How Professional Traders Are Forged

This road, I’ve walked for a long time.

So long that I thought I couldn’t find my way out.

Today, what I write here isn’t a novel; it’s my journey.

1. Highlight Moments

That year, I emerged from the mountain valley and became the first college student in my village.

Have you seen real mountains? Not the scenic spots, but those that reach the sky and have depths of thousands of meters beneath. Every day at 4:30 a.m., I clutch two sweet potatoes, shine a flashlight, and start climbing the mountain. Two hours on rugged paths to the elementary school in town. No lunch, waiting until 4 p.m., then another two hours back home. Blisters on my feet burst and heal repeatedly. In the coldest winter, my fingers froze so badly I couldn’t hold a pen, so I huffed air through my mouth, writing word by word.

And so, I made it out.

985, 211.

The whole village pooled money to send me to the train station, a giant I had never seen before. My mother held my hand and said, “Child, go see the outside world for our village.”

In the next ten years, no second college student came from the village. Because no child could endure those two hours of mountain roads.

Fate favors the diligent. After graduation, I founded two companies, earning up to 500,000 yuan a day at peak.

A mountain kid who had never even taken a train or knew what college was could reach this point, naturally believing nothing in this world is impossible.

When the pandemic hit, my company was forced to close. Bored, I officially entered the stock market.

The gates of hell opened.

2. The Bottom

You think the door to happiness will open as easily as the college entrance exam or starting a business?

Big mistake.

Here, all your pride will be shattered, ground into powder, and blown away by the wind.

I lost my three apartments in Changsha, not a penny left. My 2 million cash was gone, like water poured into a desert. The 1.2 million borrowed from friends was also gone, eventually becoming a blacklisted person, afraid to answer calls or reply to messages.

They were cut off, and I was not just zeroed out—I was in the negatives.

In the hardest times, I had not a single cent. That day, I grabbed a 19-yuan red envelope in a group chat, went to the cheapest wholesale supermarket, bought 2 jin of loose rice, some chili, and two blocks of tofu. When I got downstairs, the plastic bag tore, rice spilled everywhere, mixed with mud and dirt. I knelt down like crazy, scooping rice from the ground with both hands, grains embedding into my nails, hurting badly.

When I stood up, I saw the gazes around me—pity, contempt, curiosity. The person who once earned 50,000 a day was now kneeling in the mud picking up rice.

Tears suddenly streamed down without warning.

That birthday, my phone rang from morning till night—no calls. Late at night, I went downstairs to buy the cheapest cake, 8 yuan. Back home, sitting in the dark, I dared not light the candles. I was afraid that the small light would reveal the emptiness of the room.

I ate the cake bite by bite. I couldn’t tell if it was sweet or salty, only hearing my teeth trembling.

What I ate wasn’t cake, but self-inflicted grievance. The boy who once vowed to rise above in the mountains, now disappointed in himself.

In the hardest times, I was almost starving. A master’s degree in economics, lowering all dignity to drive for ride-hailing services. Waiting for orders on the street at 3 a.m., dozing in the car when tired. After passengers got off, I looked at myself in the rearview mirror and asked: Do you still recognize this person?

That’s a chapter I don’t want to look back on. If I had only been a mountain kid, maybe the rice falling to the ground that day wouldn’t have broken me. But after experiencing those highlight moments, that pride built over twenty years was shattered in an instant, and I couldn’t hold it anymore.

Why did I end up like this?

Because those high points made me feel invincible.

Because I never realized how risky trading could be. “Stock market risks,” in my mind back then, was just a useless phrase, like “smoking is harmful”—everyone said it, but no one truly believed.

Losing tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands daily, I didn’t sense the danger approaching, still buying high and selling low like a gambler with bloodshot eyes. Borrowed from friends everywhere, by the time I found a real method, there was no one left behind me, and no capital.

3. Enlightenment

Honestly, I was a bit reckless, but I was very serious.

Four years of enlightenment equaled ten for others. Every day, aside from four or five hours of sleep, I studied trading nonstop. Reviewing thousands of stocks every night, though now it seems pointless, back then, my determination to escape hell made me fearless.

There are countless books on ultra-short trading; I’ve read them all. Some multiple times, some I could recite by heart.

But I want to say: they’re all useless.

If I had to recommend three books, they are:

“Family Nourishment Method” — explains the fundamental logic of the market; the techniques taught by the author encompass core trading strategies.

