Is Trading Simple or Complex?

Quote from jonbig04:

Think about it all you try to do is buy high sell low, vice versa, and thats it!
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That's like saying "think about it: all you're trying to do is live happy and healthy to a very old age!"

Sure, it's "simple" in the statement, but stating something and making it happen are totally different things.

I assume you meant to state "Buy Low and Sell High."

The first thing you have to realize about BLASH is that it's a plan only for trend faders. For trend followers, it's one of several possible goals.

See, things are getting complicated already and all we've done was look at "buy low and sell high."

The devil (or God, depending on your philosophy) is in the details. Words to live by.
 
Quote from kut2k2:

That's like saying "think about it: all you're trying to do is live happy and healthy to a very old age!"

Sure, it's "simple" in the statement, but stating something and making it happen are totally different things.

I assume you meant to state "Buy Low and Sell High."

The first thing you have to realize about BLASH is that it's a plan only for trend faders. For trend followers, it's a goal (one of several actually).

See, things are getting complicated already and all you've done was look at "buy low and sell high."

The devil (or God, depending on your philosophy) is in the details. Words to live by.
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In my case its usually buy high and sell low lol. But I dont agree with the analogy of living a long life etc. In trading the instrument goes up and down. Thats it. Happiness can mean a million different things..but in trading its always 50/50.
 
Quote from jonbig04:

In trading the instrument goes up and down. Thats it. Happiness can mean a million different things..but in trading its always 50/50.
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It's not 50/50 for successful traders.

Sure the instrument only goes up and down. So are you saying that means trading should be simple?

Does the fact that the trading instrument goes up and down unpredictably unsimplify the situation for you?

FWIW I don't mean inherently unpredictable, but certainly it's basically unpredictable for the novice trader.
 
Quote from jonbig04:

In trading the instrument goes up and down. Thats it. .. its always 50/50.
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The instrument goes up and down, while being weighted by a practically infinite range of magnitudes each iteration. Makes it a tad bit more complex than you are stating.
 
Quote from jonbig04:

?
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Trading is trading (obviously)

If you say: "trading is simple", you immediatelly create a synthetic proposition, as opposed to an analytic one. This is nonsense.

When you use "is" in a synthetic proposition you immediately assume that subject and predicate are related.

I cannot see that trading is either simple or complex. The meaning of a synthetic proposition must be grounded in fact.

Therefore, the question does not make any sense.

It is none of the above.
 
Trying to improve or maximize profits makes trading less simple.It ain't how you get in that counts. It's how you get out.
 
Quote from kut2k2:

Everything looks simple in hindsight.
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This really made me laugh.

When swing trading became too iffy for me this spring with the market bouncing all over the place and anything less than perfection from a company being punished, I decided day trading was the only safe way to play. What a great feeling it must be to be flat at the end of the day, and never have to worry about returning from a trip in an internet-free zone to find your loosest imaginable stops have been triggered and then the damn stocks rallied like mad.

So I selected some basic strategies from everything I'd been learning and tested them first by reviewing charts. I would cover the chart with a piece of paper and ask myself "What will happen next?" I found I was quite good at predicting intraday trend reversals this way.

Then I watched charts in real time and practiced trading "on paper". It turned out that if I reacted quickly enough to the entry signal, my success rate was quite high. Finally I decided that all the great paper trading in the world was not going to recoup my previous losses and start making me living.

So I set a date and decided to put it to the test.

Let me tell you, when your real money is on the line and those candle bars are jumping all over the place, it is NOT so simple to react quickly to an entry signal All I saw in my mind was those nice steady charts I'd been reviewing, and that nice easy paper trading where absolutely nothing was at risk.

It took me nearly three weeks of solid intraday trading before I reached the point that my heart rate remained steady when putting on the trade :p
 
Quote from eagle:

Trading is similar to an iceberg. It looks simple but in reality it's complex. That doesn't mean everybody will get sunk by that iceberg, only the reckless will be trapped.

If this question were asked to Tom Baldwin, he can probably give two answers:

Subjective: Simple - based on his own experience.
Objective: Complex - based on the success rate of many who were attempted to enter in this business.
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I completely agree Eagle. Good post.
 
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