The very best of the best require a level of focus and discipline that most people quite frankly don't have. Sure, you can have guys grinding away inconsistently at opening orders or pair trading but how much are they really making and how consistent are they really? To make it into the top 1% or 5% for that matter, it takes a lot of mistakes and a lot of bad trades. There is no way around this. There is no magic book, course, indicator, strategy that has the magic pill. It takes something that most people just don't have. There are no secrets in this business except hard work, patience and discipline. Leverage is meaningless to a trader who is not profitable. Having leverage is great for consistently profitable traders. For guys that are net negative, all leverage does is leverage your losses.