as a trader to what suits you best, and warps your behaviour. It often also encourages traders to be either overly cautious early on, then take outsized risk near a deadline. It also forced them to run a strategy optimised for the rules rather than for real and evolving market conditions. - Neither of those habits transfers well to genuine trading. Then there is the gamification problem! The challenge format, the leaderboards, the "get funded fast" messaging, the social media culture around it, all of that does 'gamify the experience'. This attracts people drawn to the idea of trading more than to the idea of building a practice which builds the sort of discipline need to thrive and survive, within the realities and practicalities of a rapidly evolve ng and emergent situations and contexts. - There is not one size fits all in trading. - And the business model, when examined closely, relies on that. If most participants passed and got paid, the model would collapse. Do they have some legitimate value! There are a few things that can be useful. Having real rules around drawdown forces some traders to confront risk management in a way they might avoid with their own small account. And for someone who genuinely cannot access capital any other way, a well-structured funded account from a 'reputable firm' is at least something, as opposed to nothing. What about those who succeed and become well known? There are some, but form what I know of these, they did not learn trading on the prop firm systems, they were people who had already learned trading and were competent, and were essentially using the structure as a capital source rather than a training ground. Playing lots of different firms and finding the ones that best worked for them. In addition there is a lottery aspect. - There are always a few winners, this is the same with the online props firms. The winners get vast publicity and vicinity as they become marketing and PR tools for the firms. -But these are outliers, lottery ticket winners, extremely rare and their success distorts the reality. The bottom line - my view. They are not a substitute for learning and developing as a trader through trial and experience in the real markets. - This is a process which takes many years beyond the learning the baseline technical aspects. - Trading is a highly a performance skill, as with all performance type activities, such as sport, music, drama, the learning and the the time to success is measured in years not months. - For most people online prop firms are an expensive lesson where they are likely to burn through challenge fees and reinforce bad habits under pressure.

@TheOneLanceB Trading requires a specific skillset. This is not a job that anyone can do, I don't know where this idea came from but it is so damaging to people who should never choose trading as a career. If you aren't committed to building this specific skillset, you're not serious.

THE GOAL OF TRADER DEVELOPMENT It will always be true that most people fail at trading. Trader development is not about making everyone successful. It’s about maximizing each individual’s probability of success and potential upside. When I ran the Chicago office at Trillium, most trainees still failed. Yet our success rate was roughly 30% - an extraordinary number by industry standards. The goal in any performance endeavor, almost by definition, can never be 100% success. The goal is always to increase each trader’s expected value as much as possible by helping them develop better skills, better habits, & better decision-making. That’s what great trader development actually is.

As a trader, our job is to ride variance. This is not what the human mind was built to do. We crave certainty and go to great lengths to obtain it, even when no certainty actually exists. We need to be strong in the face of the beast. Taking losses even after executing high quality trades is not an easy thing to go through. Going through drawdown will always be a part of our life. But this is the price we pay to break through, and eventually the profits will be so real you'll understand why you had to pay such a high price.

Trading requires a combination of discipline in following your rules and critical thinking to understand how the market is changing over time. The market is not a static thing, it changes. This is why sometimes we need to think holistically to evolve with the market, and that requires courage. If trading was as easy as following your plan all the time, many more people would succeed. But the truth is that your plan will lose its edge over time as markets change. It is in the adapting that most traders fail. This job is so much harder than it seems, but the good news is that it is possible, and that should be enough for anyone crazy enough to try their hand at this field.

@E8Andrew @E8Markets Either option is great as long as you remove the consistency rule, that is the most important thing.

No consistency rule on the sim-funded stage. That’s our next mission at @E8Markets . We’re currently preparing a version of our Signature accounts that will remove the no consistency rule on sim-funded accounts. That’s why we want to ask our community what you prefer. Option A = Higher payout caps, but a higher price Option B = Lower payout caps, but also more budget-friendly accounts Vote and comment. Will choose one comment to win free $50,000 Signature account.

Your mind is your prison when you focus on your fears. It can also be the very thing that changes your life if you focus on whatever is good. Start living from a place of hope instead of fear.

Your ability to recognize when you don't have an edge is just as important as your ability to pick out winning trades. When you don't understand what you're seeing on the charts, that is the time to step away. Unfortunately, most traders do the opposite because they feel like they have to make money. Truth is, it is not your decision when you get to make money. The market dictates that for all of us, we just have to be good at listening. Protect your capital when your edge is not present. Push the limit when your edge is present. That is the name of the game.