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There's a reason I prefer horizontal lines
identifying trends and patterns before they form.
- Thread starter mute9003
- Start date
This is a good post for everyone which is starting out. Just like the realisation that all the price bars (candlesticks) analysis is based on arbitrairy cut-off points.If you look at tge chart patterns in trading books,the examples are always shown with the hard right edge.Simply put,the pattern is fully developed,and there is new data illustrating how the stock traded well after the pattern formation.
Notice they never show charts as the pattern is unfolding. There's a very good reason for it.Real time pattern recognition is nowhere as clean as when looking at it after the fact. Scale and chart compression/expansion are some of the tricks on the eyeballs.
Take any charting package and find your favorite pattern that occured 3 months ago..Clear as day..Now go back in time 4 months to the first bar of the pattern.Scroll foward one day at a time...Scrambled eggs,is it not???
There's a reason I prefer horizontal lines
You are trading based on data, ceci n'est pas une pipe
Why not?
Because they are fixed intervals.
Which are different per dataprovider.
It's just a way of viewing certain data, nothing more, nothing less.
I anticipate chart patterns with my entry being confirmed chart pattern. Learn to hedge, work at it, dream about it, then you can get losing percentages very low.
Your brain consciously or unconsciously sabotages you because the human brain is not suited for making logical trading decisions. That is also why there are so many overbought or oversold situations in the market. They are created by the behavior of the human brains of all traders.
Therefore I worked/work by elimination:
- I first wrote down all the conditions to go long or short, or to form a pattern.
- Then I learned to follow the evolution of the market and each time something ticked one of the conditions, I marked it. Not an easy part as each quote can, in realtime, switch from fulfiled to non fulfiled and back several times.
- Then I had to learn what the probability was to get a signal depending on the number of conditions that were ticked. Because when the signal is clear you are already a bit too late to enter.
- Then you have to get used to enter the market before the pattern is formed completely. For that you need a lot of trust. In general entering the market before the pattern is formed completely results in a price much closer to the top/bottom, which gives you more chances to get out in case the signal is wrong. If you have to wait for all confirmations you are already (far) away from the top/bottom of the market. Doing this will reduce a lot the average loss per fake signal. That's why to me the entry is the most important moment in any trade. It defines price wise the strategically best place to enter the market.
What you should not forget too is that a pattern can form during a certain timeframe, but be disappeared when the timeframe is final and closed. When you watch in hindsight, you never see these fake patterns as you only see a screenshot of the situation at the end of each closed timeframe. So you can see in realtime several times the wanted pattern, and still not get it when the timeframe is closed. So what you see in realtime is different from what you see in hindsight.
It is like @vincentnyc said:
I always compare it to this:
- Drive with your car at 100mph to a concrete wall.
- You calculated and drew a line where you should brake hard to stop just before hitting the wall. If you are successful you win the competition.
- And then like Nike says: Just do it.
If not your are dead.
But the good news is that in trading you can manage the damage with any risk management system. So in trading you will just lose some money. And if you are good the reward will be much bigger then the potential loss you could hit.
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