ES Journal - 2013
- Thread starter Trvlwanderer
- Start date
You have a good point and I sometimes do indeed "fade" the breaks of levels (my best trade in oil today was to fade the break of a "bearish-looking" bar), but it's not formally in my plan.
The reason it's not formally in my plan is because I never took the time to do a meticulous trade by trade statistical analysis of the results using a large sample size. I spent a couple hours doing an initial analysis of fading range extremes and I got tired of doing it because a thorough analysis is tedious and requires various data to be collected so I can determine how best to enter, how best to exit, and what sort of R:R to expect.
Sheer laziness on my part, but please realize that I already did all that meticulous work for the trading plan I currently use and I'm happy with it, so I'll simply blame my old age for being to lazy to fully investigate these other strategies.
When my edge disappears (I've been told they all do eventually), I'll get back to work on a new one
Donna, correctamundo !! You are a realist, you see the bigger picture. Many others are blind to the fact of what in part is holding our economy (and many foreign places) up from falling into the deflation pit of despair.
Many are blaming our problems on the debt of the country as a whole, they blame the past generosity of the now busted unions, they blame the costs of supporting our parents and grandparents as a drag for their own well being. Well, lets give all those old fogies some credit, they paid the price to build a great country, they put many of their children through college by sacrificing some good times so the children would have a better life. The old farts served and saved us from tyrants, they stopped polio, they created sliced bread and the pill. They demanded a fair days pay for a fair days labor and got them. They created wealth for a whole society, not for a few. the list goes on ...
That old wealth is being spent today just to maintain. The youth are the ones that are suffering because they ALLOWED the few to suck the life blood out of the middle class and keep it for themselves. I never thought I would get to where in my life I would repeat the mantra of my grandparents when that age group used the phrase "damn, I never thought I would be calling the old days, THE GOOD OLE DAYS"
The real trickle down of societies is not the wealth for the few to be passed out to the masses, (we know that is a myth) it is the slow, drip by drip grabbing back of what created the worlds best middle class on the planet for such a large society as the USA. The few have the rest of society by the short hairs and will not let go until it is too late. Unless the masses wake up and start marching and demand a fair days wages for a fair days work.............you know "like the good ole days"
Depends on how "ole" the good ole days were. There is a school of thought that advances the case that the European then US industrial revolutions ignited an explosion in the merchant/middle class that had been more or less in stasis since the days of the Roman Empire. This began to sputter out by the late 50s/early 60s and has been reverting ever since so that we are by now back where we were at the beginning of the 18th century. And since the government itself is now afraid of big business, including the banks, it's something worth thinking about.
When a president articulated that government was the problem, big business removed the only thing standing in it's way.
The Tea Party is still perpetuating that concept of government as the problem.
Another version of the Tea Party is the French Revolution, which it could convert to if people, political parties, etc., will stop fighting each other and focus on big business as the problem... hopefully they will fix it rather than start beheading the wealthy.
Sorry, my little soap box for the day.
Edit: Basic concept is that the divisions between conservative and liberal, democrat and republican are based on divisive and often false information that keeps them fighting each other. Who is putting the information out there? Who is winning here? Big business.
Edit #2. Germany in WW2 was different in that a cultured people were manipulated by using the the new info from psychology. Wonder if the "big business" we refer to above are not doing the same thing to the world at large?
...that turned into my bigger soap box! Back to Trading
If you use words like "by far" you may have already done enough analysis, at least at an unconscious level.
Let me tell you my experience.I began with system trading because I thought I couldn't rely on my "impressions" for discretionary trading. I built my system, tested over thousands and thousands of trades on different markets,made sure it wasn't curve-fitted,then began trading it.
I made money at first,but then I began to lose and had to stop. After years I realized what happened: it was end of 2002 and my system relied on volatility. At that time volatility disappeared for good (till 2008) for the first time after many years.
I could have tested even more,I would have always found that my system was good.
What I learned was that there is always a discretionary component even in system trading,basically to understand what you mentioned, that is, when your edge (whatever it be) disappears.
Since then I traded looking at patterns or characteristics for a small period of time;we could say, without testing them. You would say that wasn't serious and was very risky.
Guess what? I don't recall a single time I lost money because I didn't enough testing.
I did lost money, but that has always been because I became totally unreasonable, irrational, incredibly emotional and did exactly the opposite of what was clear (even to a novice) it had to be done. In other words, a total idiot.
Actually, big business starting removing these restrictions in the 70s, making great strides during the Reagan years. As for the French Revolution, the TP ought to look at the aftermath.
Those who think govt is the problem and that the answer lies in unfettered business activity should examine the late 19th century. What fun times those were.