What it takes to become a good trader

If you are serious about your trading and are not a day trader then you need to build some core skills. If you spend time and effort on building those core skills rather than chasing tips, wasting your time listening to CNBC or spending your time on all tactical things.

1. 
   
   Market Timing : This is key to survival in the market. You must have a market timing skill. If you spend 1000 hours researching market timing I can assure you, you will find several workable market timing methods. Your objective is to make money using market timing and not get a Noble prize. Which means you will not find a perfect market timing system, but you can find workable methods.
2. 
   
   Swing Trading: Understand and internalize the concept of swing trading. All profitable traders use some kind of swing trading method. Even those who deny that they are swing traders essentially use swing trading but for various reason they might call it some other name. The basic idea behind swing trading is to capture the best part of a move in a stock or any instrument. There are basically few basic types of swing trading methods: breakout, pullback, exhaustion, and anchor points swings. All Swing trading methods have entry rules, exit rules, stops rule, and risk per trade rule. If you spend 1000 hours studying swing trading you would never go hungry in life as long as functioning markets exist.
3. 
   
   Vehicle Selection: swing trading method is successful if it is used on right vehicle. Two traders with same swing trading skills can make vastly different amount of money depending on their vehicle selection method. Basic vehicle selection methods are momentum value, and growth. Out of this momentum offers you the biggest opportunity. If you spend 1000 hours understanding momentum and making it work for you I can assure you once every 2 to 3 years you will get an opportunity to make big killing and double, triple or increase your returns five, ten, twenty fold in a short span of time. From time to time magically some markets or sectors go in to extreme momentum phase and if you are a momentum trader, you just get a windfall profit.
4. 
   
   Self efficacy beliefs: The most important thing for making all this work is self efficacy beliefs. If you have low self efficacy beliefs, nothing will work for you. If you continuously strive to enhance self efficacy beliefs, everything will work for you. The best way to enhance self efficacy belief is by gaining mastery experience.
   
   

All these four core skills building will require you around 2 to 3 years if you are average trader. Most will not survive the first six month. Those who do and persist will find that greater clarity and Aha moments will start happening after that. You will get it by end of a year. The next year will go in perfecting the things for your own style and personality. Then it will become a lifetime skill.

Unless you understand this you will continue to flirt from one guru to another guru, one method to another method, one software to another software, from one scan to another scan, from one newsletter to another newsletter, from one forum to another forum.

The question is are you man enough or women enough to commit that much time to these core issues....