Manual trading and profitable?

Tradess0610

Tradess0610

Hi everyone! I am new here and I am interested in starting a discussion with traders who have a refined and successful trading system... but trade only manually. Looking for like-minded individuals to collaborate and explore.

What instruments do you trade?
What strategy do you employ?
How did you reach consistency?
What do you believe is your edge over algorithmic trading?

Will be grateful for any comment! :)
 
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Because of the plethora of posers on the forum, it would be better to start with asking about what tools to use. Which not to use and why, how to use them, when to use them and not to use them. That would be a solid start. You will not get much traction trying to "find an edge"*.

What you asked is problematic because it is too broad, and random. Besides any answer you get needs to be verified. Years of rabbit hole hell.

Learn your tools. Manual trading has a lot of tools you can potentially use. All have benefits and drawbacks. Also many need to be practiced because, like a video game "tool", you have to be proficient before you can make a real evaluation.

Best of luck, sincerely.

* It is like wanting to cook great food, like a professional chef, but you are asking which dishes win awards. There is a great scene in film, The menu, with the foodie, Tyler. This is how actual trader view many pompous newbies, clueless posers who are insulting to their craft. (I'm not assuming you are one of them :D :fistbump:)
 
Hi both, thank you so much for your fast response. :)
True, there are many strategies to utilize. You need to pick one, follow the trading plan and execute it.

I am mostly interested in manual trading. Where do you believe we (as retail traders) have an edge over algos? If we do at all, of course. Must be, if there are (I assume) at least some of the profitable retail traders, who trade manually...?
 
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Bad_Badness said:
* It is like wanting to cook great food, like a professional chef, but you are asking which dishes win awards. There is a great scene in film, The menu, with the foodie, Tyler. This is how actual trader view many pompous newbies, clueless posers who are insulting to their craft. (I'm not assuming you are one of them :D :fistbump:)
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Good Morning Bad Badness,

You are right. Trading takes a great amount of skills and effort.

Even myself, sometimes in the middle of trading, I tell myself, you have far more work to do. And I know it.
 
Tradess0610 said:
Hi everyone! I am new here and I am interested in starting a discussion with traders who have a refined and successful trading system... but trade only manually. Looking for like-minded individuals to collaborate and explore.

What instruments do you trade?
What strategy do you employ?
How did you reach consistency?
What do you believe is your edge over algorithmic trading?

Will be grateful for any comment! :)
More...


No bot or algo at retail level will out perform a manual trader who has discipline and understands the markets at the highest levels. I could see a mixture of manual trader view, but using a bot for automated entry to be more efficient and as a good middle ground.

Anyone who tells you an algo or bot 100% trading without manual input is better, either has access to a lot of resources, is working with a firm or is an extreme anomaly. It's also possible they just don't understand what can be done manually or haven't been exposed to someone who trades manually with great results.

Context is the biggest edge for manual vs algo. Advantage for algo (assuming no errors and it's coded properly) is consistency, stability and no emotions. But again assuming discipline and emotions aren't a factor for the particularly trader in question, than generally manual will out perform algo, particularly at the lower levels.
 
Concinnity said:
No bot or algo at retail level will out perform a manual trader who has discipline and understands the markets at the highest levels. I could see a mixture of manual trader view, but using a bot for automated entry to be more efficient and as a good middle ground.

Anyone who tells you an algo or bot 100% trading without manual input is better, either has access to a lot of resources, is working with a firm or is an extreme anomaly. It's also possible they just don't understand what can be done manually or haven't been exposed to someone who trades manually with great results.

Context is the biggest edge for manual vs algo. Advantage for algo (assuming no errors and it's coded properly) is consistency, stability and no emotions. But again assuming discipline and emotions aren't a factor for the particularly trader in question, than generally manual will out perform algo, particularly at the lower levels.
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Thank you so much, that is the point of view that I was interested in.
Also for algo, I would add speed of execution, ofc when relevant for the strategy.

When you say context - would you also include fundamentals?
 
Tradess0610 said:
Hi everyone! I am new here and I am interested in starting a discussion with traders who have a refined and successful trading system... but trade only manually. Looking for like-minded individuals to collaborate and explore.

What instruments do you trade?
What strategy do you employ?
How did you reach consistency?
What do you believe is your edge over algorithmic trading?

Will be grateful for any comment! :)
More...
Good Morning Tradess0610,

I am not a consistent profitable manual trader yet, still working hard.

The one thing I can tell you is.

Fall in love with working hard as a manual trader.
 
Concinnity said:
Anyone who tells you an algo or bot 100% trading without manual input is better, either has access to a lot of resources, is working with a firm or is an extreme anomaly.
More...

I would even go one step further and say there's no such thing as "100% trading without manual input"... someone has to monitor and control the algo/bot, turn the computer on, make sure there are no problems with electricity, connectivity etc. So, it's really a matter of degree. IOW, just how much automation is involved?

Conversely, there is no such thing as 100% manual trading either. We don't send orders via carrier pigeon to our brokers, we use the internet to do research, we punch a few numbers into a calculator (or phone) to avoid routine arithmetic, etc.

I'm being pedantic, but I think it's worth understanding this point so there's no confusion.

Concinnity said:
It's also possible they just don't understand what can be done manually or haven't been exposed to someone who trades manually with great results.
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This begs the question... exactly what do you consider great results? Do you have targets for performance analytics that you consider great?

I ask the question because I think "great results" are largely subjective. Let's take an extreme example... if a manual trader can make 18% every year but has to work 60 hrs/week, is that as good as an algo trader making 13% every year but only working 3hrs/week? Only the individual can determine which situation is preferable.
 
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