But isn't that the same argument (no stops) surf and others telling you here?...
Our 400,000 Trade Test Proves Using Stops Is Not Very Bright
- Thread starter marketsurfer
- Start date
But isn't that the same argument (no stops) surf and others telling you here?...
No, because many people get stopped out in trades that finally go the way they hoped they would go. But because of bad entries they get stopped out before the trade takes of. Timing of entries is very important.
There should ALWAYS be a stop, but the difficulty is WHERE?
This was the argumentation chain:
I just meant that a stop should be planned for the successful exit (ie. as target stop).
It doesn't matter whether the trade degrades immediately after entry or later,
because if you plan for such an immediate exit after entry then you didn't do your homework of throughly analysing the instrument for the (longer) timespan...
If you indeed did, then better stick to your initial decision and apply further strategies for this trade...
I think our differences in understanding this has its root cause in the fact that some here are scalpers and other very short-time traders.
But I and most others here, incl. surf, mean mid-term to long-term trading, ie. a timeframe of at least 1 week for the trade to develop itself...
I just meant that a stop should be planned for the successful exit (ie. as target stop).
It doesn't matter whether the trade degrades immediately after entry or later,
because if you plan for such an immediate exit after entry then you didn't do your homework of throughly analysing the instrument for the (longer) timespan...
If you indeed did, then better stick to your initial decision and apply further strategies for this trade...
I think our differences in understanding this has its root cause in the fact that some here are scalpers and other very short-time traders.
But I and most others here, incl. surf, mean mid-term to long-term trading, ie. a timeframe of at least 1 week for the trade to develop itself...
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Not factual reporting that. Most posters are daytraders on ET.
Not necessarily in this discussion.
Have you still after 28 pages not understood that it is about long-term trading what surf, his study and also all the other studies discussed here mean?
Has nothing to do with timeframes. In EVERY timeframe you can find tops and bottoms, so the problem is the same no matter what timeframe you use. The aim of each trader is to find tops and bottoms.
If he is stopped out it means he did not do his job well. If he buys he wants to prices to go up; if prices go down it means he made a mistake. Same logic for shorting. Go in a trade if the probabilities to make money are high enough.
Stops are there to minimize losses without giving away too much potential profit. Successful exits are no stops, they are profit takings.
But the shorter the horizon the more difficult it is...
The difference is: if the analysis was good, then don't let you stopped out, just apply more strategies like scaling-in etc.
Yes, very true.
Stops might maybe make sense as used as trailing stops. But I have not researched this case yet (still searching on the net for other research studies on TSL).
fyi: I usually do research these cases using 1000s of simulations...
I mostly call them "target stop" or "profit stop".
I am certainly not going to take advice from Marketsurfer as he does not even show us raw data on which the findings are based on. Everybody knows on ET that Marketsurfer's trading skills are very average. If he was to be a very skillful trader, then sure, I and others would pay attention.
Hey man, what do you want with 400,000 trade data? As surf already said, they are proprietary, meaning the data belongs to a firm.
Such studies usually present just their results. It's up to you to verify it, or to disprove if you don't believe it.
If you don't believe surf, then what about at least the other 3 research studies posted here from academia who came to the same conclusion?
And: in case you still didn't get it: this discussion is not about the trading skills of surf or anybody else.
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There is nothing to disprove, as only the result of personal trading activities was announced. It only has relevance to his own method or does one size fit all? It's nonsense.