“The Diamond Sutra” — teaches us to break all attachments. Market essays, fundamentals, K-line charts, intraday charts are all superficial appearances; the real trading code can’t be found there.

“The Book of Changes (I Ching)” — tells you that everything cycles; there’s a start and an end, a peak and a trough. Different phases can be traded, but strategies vary completely.

Having these isn’t enough. You need to track data daily. All answers—arbitrage, leading stocks, anti-correlation, switching—are in the data. Others can teach you methods, but you must return to the environment at that moment, look for signals from the market. When a signal appears to lead, or to switch, act accordingly.

Finding the key to trading is simply data analysis. So simple it’s hard to believe.

4. Patterns

Everything follows a fundamental logic: buy when market balance is broken.

Never overly bullish or bearish.

The moment the balance breaks is your signal to open a position. When one side collapses and the other dominates—this is the moment to pull the trigger.

So, who to buy?

Always choose the strongest.

Start with the strongest index, then the strongest theme, then the strongest individual stock. The strongest is my target; everything else is noise.

Three market conditions, three strategies.

Bear markets are always switching. For example, early 2024, starting from Changbai Mountain, ending with China National Chemical, then switching to China Vision Media, then to Keli Automation… When one theme’s strength ends, immediately switch to the next strongest. Like a relay race, passing the baton, unstoppable. Bear markets don’t last; they rotate. You can only follow the strongest, and when it falls, switch immediately.

Bull markets always catch up. For example, late last year, commercial aerospace; after Shenjian Shares, switch to Leike Defense; after Leike, switch to Galaxy Electronics. When the leader hits a high, funds will follow along the industry chain for gains. Your job is to switch to the next promising leader at the first sign of a halt.

Quantitative markets always arbitrage. For example, early this year, when the top AI marketing stock, Lio Shares, was hard to buy, I arbitraged Jiashitang; when the top AI application stock, Zhangyue Tech, was unavailable, I arbitraged Shenguang Group; when the top AI app, Zhangyue Tech, was hard to buy, I arbitraged Jiecheng Shares. In quantitative-driven markets, limit-up stocks are common; you either keep buying or switch to the most trending arbitrage.

Besides that, you stay at the cave’s entrance, not knowing when prey will come out, but always watching. When there’s movement, you strike. No movement, you keep waiting.

The soul of the pattern isn’t prediction but reaction. Train yourself like a cheetah—when you see prey move, your body already pounces before your brain reacts.

All changes boil down to one principle: when balance breaks, the strongest stands.

You don’t need to understand all stocks or seize every opportunity. Just understand that moment, and catch the strongest.

The pattern is so simple. Simple enough that most people can’t believe it, so they keep searching for more complicated methods, forgetting that the essence of trading is: at the moment balance is broken, stand on the strongest side.

5. Unsettled Feelings

After finding the method, my market predictions became mostly accurate.

But unfortunately, I still lost money. Just less. First, I ran out of capital; second, my skills genuinely improved.

This stage was more frustrating than the bottom. Before, I was hopeless, deserved to be cut. Now, I could understand but couldn’t act. Like punching cotton—no strength.

You realize no matter how hard you try, it’s useless.

Why is that?

First, market styles are changing; switching isn’t easy. Bull and bear logic are opposite; being good at one doesn’t mean being good at the other.

And from knowing to doing, I spent nearly a year. In the end, I truly ran out of money and lost. At the lowest point, I couldn’t buy a single lot of some stocks.

Losing all my money, I felt the pain, and finally, I stopped.

Knowing and doing finally aligned.

Some suggest trying a simulation account. I tell you clearly: useless. Without experiencing the fire and sword, there’s no rebirth.

6. The Road Ahead

The market is undergoing a huge transformation.

We’ve experienced the era of hot money, now entering the quantitative era.

Some panic, thinking retail investors have no future. But no matter how it changes, the essence remains—the market is still a game of groups. Quantitative trading is just part of the group. Understand the underlying logic, optimize your methods.

In fact, I believe the quantitative era is more interesting than the hot money era. No more fierce upward or downward swings, no sudden big losses from nuclear buttons; the market has become more predictable.

It will keep changing. The market is a vast ecosystem, with various strategies surviving. We need to shed inner obsessions and evolve with the market.

There’s no end to this road.

But as long as you keep walking, there’s still hope.