Yes. Well of course!
But so long as your ass points to the ground any 'logical pattern' will explode in your face regularly.
Otherwise, you'd be a zillionaire by now.
Obsession with trading and the markets. Does it get better or only worse?
- Thread starter Laissez Faire
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But so long as your ass points to the ground any 'logical pattern' will explode in your face regularly.
Otherwise, you'd be a zillionaire by now.
I had already many AHA moments in my life as a trader.
From all the AHA moments I had, maybe two or three were really huge steps forward.
All the others were most of the time just illusions. I later bumped into other problems again, or they stopped working.
Oh yes, that's my "within reason" part
As for the original question, I'm a relatively new trader, it's been a little over a year. However, I moved to a place far from friends a few years ago to make a life transition in a hermity way. So when I got the stock obsession, I devoted every waking hour to it for over a year. This is not an exaggeration of time, it is literal, because my experience in life (I'm 58 years old), has been that if you immerse yourself in something completely, passionately, you learn much faster - as in, I consider the hours I put in worth at least 2 years of education/experience.
Anyway, it's just now reached the point where my method is in place, it's solid, and I'm making myself spend weekends off watching movies, with maybe only a couple stock-related videos and lurking here on this forum. I'm enjoying the semi-disengagement and think it's healthy from a rounded perspective.
In truth, I like having this one, full passion, I had another years ago that I had to abandon, so stocks have filled that hole. But I agree with the poster that said it's boring once you're there. I'm not quite there, but the every-moment-thinking-about-it has chilled considerably. I'm sure it will for you too, when it's time.
Anyway, it's just now reached the point where my method is in place, it's solid, and I'm making myself spend weekends off watching movies, with maybe only a couple stock-related videos and lurking here on this forum. I'm enjoying the semi-disengagement and think it's healthy from a rounded perspective.
In truth, I like having this one, full passion, I had another years ago that I had to abandon, so stocks have filled that hole. But I agree with the poster that said it's boring once you're there. I'm not quite there, but the every-moment-thinking-about-it has chilled considerably. I'm sure it will for you too, when it's time.
Aren't you in the ES-Journal? Plenty of traders there who always get it right.
I'm not suggesting it's possible to never get losses or even zero losing days. But I think it's possible to get close to zero losing days and at least minimizing them.
It's always been my working assumption that it's possible to create a very, very good system and become very consistent in the markets. If I haven't (yet) achieved it does not mean it's not possible. Just that I haven't figured it out yet.
As for now, my imperfect system seems to work OKAY. Strangely, I'm now facing operational errors due to my own mental short-comings, i.e., greed causing me to not take profits when I should in the face of counter-signals. Or seeing the market as I want it to be instead of seeing it as it actually is.
I know the odds of the most basic outcomes at any given moment. They're usually never 100 %. Can even be 50/50 at times. Yet greed or fear might make my mind closed to the alternative outcome which would 'benefit' me less. Even though I rationally know perfectly well it can happen.
There's lots of issues which arise even after arriving at a good system. Only a 100 % mechanical system would be able to circumvent this.
Current weaknesses and failings are continuously addressed. Ain't that the way to move forward if one wants to improve?
When people talked about greed or fear or some psychological impact caused them losing trades, it is mostly technical problems rather than emotional problem. If a system has given clear signals on E/E and proved to be 90-95% reliable, then strictly following the system should not be an issue; but if the system's signals has low win rate or ambiguous, then keep working on improve your system.
Is it possible to get to a system of 99% wining rate? it is possible but you have to use so complicate cross checking systems and a team of reference parameters, and in the end, a 99% win rate system would turn out to be less efficient than a 90-95% win rate system, because a 99% system would filter out too many trading windows and present far less trading opportunities.
Is it possible to get to a system of 99% wining rate? it is possible but you have to use so complicate cross checking systems and a team of reference parameters, and in the end, a 99% win rate system would turn out to be less efficient than a 90-95% win rate system, because a 99% system would filter out too many trading windows and present far less trading opportunities.
I agree that often psychological issues are used as an excuse when the problem is with the system itself. But I know that even traders who use a more objective indicator based system can have problems. At least early on.
I've literally had signals I've ignored because I 'wanted' the other outcome to happen.
My own system is semi-discretionary. I won't reveal all details, but ultimately I need to enter/exit based on my own interpretation of my system. That is certainly a weakness.
Reducing discretion/interpretation is something I'm constantly working on or thinking about ways to address.
Is it? My method works like this and I consider it a pro, not a con. If I only used the signal, it would take tons of trades that are iffy, but using discretionary weighting I have much better outcomes.
Yeah. I think so. It's a general problem with all 'price action' concepts and otherwise where you have to interpret.
Is this a double top? Is it a double bottom? Oh, there's a H&S. But f''k. There's an IHS below. Are we going up or down? The trend line broke. Is it a real break or a false break? What the hell do I do?
I'm not saying I use those concepts. I'm more into statistics, levels and prediction. But there's always an interpretative element. And that means you're susceptible to interpret it incorrectly or make decisions you wouldn't have made under less pressure or with more time to make the decision. This means you may possibly do something different with the same set of 'signals' on two different days. While if you use a purely mechanical system the back-tested and traded outcome is/should always be the same.
Note: I'm talking about day trading. If you're swing trading it's slightly different as you don't have a gun against your head. Figuratively speaking.
But if you find it an advantage - then all the more power to you.
Ah, I see your point. I spent many months day-trading and the gun-to-the-head thing (ended up hating it with the heat of a thousand suns) does indeed make it a different animal.
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