Advice

J_Smith said:
very few can do, as the psychological issues are far too great - get the head right and you can do anything!
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Get near to an average of 4:1 on your winning trades and there are no psychological problems and there never will be. (There might be one though, getting too cocky and spunking money so do something about that problem which may well emerge).

The psychological aspect of this game is a load of bullshit and a waste of time for most because their strategies are not good enough in that their profits are not materially larger than their losses. For example, take the most positive person in the world and train him up to have the perfect psychological mindset for this game but with a so-so strategy and he won't last. On and on he'll go and he'll either break even at worst or make small money at best. So the 'think positive' meme is worthless unless your collective profits are far larger than your collective losses.

Take a good trader, one who makes regular 3:1+ trades and no psychological thought or training is needed because he KNOWS that big winning trades are always ahead of him so the small losses he takes are of no worry at all.

So if you want to solve multiple problems at once work very hard to solve THE problem - your collective profits must be much much higher than your collective losses. It was only after I had worked this problem out for myself and solved it (as best you can) that I started to motor in this business. The easiest way to solve the problem is to use tight stops at areas where 'everyone wants it'.
 
AbbotAle said:
Get near to an average of 4:1 on your winning trades and there are no psychological problems and there never will be. (There might be one though, getting too cocky and spunking money so do something about that problem which may well emerge).

The psychological aspect of this game is a load of bullshit and a waste of time for most because their strategies are not good enough in that their profits are not materially larger than their losses. For example, take the most positive person in the world and train him up to have the perfect psychological mindset for this game but with a so-so strategy and he won't last. On and on he'll go and he'll either break even at worst or make small money at best. So the 'think positive' meme is worthless unless your collective profits are far larger than your collective losses.

Take a good trader, one who makes regular 3:1+ trades and no psychological thought or training is needed because he KNOWS that big winning trades are always ahead of him so the small losses he takes are of no worry at all.

So if you want to solve multiple problems at once work very hard to solve THE problem - your collective profits must be much much higher than your collective losses. It was only after I had worked this problem out for myself and solved it (as best you can) that I started to motor in this business. The easiest way to solve the problem is to use tight stops at areas where 'everyone wants it'.
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What is your % gain for June, and can you post screenshot of same - same goes for the previous poster as well?

J_S
 
J_Smith said:
What is your % gain for June, and can you post screenshot of same - same goes for the previous poster as well?

J_S
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Sorry but it's none of your business so I'm not posting anything. Focus on what I'm saying, the problem. That is what I'm trying to do here, get people to be better traders and they can do that if they solve the problem.
 
J_Smith said:
So you don't even trade, and you know all this:rolleyes:

J_S
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Didn't take long for the 'you don't trade', or 'you don't make money' lines to come along. You missed one though 'you still live in your Mum's basement'.

Think what you like, but this is not about what I do (or don't) it's about what I say - highlighting a serious problem for traders and a way to solve that problem.
 
AbbotAle said:
Didn't take long for the 'you don't trade', or 'you don't make money' lines to come along. You missed one though 'you still live in your Mum's basement'.

Think what you like, but this is not about what I do (or don't) it's about what I say - highlighting a serious problem for traders and a way to solve that problem.
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What a GOBSHITE - put up, or shut up.

H3 got on to me lately cause I asked him to post a 30 min chart, and just even talk about 1 trade that is done on one of his 70 different exchanges:rolleyes:

What the fuk is wrong with ye people, is it the hot weather:D

J_S
 
AbbotAle said:
Warren Buffet is very relevant for traders to take note of because he solved the problem even though his holding period if often many years. Buffet takes losses, no doubt about that but when he makes he makes huge. That is the problem most traders battle with, their profits are never far larger than their losses. You have to solve this problem and without using a tight stop in relation to your profits it's going to be very very hard to do so because for every tick you increase your stop the potential profit you have to make increases dramatically. And if you don't use a stop then you haven't done much thinking about risk which means over a multi-year period the risk will probably get you either from a monetary level or worse a psychological one.

Risk 5 make 15 = 3:1
Risk 10 and to make 3:1 and you have to make 30 ticks
Risk 50 and to make 3:1 you have to make 150 ticks
Risk 100 and to make 3:1 you have to make 300 ticks and even a busy market will sometimes struggle to move 300+ ticks over a month.

See how the profit potential starts to increase dramatically as the stop is raised by just a few ticks, that is what gets most people in this game. No surprise that many on the old floor got very rich and some very quickly because they knew that the secret was to use a very tight stop because then major major R:R could be earned. Those upstairs using 20-50+ tick stops hardly ever put themselves in a position to earn 4:1, 5:1 or even higher. Floor traders put themselves in such positions many times per hour.

Now, if you don't think you can use tight stops you're very wrong. Yes, a tight stop will get you into a lot of problems if you don't use them correctly but if you study your charts there's always a time when 'everyone wants it' (or doesn't want it for shorts) in every timeframe, and I'm not talking about over big figures. In those situations a very tight stop can be used with the knowledge that none of the boys or robots can really hurt you because if everyone wants it any attempt to smash it will result in those offers being gobbled up. In effect you nullify the perversity they bring to the game.
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That's half true.

R:R matters & I agree that it's "easier" to max out R:R by decreasing Risk.
However P(G) will naturally decrease as you Min(Risk) by tightening SL.
A Priori, traded Randomly, E(x) is the same for all identical R:R.
I mean ... There is no free lunch. It breaks even - comms.
See what I mean ? After you can also scale up & down.
You can have Risk 1Pt and Reward 1Pt,
So P(x) = 1/n but Reward > Risk.

Plus, a local (Trade) R:R of 3,
Doesn't imply a global (Trades) R:R of 3.
R:R Outcome Profits/Losses
3. -1. x/1
3. -1. x/2
3. -1. x/3
3. 3. 1/1
3. -1. 3/4
 
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Kia, I appreciate what you're saying although I don't really understand it!

Best to keep it all very simple. Just focus on areas on the chart where 'everyone wants it' and then a small stop can be used. That brings 2 massive advantages, 1) the small stop as mentioned, and as important 2) the subsequent moves can be large as if everyone truly wants it there will not be enough sellers to satisfy the demand so the demand has to pay up and often dramatically so.

Does that mean a small stop won't get hit due to just a little correction, no, it gets hit some of the time for sure but that would be a loss of 1 unit versus always having the potential to make major R;R when your analysis is good.

For anyone that's interested in what I say and isn't interested in having a pissing match here's some homework. Choose a timeframe, say 1m chart. Pick a good market, Cable is a major money maker for a lot of people right now. Look for the major moves (30-50+ ticks) and then study the price action just before the thrust starts. Look at as many examples as you can, look for similarities of what happens just before, then try to build a trading strategy around what you've found. Now, if you don't like the 1m chart that's fine, this is a game of fractals so what works on that timeframe will work on the Day chart. 1m is a good timeframe to use though as all the big moves start in the 1m if you think about it. However, you have to learn to be careful using something like the 1m because otherwise you'll get into what I call 'cowboy trading' which is where you trade (shoot) at anything that moves, that will not work so you have to learn to be both patient and selective.

The other problem that all good traders have solved is concentration because he who concentrates the most gets most of the money in this game (assuming a half decent strategy). Give me better concentration over a better method any day. Markets have a strange ability to nullify us by boring price action into losing the all-important concentration. This is why I say having a good strategy is not enough, you have to be able to implement that strategy in real-time and without a boatload of concentration the perversity will rear its head more than it normally does.
 
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