If you could go back in time to when you were a new trader

[kid.fx.cross]

Quote from TheGreatGorilla:

No, the plan is literally pointless, if you can't follow it.

Traders need more faith in themselves. Look at Richard Dennis, and his turtle traders. Anyone can do it, but not everyone will reach that point of consistency.

Trading is unnatural. It goes against human nature. Here is a simple exercise. Plot a 20 SMA on a chart. When price goes above the line, buy, when it goes below the line, sell (or short), and ride the waves. And, you should not exceed 2% of your total cash, on all open trades. Also choose only ONE stock (or whatever you want to trade) no need to complicate things.

Is this strategy the golden goose? Of course not, and if you think it is, you miss the whole point of the exercise.

This teaches, patience, discipline, and basic money management skills. It isn't about technical analysis vs fundamental analysis. Or "is this better than that?"

Quit focusing on the strategy, AND JUST DO IT.

It is better to stick to the plan and lose, rather than keep altering it to win.

It isn't about making money, it's about teaching basic skills needed to trade.

That's it, that is all that matters. IF YOU MASTER THIS, THEN WORRY ABOUT YOUR PLAN OR STRATEGY.

I honestly think that is the most I can help you guys who are asking, "how do you trade?"

It doesn't matter what I do, you would still fail because you couldn't follow any strategy.

If you fail this exercise, then trading probably isn't for you, go do something else.

no kidding, I have the perfect way to fail

you start out flat, of sound mind and body, you paper trade and determine you have a viable strat

and you determine that it should periodically have a 30% or more drawdown

you put it on live

and the first time you hit your predetermined drawdown

suddenly, you don't like it anymore,

and you get flat and try again with another strat

only this time with 30% less trading capital

 

[TheGreatGorilla]

Quote from kid.fx.cross:

no kidding, I have the perfect way to fail

you start out flat, of sound mind and body, you paper trade and determine you have a viable strat

and you determine that it should periodically have a 30% or more drawdown

you put it on live

and the first time you hit your predetermined drawdown

suddenly, you don't like it anymore,

and you get flat and try again with another strat

only this time with 30% less trading capital

Yup, and people keep doing this, over, and over, and over, and over, until they sit down and finally analyze them-self for once, or quit.

They will say stuff such as, "X SMA and 40 Bollinger band strategy with ATR with support and resistance levels has been making me consistent money."

Then, they leverage it, or lack discipline to follow the strategy for more than a few weeks, and then blow up their account.

Then they post on ET, "why me?"

Someone actually tries to help them.

The person trying to actually help gets called a jerk.

Then other novices give bad advice to the failing trader, only continuing the cycle.

 

[dbphoenix]

Quote from TheGreatGorilla:

You completely missed the point of my post. It is an exercise, to establish discipline and basic skills of money management.

I don't care what you tell yourself. If you keep going all in on every trade (and leveraging the crap out of it) you will eventually blow up your account, despite your opinions on what your theory is for trading markets.

By all means, don't use indicators, I never said I did, so don't make assumptions on what I do thank you very much.

But to simply state "X NEVER FAILS" is preposterous, and terrible advice. I don't care if you have been in the business for twenty years, that doesn't mean you know everything about trading. To limit yourself to just knowing just price action, is detrimental and crippling, when there are so many more ways and dimensions to look at the world of investing.

I've seen posts like yours before, people say "price action never fails" and think they are geniuses, because they finally don't need training wheels (indicators). So they up the leverage, and post a month later, "what did I do wrong." Lol

So, in brief, you have no trading plan. Let us know in a few years how that's worked out for you.

 

[dbphoenix]

Quote from kid.fx.cross:

no kidding, I have the perfect way to fail

you start out flat, of sound mind and body, you paper trade and determine you have a viable strat

and you determine that it should periodically have a 30% or more drawdown

you put it on live

and the first time you hit your predetermined drawdown

suddenly, you don't like it anymore,

and you get flat and try again with another strat

only this time with 30% less trading capital

Why accept such a drawdown? The market doesn't determine the drawdown, the trader does. If the trade goes against you, just get out of it.

