Quote from marketsurfer:
the issue and "problem" here is every entry is both right and wrong depending on one's time frame, capital base, ability to stay in, paitence, goals, speed, etc etc.
one states that they "see" a trade setting up, not untill after the trade is entered can one know, there is no EDGE in pretending to see the future.
the rest is psychobabble, sorry to say.
surf
The statement that one must trade what one sees, not what one thinks is not psychobabble.
Of course one does not know if a trade is going to be successful until after the trade has been put on. That is not what trading what one sees is all about. No one knows what the future will hold, and those who "think" that they do are on shaky ground, empirically.
But how does one KNOW the trade is going to be successful? By THINKING about what the market MIGHT do, or by WATCHING what the market IS DOING? Which of these approaches is more consistent with empirical evidence?
Those who watch and base their decisions on what they see.
If the empirical evidence of current market conditions reveals a strong downtrend and high volume, that does not mean necessarily that those conditions have to continue.
For instance, those who trade for a living according to trends know all about reversals. They know that reverals might be in the future, but they do not exit a current position because they THINK that a reversal MIGHT happen.
Rather, they wait until they SEE that a reversal IS HAPPENING. And it is THEN that they exit the position, sometimes with a profit, sometimes not.
In the end, those who do based their decisions upon what they SEE rather than what they THINK have a key advantage, because one cannot BOTH WATCH AND THINK. If they are doing one, they cannot do the other.
Thinking IS critical in training. It is crucial to base one's principles upon critical thinking (I've written a book on it, so I believe in it), but that is part of PREPARATION.
But in the midst of battle, one must decide based upon what IS there, not what one THINKS to be there.