Making money trading

[Charlie <epictetus9@xxxxxxxxx>]

  Thanks for all your valuable input on this list.
  I would like to relay my own experience. I have
known first hand two people that have consistently
made money trading futures markets. Both made well in
excess of 1% a week for many years running - the
threshold here, no?
  They had these characteristics in common. They
generally knew one market very well; they were
specialists on that market. They studied that market
directly, in minute detail, exhaustively and first
hand.
  They studied that market's every breath, intraday:
its open, its behavior at earlier high and low points
and times of day, its rate of ascent or decline, its
performance relative to similar markets, its response
to news announcements, etc, etc. This was done by
looking directly at price bars, and generally not
giving high priority to indicators.
  They constantly studied their market: too many
indicators meant they studied indicators and not their
market, and took them away from direct, personal,
firsthand experience.
  Computer studies, from time to time, yes. But almost
always they knew, more or less, the results of the
tests before they ran them, because they knew their
markets that well. And if a test needed tweaking they
did it by going back to each ten minute bar, each hour
bar, each day, painstakingly, until they found out
why. They did not do by computerized trials on vast
numbers of variables.
  Each seemed to grasp their market directly by
deliberately not only using their eyes but also their
ears, voice and hands. 
  Their ears in hearing the market: often listening to
prices called out from the pit. But virtually never in
listening to other analysts or CNBC.
  Their voice in talking about the market. But again
here, rarely giving opinions about the market. There
are two groups, those that talk and those that trade
well, and they don't mix.  
  Their hands in writing down prices, times, logs,
mistakes, missed opportunities, excesses, actions
implemented properly or trading approaches. 
  The issue was not are these methods more efficient
than other or computerized approaches. It was what
makes me, the trader, know, understand and remember
the behavior of the market. And have confidence in
trading it.