 

[TheGreatGorilla]

Quote from dbphoenix:

So, in brief, you have no trading plan. Let us know in a few years how that's worked out for you.

You see, I really don't give a crap what your strategy or theory of the month is.

Obviously your upset, and I'm sorry if I offended you. The point I was making was about money management, and discipline, that's it.

I have no secret plan or strategy to dominate the financial markets lol, no one does, so i really don't know what you want from me.

I could make up some BS and say, "I use technical indicators such as the 10 day ema with a 50 sma, and profit off of the blah blah blah blah. Then I watch the volume leaders on Yahoo! Finance and use the secret ratio I made at Princeton."

Think about it logically. If there really was like this secret all knowing way of predicting anything, wouldn't the government have it? And then use it to make money to pay back the national debt, and then make more, so we never have to pay taxes ever again?

I immediately get suspicious of anyone who says they have a fail-proof system. What I am stating in my earlier posts about money management and discipline, is kind of common sense.

 

[kid.fx.cross]

Quote from dbphoenix:

Why accept such a drawdown? The market doesn't determine the drawdown, the trader does. If the trade goes against you, just get out of it.

ok, thanks for the advice

I'll remember that next time the market moves against me

I don't know who you think you are fooling, but you aint fooling us

 

[TheGreatGorilla]

Quote from dbphoenix:

Why accept such a drawdown? The market doesn't determine the drawdown, the trader does. If the trade goes against you, just get out of it.

You lack discipline.

I'm not trying to be mean, I'm serious.

 

[austinp]

Quote from kid.fx.cross:

ok, thanks for the advice

I'll remember that next time the market moves against me

I don't know who you think you are fooling, but you aint fooling us

If you have a solid trade method that follows price action with directional bias, no market can never "move against you" for very long. At worst you will hit brief periods of chop for mild drawdowns... that is it. Then when directional price action resumes as usual, you cover those mild draws and on to the next equity peak high.

If the market is consistently "moving against you" then the key word in your failed approaches is "against". When you learn to trade with the market, there is no against.

 

[austinp]

{rising market, message board "traders"} "short xyz at 1530 > stoploss 1538

{1538 level is passed} "short 1539.50 > stoploss 1560"

"short more 1544. short more 1546.50 > stoploss raised to 1580"

{next day 1580 is hit} "silence from the poster... pretends that never happened, lets time pass so hopefully the fan-club readers will pretend, too. Repeat the process for months or years until alias disappears"

 

[dbphoenix]

Quote from TheGreatGorilla:

You see, I really don't give a crap what your strategy or theory of the month is.

Obviously your upset, and I'm sorry if I offended you. The point I was making was about money management, and discipline, that's it.

I have no secret plan or strategy to dominate the financial markets lol, no one does, so i really don't know what you want from me.

I could make up some BS and say, "I use technical indicators such as the 10 day ema with a 50 sma, and profit off of the blah blah blah blah. Then I watch the volume leaders on Yahoo! Finance and use the secret ratio I made at Princeton."

Think about it logically. If there really was like this secret all knowing way of predicting anything, wouldn't the government have it? And then use it to make money to pay back the national debt, and then make more, so we never have to pay taxes ever again?

I immediately get suspicious of anyone who says they have a fail-proof system. What I am stating in my earlier posts about money management and discipline, is kind of common sense.

No, I'm not upset. This doesn't matter enough to me to upset me. It's no different from what I've heard thousands of times before. Nor am I offended. Your success or failure has nothing to do with me.

As to trading plans, they needn't be secret. Mine isn't. ND's isn't.

As to discipline and money management, yes. But the most rigorous discipline and the best money management aren't going to turn a losing strategy into a winning one. One must first understand what he's looking at. Then he must understand what to look for. Without that, he will fail. To say that one must not focus on trading plans but rather just "do it" is not what I would call a winning mindset.

As to an all-knowing way of predicting something, that's not what the law of supply and demand is all about.

And as to my strategy, if you don't give a crap about it, that's fine. But you may want to learn something about it before making judgmental statements about it.