Better to be Wide or Deep?

Handle123 said:
Of course if you are nailing 80% plus of your trades, I might be able to agree it best for you to stop learning. But in my case, I going to keep working to get as close to zero risk as possible in longer term timeframes, anything over fifteen minute bars. But day trading not cost effective to hedge even though risk is generally huge.
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Thanks. I practice meditation. Which has "Accelerated Learning" as one of it's benefits.
 
trader99 said:
Hi All,


So is it better to scan over a large universe of available instrument to look for YOUR trading pattern and catch them using some kind of technical scanners. Or is it better to trade just one instrument waiting for your technical pattern.
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You're missing a second path, which is to develop multiple entries/signals on the same one or two instruments. For example, I run 7 profitable signals on a single instrument. It can be done.
 
zdreg said:
you are not talking about performance greatness and how to achieve it,
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I most certainly am. What do you bring to the table as a knowledge/skill set to work with in seeking performance greatness.

jinxu was equating 'generalist' with 'low level work/knowledge', as in for knowledge/skill, wide=shallow, narrow=deep, which is a mistake. The 'expert' is more and more getting eclipsed by 'generalists' that have multiple near-expert level skills/focuses where a combination more effective, and even essential in some cases.

For trading, what do you bring to the table for identifying problems, solutions, patterns, behaviours. What do you bring that's suitable for successfully executing the identified tasks. And when one is trading on their own (as in, not working for a firm), then what they bring is what they have to work with. I cannot imagine having to address trading without the advantage of multifaceted knowledge and experience. It would be like swimming with ones hands and feet tied.

(Direct examples for myself: For software engineering, I'd studied some mathematics, and later acquired more for projects. Plus all of the projects' 'business' processes/systems involving many disciplines. The software engineering itself when writing my own trading platform. Racing sailboats had either brought out or created a wicked ability to focus. Piloting skills, like task-management/cockpit-management for running a live platform. The above with others and photography contributed to designing and using visual interfaces to provide a hierarchy of information, process feedback and alerts. Even wildlife photography for the ideas of one looks-near/looks-far (or: up, down, all around), and learns to notice when something moves when it shouldn't and doesn't move when it should.)

Applied to wide vs. deep, what is really needed is both, with a balance between them, and the ability to shift focus between wide and deep so you make appropriate and effective selections/decisions. And up/down levels of abstraction, and time-frames. And then that applies to what you trade and also to how you trade it (for the next position, on that day, that week, etc.). Others in this thread have already covered that in their more detailed explanations.
 
Canoe007 said:
I most certainly am. What do you bring to the table as a knowledge/skill set to work with in seeking performance greatness.

jinxu was equating 'generalist' with 'low level work/knowledge', as in for knowledge/skill, wide=shallow, narrow=deep, which is a mistake. The 'expert' is more and more getting eclipsed by 'generalists' that have multiple near-expert level skills/focuses where a combination more effective, and even essential in some cases.

For trading, what do you bring to the table for identifying problems, solutions, patterns, behaviours. What do you bring that's suitable for successfully executing the identified tasks. And when one is trading on their own (as in, not working for a firm), then what they bring is what they have to work with. I cannot imagine having to address trading without the advantage of multifaceted knowledge and experience. It would be like swimming with ones hands and feet tied.

(Direct examples for myself: For software engineering, I'd studied some mathematics, and later acquired more for projects. Plus all of the projects' 'business' processes/systems involving many disciplines. The software engineering itself when writing my own trading platform. Racing sailboats had either brought out or created a wicked ability to focus. Piloting skills, like task-management/cockpit-management for running a live platform. The above with others and photography contributed to designing and using visual interfaces to provide a hierarchy of information, process feedback and alerts. Even wildlife photography for the ideas of one looks-near/looks-far (or: up, down, all around), and learns to notice when something moves when it shouldn't and doesn't move when it should.)

Applied to wide vs. deep, what is really needed is both, with a balance between them, and the ability to shift focus between wide and deep so you make appropriate and effective selections/decisions. And up/down levels of abstraction, and time-frames. And then that applies to what you trade and also to how you trade it (for the next position, on that day, that week, etc.). Others in this thread have already covered that in their more detailed explanations.
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No dude, what you are speaking about are skills that compliment each other. When I speak of mastery I mean real hard core MASTERY.

You will find few (if not none) of anyone that are Chessmaster/Olympic Skaters/Nobel Prize Recipient/Senator/Movie Stars/Astronaut all in the same person. It takes a lot of focus and time to be good at just one or two things.
 
Mastery is both valuable and interesting when it occurs, but rare enough that it's not what drives the overwhelming majority of whatever takes place. The levels below mastery (true-expert, expert, accomplished) are what/who drive/create most of what is done. The 'generalist', bringing the knowledge and skills from being accomplished in multiple areas or disciplines, and expert in some, steps up that game. The generalist who can not only follow other disciplines, but is knowledgeable and accomplished in them, brings a lot more to the table is a lot more effective, contributes more and to innovation and is attributed to a lot of the 'disruptive' innovations. Look at the changes in product development in the past decade, or even the last five years. If you're not multifaceted, you're a lot less likely to be asked to the table because you just don't have enough to bring.
 
trader99 said:
If you've traded long enough then you'll eventually find some good repeating technical patterns that seems to be somewhat consistent. Then the trick becomes recognize that pattern in REAL-TIME and eliminating the false positives.

I've been practicing on simulator a few patterns that seem to be consistent.

Anyhow, long story short do you find it's better to be wide or deep? Let me explain. Is it better to to look for as many different instruments that match your particular successful pattern? I.e. using technical pattern scanners. Scan thousands of stock symbols and you get a bunch of them. Of course, there will be some false positive. Eliminate them if you can.

Or do you focus on one instrument like the NQ,ES, YM etc and just wait for your setup and pattern to come.

I realize the richness(in terms of complexity) of intraday trading is amazingly deep! In a week you probably seen hundreds of patterns that would take a long-term trade years to get to. If you practice on an accelerated pace spanning months of data across different market environment you get a lot of exposure!

I've been focusing narrowly on index futures because I like the way futures trade.

But if I were to be honest and data driven, index futures have not been net profitable to me. Yes, I had great and amazing days. But net net it has been negative P&L experience.

Ironically though I don't trade stocks much but when I do it's because it meets a certain particular high probability pattern. And I would buy or short and hold.

So, do you guys think in your experience is is better to scan for your high probability patterns across wider universe or do you focus on mastering the minutiae of one instrument to be more profitable.

Or perhaps the success in stocks is being more selective and holding longer whereas index futures is mostly daytrading which needs a lot of moving in and out and fast reactions.

Just trying to decouple these influences.
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i do not believe one pattern can lead to sucess
imho there should be number of patterns or better rules to explain any situation on the market
then it definitely better to concentrate on one instrument
 
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