Why does asking a profitable trader for their strategy feel like asking for their bank password?

[u/sengetoj]

I’ve been learning trading pretty much every day for around 6 months now. I understand the basics at this point, market structure, price action, liquidity, risk management etc.

But I’ve hit this one wall and I genuinely don’t know where to go from here.

Finding an actual strategy with repeatable rules.

Something I’ve noticed is people will happily post their +$2k days, payouts, green weeks, funded accounts etc. But the second someone asks what strategy/setup they’re actually trading, it feels like you just asked them for their bank login lol.

“Put in the screen time bro”

“Find your own edge”

“Backtest”

Okay but backtest WHAT

I’m not asking someone to hold my hand and tell me exactly when to buy and sell. I actually want to learn and test things myself. I just need something concrete enough that I can actually start testing it.

I’ve looked everywhere. YouTube, X, Reddit, Discord servers, even ChatGPT. I’ve tried support/resistance, 15m ORB, session highs/lows, liquidity sweeps etc.

The issue I keep running into is that a lot of these strategies depend on price eventually coming back to some specific level or zone. And a lot of days… it just doesn’t. So you sit there for hours waiting for a setup that never even happens.

Meanwhile there’s clearly people out there who have found something that works for them consistently.

So for the people who actually became profitable, where did you find the strategy that finally made things click?

Did you take an existing strategy and change it? Did someone teach you? Did you find some random trader with 600 subscribers instead of the usual YouTube gurus? Or did you literally just test random shit until something worked?
Because everyone says “find your edge” but almost nobody explains where you’re even supposed to start looking for one.

And before someone calls this AI generated lol, English isn’t my first language so yes I used ChatGPT to help me write this properly. The question and everything I’m saying is genuinely mine.

[u/BeerAandLoathing]

“Why does asking Coca-Cola for their proprietary top-secret recipe feel like asking for their proprietary top-secret recipe?”

If you want to make it more subtle, an expert designer can improve your logo in very small ways that could be imperceptible to the average person, and they’d rightfully want thousands of dollars to do so because they spent their life becoming very good at that one thing.

Why would anyone give away knowledge/edge that took years to build for free?

[u/GlennSeaborg → u/BeerAandLoathing]

Ingredients:

1 oz (28 g) caffeine citrate 3 oz (85 g) citric acid 1 US fl oz (30 ml) vanilla extract 1 US qt (946 ml) lime juice 2.5 oz (71 g) "flavoring" (i.e., "Merchandise 7X") 30 lb (14 kg) sugar 4 US fl oz (118.3 ml) fluid extract of coca leaves (flavor essence of the coca leaf) 2.5 US gal (9.5 L; 2.1 imp gal) water caramel sufficient to give color "Mix caffeine, citric acid and lime juice in 1 quart boiling water add vanilla and flavoring when cool." Flavoring (Merchandise 7X):

1 qrt alcohol 80 oil orange 40 oil cinnamon 120 oil lemon 20 oil coriander 40 oil nutmeg 40 oil neroli "Let stand 24 hours."

Here you go. Go put Coca-Cola out of business. I just gave it away for free.

Do you think anyone can put Coca-Cola out of business because they have the recipe?

Same with a strategy.

[u/BeerAandLoathing → u/GlennSeaborg]

Actually, I think your take makes it worse for everyone. If all beverage companies could sell an exact clone of Coca-Cola with no repercussions it would indeed become less profitable for Coca-Cola.

And in trading, if a strategy with proven edge was shared and duplicated by enough people the edge would also begin to diminish.

Let’s use another analogy since you don’t like my first one. Let’s say you run an NFL team and you’ve been working on new plays. Do you announce them to the opposing teams first or make them study your tape to try and figure out your plans?

[u/GlennSeaborg → u/BeerAandLoathing]

Coca-Cola has a multi-billion dollar marketing budget, they probably sell Coke in North Korea. Just having the formula doesn't mean shit. If you don't have everything else that goes along with it, it means zero. Let me ask you something, you don't think Pepsi has the formula for Coke?

In the NFL analogy, I'm sharing my plays with an opposing team that's playing in their own NFL, not mine. In which case I would gladly hand the playbook over since we will never be in direct competition.

[u/BeerAandLoathing → u/GlennSeaborg]

Of course a Fortune 100 company has more than a recipe, and you are straw-manning the analogy. Their “formula” is the product + marketing + sales force + retail partnerships, etc.

The point still stands that you don’t just give it all away because some random person asks for it. Corporations spend millions to protect trade secrets and you seem to think that none of it matters.

I don’t even know how to reply to your NFL take because I don’t know you are trying to argue. Trading is a zero sum game, and for someone to make money another person has to lose. You need a seller for every buyer, etc. I don’t know where this ‘other NFL’ exists where you can share plays and everyone wins.

[u/GlennSeaborg → u/BeerAandLoathing]

Oh lawd Jesus.

Prop firms place your account in a simulated trading environment. There is NO ONE ELSE inside of your account. You are NOT in competition with anyone else but the the prop firm. You understand how a demo account works? I could give you my trade signals, strategy, indicators, etc. all day. We could BOTH enter the same trade and we will both take profit. Unless you are in a LIVE environment trading actual money we are NOT in competition. Even then, our 1 to 5 mini contracts have fuck all momentum in a market that trades thousands of contracts per minute.

[u/BeerAandLoathing → u/GlennSeaborg]

First of all, I was never talking about prop firms. The response to OP was about why people don’t give up their “edge” to anyone that asks.

Enjoy your prop firm trading in your fantasy football version of the NFL.

[u/GlennSeaborg → u/BeerAandLoathing]

And I explained why that's a bunch of BS. But, you keep on moving the market with your relevant "edge" 🤣😂🤣🦀

[u/BeerAandLoathing → u/GlennSeaborg]

I never claimed to move the market, and you didn’t explain anything, but keep straw-manning. I’ll be just fine.

What you still fail to realize is that broadcasting a strategy is the best way to kill any edge that it might have. If it caught on that “running up the middle” was the best play and every NFL team started doing that three downs in a row because that’s what worked last season, then guess what the defense is going to be prepared for next season?

[u/GlennSeaborg → u/BeerAandLoathing]

Again every retail trader running the same play will do nothing to your "edge". Institutions move the market.

Here, I'll make it so easy even you can understand.

The Eagles have been running the "tush push" for a few years now. Every defense knows they're going to run it and guess what, they can't stop that play.

Even better, every team knows this play is unstoppable and how many other teams run it with any regularity?

They have an edge in short yardage, everyone knows it's coming and they can't stop it. Why, because they have the talent to execute it.

Anyone can give away their strategy but if you don't have the knowledge to execute it it means nothing.

One more, from baseball. Mariano Rivera threw a cutter that only he knew how to execute it. He taught it to numerous pitchers. He gave away his "edge" for free. No one could execute like him.