Thanks for your take on things. It was interesting, because it's rare to hear profitable discretionary traders speak at length about how they see things. Usually on this forum they just write one sentence posts, without explaining anything. For a second you made me think that maybe I can try again to find a way to make money with discretionary trading (after failing for 12 years), but then I decided against it. The reason is that it's too hard for me to see price moves objectively, blinded as I am by my desire to succeed. So, not only do I pick the wrong exits (as you explained, it's the case for most people), but I also pick the wrong entries. I would have to become an entirely different person, and I don't think I can manage.
But I will use this deficiency of mine, which makes it impossible for me to be a discretionary trader, to motivate myself to be an even better and more disciplined automated trader. Even if I temporarily found a good balance and were able to make money with discretionary trading, there's always a high risk that, in moments of stress and depression, my old habits and nature will take over (like for a smoker or a drinker). It's as if I was inflammable and the markets were fire. The two things should be kept as far apart as possible.
Maybe a good way to put it, to summarize our points of view and our discussion on discretionary vs automated, is that for some it's easier to succeed with discretionary and for others with automated. I was unable to succeed with discretionary trading, and I was going to say that it's be easier for anyone to succeed with automated trading, but I suppose that other people will disagree with me and say the opposite, so I shouldn't make my opinion be the law.
I guess if you are better at checking statistics than emotions, automated trading is the way to go. If you are good at seeing things objectively, despite what's at stake in this game, then you can definitely trade like you would play a videogame, learning as you play. All games can be learned, but trading has the problem that I do not see it as a game, because I am too afraid to fail, and too eager to succeed, and this makes me lose objectivity. And also, even if we could learn trading like we learn a videogame, we all know how some people are great at acing videogames, and others aren't. For example, I am average, but the problem is that I am a sore loser, and I get pissed off if someone is playing better than me, or if someone keeps beating me at risk for example. And I definitely brought that to trading as well, and being a sore loser at trading means that instead of exiting a trade and admit you made a mistake, you double up your losing positions (until you have margin for more future contracts), and often manage to recoup losses (sooner or later it will go up), but the few times that it keeps going against you, you blow out your account. So you get what the sore loser in you actually wanted: to lose few times, and win a majority of times. Only, you keep blowing out your account every few months, because some losers do not come back, and you don't have limitless margin to just keep on doubling up (which is like cheating more or less).
But I will use this deficiency of mine, which makes it impossible for me to be a discretionary trader, to motivate myself to be an even better and more disciplined automated trader. Even if I temporarily found a good balance and were able to make money with discretionary trading, there's always a high risk that, in moments of stress and depression, my old habits and nature will take over (like for a smoker or a drinker). It's as if I was inflammable and the markets were fire. The two things should be kept as far apart as possible.
Maybe a good way to put it, to summarize our points of view and our discussion on discretionary vs automated, is that for some it's easier to succeed with discretionary and for others with automated. I was unable to succeed with discretionary trading, and I was going to say that it's be easier for anyone to succeed with automated trading, but I suppose that other people will disagree with me and say the opposite, so I shouldn't make my opinion be the law.
I guess if you are better at checking statistics than emotions, automated trading is the way to go. If you are good at seeing things objectively, despite what's at stake in this game, then you can definitely trade like you would play a videogame, learning as you play. All games can be learned, but trading has the problem that I do not see it as a game, because I am too afraid to fail, and too eager to succeed, and this makes me lose objectivity. And also, even if we could learn trading like we learn a videogame, we all know how some people are great at acing videogames, and others aren't. For example, I am average, but the problem is that I am a sore loser, and I get pissed off if someone is playing better than me, or if someone keeps beating me at risk for example. And I definitely brought that to trading as well, and being a sore loser at trading means that instead of exiting a trade and admit you made a mistake, you double up your losing positions (until you have margin for more future contracts), and often manage to recoup losses (sooner or later it will go up), but the few times that it keeps going against you, you blow out your account. So you get what the sore loser in you actually wanted: to lose few times, and win a majority of times. Only, you keep blowing out your account every few months, because some losers do not come back, and you don't have limitless margin to just keep on doubling up (which is like cheating more or less).
