Quote: "Trading is a teachable science, not an innate talent."

[cornix]

Quote from Scataphagos:

No. Black Jack and poker have little in common.

Counting cards in black jack is all about numbers/probabilities. Poker is much about "money pressure", "false representation/bluff" and "playing the opponent".

It depends. Live and especially no limit holdem yes, is much psychological game. But if we speak about online (where bots are possible to be used) and especially fixed limit games, then it's much pure odds with very little psychological pressure component.

Just like trading: you have several "golden signals" (card combinations) and just play them by the rules when they occur.

Absolutely agree with you: just having a couple of charts (5-min and daily for example) and a couple of signals with proven odds is like having a cash machine.

 

[cornix]

Quote from Ghost of Cutten:

But some people will lack the emotional control to do the right decision when the market looks 'scary', others will deviate from the system after large losses or a string of gains, some will not have the patience to wait for good setups. Some will learn market consistencies in 1 year, others will take 10 years to pick up the same patterns. Some will read market history and pore over price charts voraciously, others will switch off at the closing bell. Some will review their mistakes and keep a diligent trading diary to improve, others won't bother. The people in the first group will never learn, or be taught how to trade profitably and consistently.

Speaking of self-control, it probably can be taught as well. That's what happens with boys in the army.

Problem with trading is IMO that there's no "sergeant" nearby most wannabe retail traders to shout in their ear when they do something wrong (and right too ).

So self-taught self-control is completely different story and is much, much harder to achieve. It requires truly strong motivation, something that most people who try trading don't have.

I almost crashed my family back in years of struggling (not many wives agree to live with someone staring at screens all days and only losing money saying "dear, wait a few more months, soon I will make it") and know people who actually sacrificed their families for the same reason and became successful traders later.

Should it be done by "normal people"? I think not. Or at least not full time until really consistent and know your game well.

P. S. Was it Wrbtrader who once mentioned he hired a risk manager to watch him in the role of "sergeant". That could be helpful indeed for some people.

 

[Redneck]

Why not become one – then you’ll know

Beats asking for other’s worthless opinions (mine included)

eta;

Not meaning to be an ass, but seriously - trading is exactly what one makes it

RN

Quote from bankroll:

Either by Michael Covel or Paul Tudor Jones it is not clear from which of the two.

The question is what is the truth of the statement? Or your opinion?

 

[neke]

Quote from jack hershey:

...Once at midnight, two past students came to me with a problem. .. Can I sky dive now that I am 21...

WHAT?????????????
Was that your grand-daughter?

 

[smallStops]

Quote from cornix:

Speaking of self-control, it probably can be taught as well. That's what happens with boys in the army.

Problem with trading is IMO that there's no "sergeant" nearby most wannabe retail traders to shout in their ear when they do something wrong (and right too ).

So self-taught self-control is completely different story and is much, much harder to achieve. It requires truly strong motivation, something that most people who try trading don't have.

I almost crashed my family back in years of struggling (not many wives agree to live with someone staring at screens all days and only losing money saying "dear, wait a few more months, soon I will make it") and know people who actually sacrificed their families for the same reason and became successful traders later.

Should it be done by "normal people"? I think not. Or at least not full time until really consistent and know your game well.

P. S. Was it Wrbtrader who once mentioned he hired a risk manager to watch him in the role of "sergeant". That could be helpful indeed for some people.

Not sure about that :
I assume this person would be frightening somewhere.
One consequence would be traders would have their brain full of "fear" chemical components. And it seems to me, removing greed and fear is important for good trading. Basically a receipe for more psy problems.
May be best to find out the cause/origin of the lack of self-control, and sort the problem properly.
This is just making me realise that one can not really cheat human nature. . Try to cheat it, and it find other ways to do what it is meant to do. lol.

Also, experiments were done taking in pilots, military, etc ... for trading and the success rates were no better.

 

[cornix]

Quote from smallStops:

Not sure about that :
I assume this person would be frightening somewhere.
One consequence would be traders would have their brain full of "fear" chemical components. And it seems to me, removing greed and fear is important for good trading. Basically a receipe for more psy problems.
May be best to find out the cause/origin of the lack of self-control, and sort the problem properly.
This is just making me realise that one can not really cheat human nature. . Try to cheat it, and it find other ways to do what it is meant to do. lol.

Also, experiments were done taking in pilots, military, etc ... for trading and the success rates were no better.

No I don't speak about cheating the nature here. Cheating never works, you're absolutely correct. Rather about changing your system of beliefs. It doesn't happen overnight.

Good pilot knows self-control and proper actions are the only way to survive, so does trader.

If you ask me, self-control is not needed so much when you experienced enough pain from your wrong action that you simply KNOW the only way to survive (and in trading it means consistent profits) is to do things right, which means... discipline. Ironically the best discipline is achieved when you don't perceive it as discipline in the sense of forced actions.

P. S. I don't know about those experiments, because hardly anyone took pilots/military who really wanted to become traders for their entire lives and trained them for years along with control group, but among good traders I met surprisingly high percentage has military background.

P. P. S. More on experiments of teaching someone to trade: most of those experiments lasted for a short period of time if I'm right. Substitute trading for neurosurgery and all absurdness of such approach becomes obvious. Profession is profession, something that can be taught in a couple weeks/months is among lowest paid jobs for a reason as well as opposite is true.

 

[jack hershey]

Quote from neke:

WHAT?????????????
Was that your grand-daughter?

No, I was just married and had just lost one child and did not expect any more as being possible.

Later we did name our daughter after this person. At the time She was a math major at Middlebury College in Vermont. Our families skiied together.

There is a big island at the East end of Long Island Sound. She was from that family and most of the family resided in Greenwich (back country or Rock Ridge) where we lived at the time.

 

[eurusdzn]

What of Peter Brandt whose book I read a while back. Seems like he uses classic
Edwards and Magee chart formations to trade breakouts on commodities primarily.
It can't be just that. He is a lifelong professional market participant. I believe he was a commercial hedger for Campbell (soup) or something like that.
He is undoubtedly successful and has to be classified as a successful user of TA.
He seems to say as much.
Now, for example , are major market participants looking at bonds and sp500 breaking technical levels? Is it significant or not. Is this TA or macro?
Rambling here..... But there was a nice journal here a while back with a trader
skillfully scaling in and out of of long usd/jpy very early while it was n the high 70's.
He seemed very adept with forex markets, major participants and major levels,
market dynamics etc...a lot of TA stuff. However he was "onto" this idea like a dog on bone due to
The still yet to come macro issues regarding Abenomics. Imagine if he sustained this effort with skill.
So what is this? TA?
My only point, if I have one, is i dont think anyone here that believes a few books, a couple years , and some backtestimg of TA systems is enough to be successful. Am I right at least about that?

 

[themickey]

Quote from Scataphagos:

I'm not sure what volume says when it comes to individual issues. However, I've come to believe that volume considerations for the market in general have ZERO value. (Years ago I had custom volume oscillators which correlated well with market behavior... but then mysteriously went wacko. Since, traditional heresy or not, I totally disregard volume!)

I agree that +90% volume is a POS as an indicator, there are some times you can see a volume spike which confirms a move.
For example, take Friday night on both DJ and SP500 on the last minute of close, together.
And don't say there is a spike always at that time.
I'm not going to spell it out to some of the losers on this forum (not you Scataphagos) but the volume spike confirmed something.

 

[marketsurfer]

Provided the fact computers don't have emotions and over 70% of all volume is automated trading--- I don't get the emotional aspect if you truly believe that you have an edge. Emotions, yeah, if you are gambling, over leveraged, or scared money. But then you shouldn't b trading.