Manual trading and profitable?

Concinnity said:
Hopefully this is an acceptable or reasonable answer.
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No, with all due respect, I'm not happy with this. I ask if you'd rather make or lose $36/mo and instead of saying the most simple basic obvious answer... "A duh, yes I'd rather make $36/mo than lose it" you go off topic on some crazy tangent trying to come up with an an edge instead of confirm the existence.

Lol, you're pissing me off! And, I'm withdrawing all my money from your fund ASAP.

Here's what I think my edge is... when I wake up, I throw a lucky dart at a concrete wall. If it sticks in the wall, the market's going up... if it bounces out, the market's going down. Now, how are you suggesting I figure out if this "supposed" edge actually exists? Convince me this strategy is stupid.
 
spy said:
No, with all due respect, I'm not happy with this. I ask if you'd rather make or lose $36/mo and instead of saying the most simple basic obvious answer... "A duh, yes I'd rather make $36/mo than lose it" you go off topic on some crazy tangent trying to come up with an an edge instead of confirm the existence.

Lol, you're pissing me off! And, I'm withdrawing all my money from your fund ASAP.

Here's what I think my edge is... when I wake up, I throw a lucky dart at a concrete wall. If it sticks in the wall, the market's going up... if it bounces out, the market's going down. Now, how are you suggesting I figure out if this "supposed" edge actually exists? Convince me this strategy is stupid.
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I genuinely have no clue what you are saying or getting at. What I said spoke for itself and I was just being polite, but you asked me to further clarify because you apparently didn't understand it or didn't like my reply.

Not going to play games with you about convincing you of anything, what are you even talking about? As far the crazy tangent to quote you "come up with an edge" everything I listed is a valid way to get a further edge and are things that I use on some trades (obviously not every single thing qualifies to be used on every single trade). Those are some pretty common things people look for when day trading.
 
Really Really, re-read what Concinnity wrote and try to understand what he said. Study it, pick it apart, and re-read it. He was ridiculously generous in his assistance! Each one of those things represents MONTHS of progress.

Don't mistake actual critical thinking wrapped in experience, and posing trader-babble. Like I said, there is a rabbit hole to hell here.

Until you can actually understand what he wrote about, it will be hard to gain any traction. In the meanwhile, figure out how to use 21st century tools.

Forget about this silver bullet "searching for an edge" silliness. There are no shortcuts, it is about putting together a dozen critical pieces synergistically, and rejecting even more pieces that do not fit or are too ill-defined.

Good luck, I'm out.
 
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Concinnity said:
#2 Being able to understand where and how buyers and sellers are being trapped.
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This alone will guarantee 90% of your success. But don't be fooled. There will always be somebody who's smarter than you.
 
Tradess0610 said:
I am mostly interested in manual trading. Where do you believe we (as retail traders) have an edge over algos?
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I don't see how manual traders can have an edge over algos.
Think about it for a second, how can someone spend months or however long it takes to create an algo which disadvantages them by being worse than manual trading?

If one were trading a single instrument exclusively, perhaps an algo may not be required.
And that depends on the type of trading system they employ, some simpler than others.
However, an algo thinks faster and collects more data than a tired or stressed or distracted manual trader.

An algo is like an encyclopedia, it stores a huge number of variables which a manual trader may overlook in the heat of a moment.
 
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themickey said:
I don't see how manual traders can have an edge over algos.
Think about it for a second, how can someone spend months or however long it takes to create an algo which disadvantages them by being worse than manual trading?

If one were trading a single instrument exclusively, perhaps an algo may not be required.
However, an algo thinks faster and collects more data than a tired or stressed or distracted manual trader.

An algo is like an encyclopedia, it stores a huge number of variables which a manual trader may overlook in the heat of a moment.
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It isn't about collecting data or it thinking faster, it's about at the retail level programming it to take into account context, some which cannot always be exactly mathematically defined. There's a reason why people turn their algo's off during certain times and market environments, because the algo only knows to take the trade based on "x" and "y". Which sure that is great for consistency, but absolutely horrible in certain market environments.

Now if you have someone running the algo, who knows when to turn it on and off via market stability, time of day and context. Than in this case I would agree, the algo wins even at retail level.

EDIT: Potentially wins, still there's some manual traders that are absolutely amazing, that a bot still wouldn't beat. Good conversation overall but I am heading to bed soon, g'night all!
 
Concinnity said:
It isn't about collecting data or it thinking faster, it's about at the retail level programming it to take into account context, some which cannot always be exactly mathematically defined. There's a reason why people turn their algo's off during certain times and market environments, because the algo only knows to take the trade based on "x" and "y". Which sure that is great for consistency, but absolutely horrible in certain market environments.

Now if you have someone running the algo, who knows when to turn it on and off via market stability, time of day and context. Than in this case I would agree, the algo wins even at retail level.

EDIT: Potentially wins, still there's some manual traders that are absolutely amazing, that a bot still wouldn't beat. Good conversation overall but I am heading to bed soon, g'night all!
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Yah, I'll continue to disagree with your line of thinking... :)
Firstly, a manual trader would be trading discretionally, ie, seat of pants, via how he feels emotionally, gut feeling instinct, experience.
He wouldn't be strictly rules based, maybe partially rules based, maybe even breaking their rules at times.
Second; when you mention turning off an algo during certain times, has it occured to you maybe at certain times a trader should just shut down trading completely because the mkt is just untradeable at times for particular traders.

Imo, a strict rules based system is superior to discretionary.
If a manual trader can trade a strict rules based system, fine, but the problem becomes one of discipline, keeping on repeating, keeping up the focus which is difficult just via manually.

There are not many people who can sit still, they always want to fidgit.
Manual traders will suffer too much from a wandering mind imo.
 
My first 32 years I traded mostly manually, my edge was knowledge of price patterns, volume, and knowing the "why's". Long term did it right from beginning, took 7 disastrous years to learn how to scalp and be profitable and another seven years to become expert level.
If I had to do all over again, I would have stuck to long term futures, hedging and swinging options. Huge profits there and less commissions.
Last thirteen years been 99% automation, turned off most intraday systems recently except for 2 intraday systems and still trade four which are long term/swinging futures/options. I have learned never to describe how I trade cause there are some very smart traders who could break down style of what I do.

The amount of knowledge to learn on RISK is huge, learning entries is last, your edge should be "risk", know when to pass on viable trades, where not to place your stops, understand where retail stops are.
Commissions will eat you up manually too.

Eventually, if smart enough, you develop "Holy Grails", but you learn how to program, and sample sizes based on ticks over a decade of data to generate 20,000 trades plus.
Overall, been fun in beginning and now just a job like anything else. After 45 years, never going to retire, I can answer all my own questions.

Discipline tough to experience and learn. Gut feeling is actually much past knowledge.

I would never advise anyone to do full time manually day trading, stress, huge amount of time taken away from family, and years of info to remember.

Welcome to shark tank.
 
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