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Understanding What It Takes : 4 Stages of Day Trading Competence

Being a day trader for over 10 years, I have seen a countless amount of people fail, win, and stay in a middle-of-the-road state.  One of the reasons that my training program is so effective is because I have been in each one of those stages.  In order to teach somebody how to day trade it’s important to know what it takes.

The idea of the LTD Project is to publicize and chronicle the learning process to become a professional day trader, to show you what it takes.

I have already started talking about the people that I have selected and now it’s time to start thinking about the education process and the different levels of expertise.  I think it is very important to understand the different stages of competence because if you find yourself in one, the first step to solving the problem is to identify it.

Day Trading in Brazil

As I write this at my office in Brazil

In psychology, there are four different stages of competence:

  • Unconscious competence
  • Conscious incompetence
  • Conscious competence
  • Unconscious competence

This is for any skill and especially day trading. In learning a new skill, the idea is that everyone goes from knowing nothing (unconscious competence) to knowing something about the new skill and making a concerted effort at learning it (conscious incompetence). This part of the process is making mistakes and learning from them.  I started day trading eminis almost 10 years ago and it took me almost 2 or three years to become profitable.

Once you start to understand the new skill (conscious competence), skill development ensues and knowledge is built. While this skill is understood in this phase, the concept of day trading is understood and you are actually practicing, the ability to effectively use the new skill is still not there. Ergo, sim trading to build consistency.  Ninja Trader is the best platform to practice with.

day trading computer, day trading office, day trading monitors

My very first Day Trading Office

Once you have built enough skill development, this is where the new skill becomes second nature (unconscious competence). This is where 3% of day traders that actually make money in the markets are at.

In reality, only 3% of traders actually make money and make a living in this industry

Only 10% of traders make money and those 10% are in the conscious competence and the unconscious competence phase. In other words, these are the trader that are making some money are making a killing. 7% of all day traders that make money are not making a living doing it, these are the guys that are making some money but are not consistently profitable.

These are the guys that we all look up; they don’t have many losing days, drive around for Ferraris, and moved to places like Brazil and Colombia.

Ferrari’s are so overrated.

I am writing this post after I have already started training a lot of the members of the LTD Project and I can tell you already that some of them have gotten caught in the process. The idea is to make sure that you have a solid foundation and there were some members what I had to go back and explain things to because they didn’t review it in detail at the beginning.  I have had many of them go back and redo exercises in the curriculum to make sure that they have a clear understanding of the indicators.

Once a clear understanding is met, the only thing holding us back from making a living day trading is ourselves. you don’t have to rely on anything else and you can even make money in a recession.  Day trading is an emotional activity because there’s no one else to rely to and it is your money on the line.  The positives definitely outweigh the negatives but it is important to hold a level of accountability to yourself and a very high level of discipline.

The idea is to make sure that you learn things the right way from the beginning;  it takes a lot more work, it is more boring, and you won’t have instant noodle results.  You will however, see results in the end.

6 Comments

  1. Another great post Marcello… Tell us how if feels to be in that 3% ! That certainly is a dream of mine once I get stated with your strategy… I only hope that with your guidance you can help us cut down the 2-3 year cycle it took you to become profitable. Keep up the good work man!

  2. I was wondering if this was the item that you were going to post. I found this on Forex Factory a while back and absolutely love the truth of it. Every day since I began trading I worked towards Unconcious Competence and will continue to do so until I take my final breath. I just remember the first time that I read this article realizing that it put into words the things that I had trouble describing myself. Thanks for sharing this. I always love rereading it. One of these days very soon I look forward to being in the same boat that you are in.

  3. Wow, a lot of good info. I was always interested in stock market and day trading in particular, but never really had an opportunity to be exposed to it. The majority of online sites that are similar to this one seems to be a scam intended to suck some money out of you… I am glad to see a legit thing that is being hosted by a Real person. Thanks for posting.

  4. Hi Marcello, I’m a 56 year old US Citizen living in Antigua, Guatemala.
    I just found your Day Trading site by pure chance, looking through a friend’s profile in Facebook. I’ve been studying how to day trade since Jan. 2012 and it is a real challenge, very difficult…but I love it!
    I had a one-on-one mentor who got me started the right way, but unfortunately didn’t work out after a few months for personal reasons. Once I learned the basics of Day Trading, I knew this is all I wanted to do and decided to focus and dedicate 100% in learning this skill.

    The later part of last year I had many personal setbacks which distracted me momentarily in my studies..but in 2013 I have made it a personal goal to continue my learning journey and become a very successful Day Trader.

    I just signed up for your newsletter and hope to read more of your posts and follow your day trading journey.

    1. Thanks Alwin! We are hosting a few live classes this week shoot us an email and we may be able to invite you to one of our classes!

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