How do you stay ahead of the herd/majority?

I don't accept that being ahead of the herd is the ONLY way to make money.

Who do you mean by herd? If you mean the mass of private retail traders, then being ahead of them is useless, they're mostly wrong. If you mean the big players, the institutions who actually move price, them being ahead of them is an unnecessary risk. It was the big players who have driven the JPY down and the EUR up. To make money all you had to do was follow the RIGHT herd.
 
tomorton said:
I don't accept that being ahead of the herd is the ONLY way to make money.

Who do you mean by herd? If you mean the mass of private retail traders, then being ahead of them is useless, they're mostly wrong. If you mean the big players, the institutions who actually move price, them being ahead of them is an unnecessary risk. It was the big players who have driven the JPY down and the EUR up. To make money all you had to do was follow the RIGHT herd.
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whatever works for you, you should stick to it.
 
formikatrading said:
you can't just use commonly known strategies and expect to be successful.
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Not everybody knows such, and the majority of those who do, have less than sufficient knowledge and/or experience to employ such properly and successfully.
formikatrading said:
"Beyond Edwards and Magee," the underlying premise of which was pretty much what you just said -- you can't just use the stuff that everyone knows.
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Again, it's one thing to know about such, and another to really know and employ properly following years of study, research and hard work, which seems to be lacking these days in favor of the newfangled stuff.
formikatrading said:
the real pros constantly take money from the folks who trust those patterns.
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The "real pros"!?? Who are? So you are saying that those who trust and trade based on the indications of those patterns constantly lose to the 'real pros' because the patterns don't work? Now that's misleading the OP because such technical indications have stood the test of time.
formikatrading said:
Also, there are some other "big names" in technical analysis who at one time or another were portfolio managers and did not have much success.
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There is a lot of TA that is so far out on the limb that it can't be expected to show positive results, which they very well may have been using. Additionally, just as with learning foreign languages, TA ain't for everybody.
formikatrading said:
Many technical analysis gurus just tell you what the market is doing -- they are not very good at anticipating the next move.
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Yes, and these gurus are so often little more than glorified salesmen working for brokers. But in the real world there are successful technical traders .

Please ignore everything I've said. I was just using your post to practice my typing.
 
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Im assuming 'ahead of the herd' means anticipating a move correctly prior to other market participants seeing it?
In that case, the only way you can be ahead of everyone else is:
1. You guessed right
2: You know something no one else does.

#1 falls under the umbrella of consistency. If you can manage to be 'ahead of the herd' 55% of the time then it means that 45% of the time you are creating a one man/woman stampede in the opposite direction and getting eaten.
 
just watch at ET to see how the "herd system" works:
  • the herd tells: most people lose money
  • the herd (the bashers) attacks people who are different from the mass
  • the herd tells TA is not working etc...
  • the herd is controlling the "opinion" of what works and what doesn't on ET
  • the herd is 99% of ET

if you are not part of the herd:
  • you have an opinion opposite to what most people think
  • you are supposed to be the richest man on earth, but at the same time you are a crook selling worthless thing, a fake trader, a loser...

except for a few people, ET represents the herd. and at the same time the majority on ET thinks they are not part of the herd. it has to be like that if not the system of the herd would not work. the minority is the only group that can be profitable as they need the losses of the majority.
 
rin4et said:
The key to making money trading is to stay ahead of the herd /majority.
However, I find most books teach strategies for chart reading that are more or less the same. Those chart reading techniques are what the majority follow.
You can't be doing what the "majority" are doing and expect to make money trading. Therefore I would love to hear what you do to stay ahead of the herd. The devil is in the details.
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Ask this question...to become skilled at oil painting landscapes, what would be required.
Time, preseverance, determination, having mentors/teachers helps.
Having the right tools, the time, the environment.
Having the skills and emotional stability, free from constant distractions.
If you want something desperately enough, if you have the seed planted in the brain which constantly drives toward the goal, you will get there, many paths can lead to the same destination, every person is different, every trade is different.
Learning to code is a big plus.
 
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schweiz said:
just watch at ET to see how the "herd system" works:
  • the herd tells: most people lose money
  • the herd (the bashers) attacks people who are different from the mass
  • the herd tells TA is not working etc...
  • the herd is controlling the "opinion" of what works and what doesn't on ET
  • the herd is 99% of ET

if you are not part of the herd:
  • you have an opinion opposite to what most people think
  • you are supposed to be the richest man on earth, but at the same time you are a crook selling worthless thing, a fake trader, a loser...

except for a few people, ET represents the herd. and at the same time the majority on ET thinks they are not part of the herd. it has to be like that if not the system of the herd would not work. the minority is the only group that can be profitable as they need the losses of the majority.
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For every diverse group, there'll always be a distribution of differences. This doesn't automatically mean much of it's a group of ph.d's. Though mathematically, someone will always be on the top, requiring someone else to be at the bottom.

It doesn't have to mean the bottom need to "lose", or be forced into servitude or crime.
 
If you are ahead of the herd and that works for you, please continue to do it.

If you are behind the herd and that works for you, please continue to do it.

If you always go against the herd and that works for you, please continue to do it.
 
rin4et said:
The key to making money trading is to stay ahead of the herd /majority.
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It's one way of looking at it, I dare say.

I think you're thinking about this in the context of trading stocks, specifically? I'm not a stock trader, and that may limit the potential usefulness of anything I can offer, but I don't think of herds at all, while I'm trading.

If I do try to look at my work that way, the first thing that occurs to me is that you probably "stay ahead of herds" by developing skills that they don't have.
 
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