POLL: If you were improving your method, would you seek more setups or fewer of them?

[Gabfly1]

Quote from BSAM:

Fewer. One of the objectives is to make trading as stress free as possible.

Quote from FattBurger:

Just like poker, most hands should be thrown away, only play the best setups. Thats being a professional.

Personally, I'm inclined to agree. It may not be universal, but I think that for a lot of people less can be more. A brief video on picking your spots, borrowed from another thread:

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Again, I recognize that one size does not fit all. Further, different respondents are invariably coming from different points along the frequency/reliability continuum.

 

[tradeshark]

Quote from Gabfly1:

Perhaps this is a better way of posing the question for what I think may have been a somewhat misunderstood poll earlier:

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=189531&highlight=POLL

As I see it, all else being equal, seeking to adjust a method to recognize fewer setups is somewhat like tightening your game, whereas seeking to adjust that method to recognize more setups is akin to loosening your game. The tradeoff, therefore, is between the fear of missing out and the fear of losing.

Trade efficiency is key to my style - I would rather have 1 trade per day (100% efficient trading) that meets my goals than the sum of 20. Because in the 20 there will be losers so efficiency goes down to 60% , 70% or so and commissions are higher and my working capital is stretched thinner. Even if you can scan hundreds of stocks for every tick, you will always be missing out on something somewhere, so I don't worry about it. I just focus on my basket and cherry pick. It will drive you crazy to worry about what you might be missing - then you start chasing stocks and we all know which house that will land your career. Seriously, why make this harder than it needs to be by loosening up?

 

[Gabfly1]

Quote from trader#21:

Practically thats very exceptional. Edges change over time and if you commit yourself to one method/theory you will have a very tough time when the edge disappears/diminishes.

Fair enough. Having multiple profitable methods is great insurance. No argument there. (Although, perhaps unfortunately, I am committed to a singular type of setup that I have been whittling at for a while now. Fortunately, the wheels are still intact.)

Again, we may have a disconnect. I was referring to "method" in the singular and the frequency/reliability tradeoff for that given method. Therefore, the question would apply to each of your methods individually rather than all of them collectively.

 

[trader#21]

Quote from Gabfly1:

Therefore, the question would apply to each of your methods individually rather than all of them collectively.

I'll go for more setups in that case (details )... more setups will help me optimize the method based on trade statistics. I can even change over setups depending upon market conditions.

 

[Hello]

Perhaps you should learn to properly put in words what you are thinking then, though you probably got confused since it was not your typical three word trolling response.

Asking whether or not you would like more, or fewer setups to improve a system with everything else being equal is not even close to the same as asking whether or not you would like to take fewer setups with a higher probability of winning or more setups with a lower probability of winning.

Quote from Gabfly1:

The question was NOT "Would you rather have more or fewer setups, all else being equal?" Rather, it was "If you were IMPROVING your method, would you seek more or fewer setups?" Read the thread title. The "all else being equal" part I referred to in my earlier post has more to do with NOT just having your cake and eating it too, by saying "I want more setups with greater reliability." We all do. But this is a thread about tradeoff. If you were looking to IMPROVE your method, which of the two criteria would you focus on more? See how that works? If my first post was not sufficiently clear, I apologize. However, my subsequent posts clarified on the matter of tradeoff. Where were you?

What a coincidence. I also sometimes question your intelligence.

 

[Gabfly1]

Quote from Hello:

This has to be one of the dumbest f%&*$%* questions in the history of ET, and that is saying alot. Then you actually have the audacity to go after people who respond to you...

...If you need to ask a question as simple as this you dont belong in the market, period. I suspect you are just trolling though...

The scarier thing then the original question is the fact the poll is skewed 65% in favour of less setups, LOL!!!!!

Perhaps those respondents took the time to interpret the question correctly, and responded according to their preference. You have good reason to be scared.

Quote from Hello:

Perhaps you should learn to properly put in words what you are thinking then, though you probably got confused since it was not your typical three word trolling response...

Couldn't quite get past the first page, could you? Your unambiguous animosity obviously stems from your differing political views, as evidenced in the P&R forum. Perhaps you should try to exercise some restraint rather than letting your expression-seeking rage leak elsewhere. A political diaper may be just the thing for you. Goodbye, Hello.

 

[Hello]

Please feel free to point out exactly where you clarified your stupid question before i pointed out to you just how ridiculous your question was. You made a specific point of saying ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL, and never said anything about taking fewer set ups based on higher probability or anything like that until after i posted.

Quote from Gabfly1:


Couldn't quite get past the first page, could you? Your unambiguous animosity obviously stems from your differing political views, as evidenced in the P&R forum. Perhaps you should try to exercise some restraint rather than letting your expression-seeking rage leak elsewhere. A political diaper may be just the thing for you. Goodbye, Hello.

 

[Gabfly1]

Quote from Hello:

Please feel free to point out exactly where you clarified your stupid question before i pointed out to you just how ridiculous your question was. You made a specific point of saying ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL, and never said anything about taking fewer set ups based on higher probability or anything like that until after i posted.

Read the thread title. Read my first post in this thread. Read Indahook's post, which was the second post in this thread, where he refers to the statistics of the current system. It is because I did not wish to get into system specifics that I wrote ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL. It is because I did not want someone to simply say "I want more reliability and more frequency" that I wrote ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL. I wanted IMPROVEMENT to be chosen by the respondents in this particular poll as being EITHER a matter of enhanced reliability OR enhanced frequency. EITHER a tightening OR a loosening. I wanted to home in on a VERY SPECIFIC TRADEOFF. Look for those key words in the initial post. It seems that most people managed to understand what I was asking, if not at first, then with a bit of clarification on my part. As for my clarifying posts before I had to go remedial on you:

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=2736496#post2736496

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=2736534#post2736534

I have had enough of your pseudo-pedantry. Save it for that other forum.

 

[Hello]

Once again I read all three of those and at no place in any of those questions does it say anything about taking fewer setups for higher probability or vice versa. Un the 2 links you have provided in neither one dpo you clarifiy that you meant more setups, with a lower probability or vice versa, and infact you do clearly repeat the "all else being equal" non sense. And btw my beating up on you here has nothing to do with politics, but i do feel the need to point out the stupidity of an internet troll

Quote from Gabfly1:

Read the thread title. Read my first post in this thread. Read Indahook's post, which was the second post in this thread, where he refers to the statistics of the current system. It is because I did not wish to get into system specifics that I wrote ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL. It is because I did not want someone to simply say "I want more reliability and more frequency" that I wrote ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL. I wanted IMPROVEMENT to be chosen by the respondents in this particular poll as being EITHER a matter of enhanced reliability OR enhanced frequency. EITHER a tightening OR a loosening. I wanted to home in on a VERY SPECIFIC TRADEOFF. Look for those key words in the initial post. It seems that most people managed to understand what I was asking, if not at first, then with a bit of clarification on my part. As for my clarifying posts before I had to go remedial on you:

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=2736496#post2736496

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=2736534#post2736534

I have had enough of your pseudo-pedantry. Save it for that other forum.

 

[Gabfly1]

Quote from Hello:

...but i do feel the need to point out the stupidity of an internet troll

Yes, your posts certainly do seem to speak for themselves. As an aside, any relation to the late Steelers Baby? Your first post comes 7 days after his last post. Fascinating, don't you think?