The “Pro”-cess - Discipline -

if this were so easy, everybody would be doing it.

think this way - what is your edge? in other words, what can YOU do better than everyone else?

very few can answer this question, hence the 1% success rate.
 
Hey Dozu. Welcome! Glad to hear from you. Great to have traders like you around here.

My edge - by definition in the first portion would be a simple way to consistently determine the chances of price moving way over another. This could be as simple as s/r , trendline, pattern etc. The one I am working to grow from is within channels that suit my eye.

With that said - I am trying to put aside what I learned from years of TA and trying to do this from a very basic view point. I am trying to work backwards to unravel prior thoughts.
 
dozu888 said:
if this were so easy, everybody would be doing it.

think this way - what is your edge? in other words, what can YOU do better than everyone else?

very few can answer this question, hence the 1% success rate.
More...

my edge is buy during rising wedge!
my edge is sell options and never hedge!
 
xburbx said:
So I have been around these boards for a very long time and met some fantastic people and traders. I am fully aware that opening this thread could lead to some pretty wild answers. I have spoken with most of the older seasoned people on here going back 10 years. There are some really amazing traders /people around here and some not so great. I went on a journey that took me into the depths of technical analysis that I doubt many will ever see. After 14 years of some incredible runs and some certainly poor ones, I realize that I have exhausted technical analysis and need to focus on the mental end of this business. The 14 year mark is not something to boast about. It’s actually quite the opposite. It’s more embarrassing to not know the answers to the stuff below after so long. I’ve been stuck so long in so many loops .


I recently sparked a conversation with a trader that clearly understands the mental end. I know the title of this thread will pull out some of the pro’s left in these parts to hopefully nudge me in my humbled new direction . Most of the seasoned people hang around here to give back. They grasp where others are on the journey and they want to help as they once needed it as well. They also know that it’s a solo journey in the end so outside help is a tricky beast. I essentially accept the fact that I have spent way too much time on a part of trading that I needed to spend less on. I accept that I needed to spend more time on the trading process that was loosely neglected for so long.


N=1


Ground zero ....


So here is what I am doing - I am building a trading plan. I have been looking to rekindle an old flame with an exceptional trader on here but have not been able to contact him. He might not be around here anymore. He was solely focused on his trading plan and gave more to ET than almost anyone could.


I recently bumped into a trader that I had not seen before and as I went through his posts . He had amazing insights into the mental end of the business. He has a way with words that clears things up quite well. He has also been very generous in exchanging DMs with me over the last few days. I thank you for this if you are reading it. I know it wasn’t easy .


Start of the process


1 . Asses myself as to strengths , weaknesses and what any given scenario in the market does to me mentally. I have been in enough good and bad trades to feel the scars to know what I like and what I don’t like. I’m guessing I’ve taken thousands of trades at this point over the years. I have to be able to approach MY game by bringing the same “me” every day. If I bring a different “me” , I am bringing a different game and therefor my results are from different games. I want to play the same game every day. How many consistent variables do I need, I don’t know yet.


  1. Approach trading from a grouping of trades in a system I build for myself. Any individual trade is not the goal I am focused on. I am focused on being a human computer and taking every trade over a group of trades to have a sample size of trades with the same variables to analyze . This batch of trades will yield results and then I have to determine which variables to add/remove to achieve a positive expectancy. Every tick in the market is someone else’s game they are playing off of. I need to form my battlefield that I can win on.

  1. I need to have an edge ,which defined by my older friend ,is an expectancy for price to do one thing over another.
  2. The recent thoughts which came from my new DM trader pal - this is a game in my mind that I have to construct in such a way that I am able to use the chart data as my game board to win the game. The game is to create a trading process that yields profits over time.


Current struggling thought I have to work through in getting the process and plan in place.


  • if the process of consistency is so important and the “edge” is defined, what’s the point in not automating trading in every situation? Why even have people at a chart?
  • Easy example - My s/r line has an expectancy to hold more often than not. Why would I not simply program a computer to just enter at that line and then never look at a chart? This sounds ridiculous in how easy it is, so I want to understand why people are even needed. The consistency of a computer would be far superior to a human with emotions in terms of process and discipline. The edge is accepted here as a s/r line giving a positive outcome of price heading one way over another. If it were this easy , everyone would do it. What am I not grasping?
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Do this:

1. Write down a trading plan with entry and exit.

2. Forward test or back test that plan for 200 trades

If the expectancy for those 200 trades is high, continuing trading that plan, because NOW you have an edge in this trading business.
 
xburbx said:
The edge is accepted here as a s/r line giving a positive outcome of price heading one way over another. If it were this easy , everyone would do it. What am I not grasping?
More...
xburbx,

Becareful on what you think edge is. Edge is a proven trading method or technique that produce consistent profit over X amount of trades.

Do your journal of trades show positive expectancy with decent drawdown? if yes, you have edge. Go trade.

https://www.smbtraining.com/blog/7-steps-to-building-trading-edge
 
Thanks. At one point in my trading journey I did have a positive expectancy over quite a few live trades. The reason this was different than prior times was not only were the tools I was using extremely helpful in my TA but I was following a consistent approach daily.


I keep this time in my trading career in the back of my mind. This was something I did via lots of different markets and scanning stocks over and over. I am trying to bring that same mental and technical approach to trading a single market day in and day out.


I believe it was my approach and mental method of that stint that was different than prior times.

SimpleMeLike said:
xburbx,

Becareful on what you think edge is. Edge is a proven trading method or technique that produce consistent profit over X amount of trades.

Do your journal of trades show positive expectancy with decent drawdown? if yes, you have edge. Go trade.
More...
did
 
xburbx said:
Thanks. At one point in my trading journey I did have a positive expectancy over quite a few live trades. The reason this was different than prior times was not only were the tools I was using extremely helpful in my TA but I was following a consistent approach daily.


I keep this time in my trading career in the back of my mind. This was something I did via lots of different markets and scanning stocks over and over. I am trying to bring that same mental and technical approach to trading a single market day in and day out.


I believe it was my approach and mental method of that stint that was different than prior times.


did
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xburbx,

How many trades do you have?
 
xburbx said:
This makes sense, but if a discretionary trader is trying to be a human robot in the sense of repeated actions and the example "edge" above of playing an expected s/r line is in fact valid, why wouldn't they just automate it.

Not being entirely rule based would suggest additional variables or not playing the same game each time. Maybe I am wrong.

So many of the traders I have spoken with that have the traders mindset could easily pay someone to automate that but choose not to. They choose to be the button clicker for a reason that escapes me for the moment.
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There's no way that a computer program can approach the flexibility and adaptability of a skilled discretionary trader. Simple TA tools which can easily form the basis of a trading algo, like S/R pivots, MA touches or crosses etc. offer no material edge by themselves for precisely that reason.

Profitable discretionary trading really is like being a world-class sports superstar (albeit not as well-paid, you have no team to make you look good, and losing a game means you lose money). The rules of the game stay fixed but each game unfolds differently, and requires not only an exhaustively researched and rehearsed plan but constant on-the-fly adaptation to the other guy's play. It certainly is a paradox which is why only a tiny fraction of those who attempt it (in pro trading or pro sports) are ultimately successful.
 
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xburbx said:
Thanks. At one point in my trading journey I did have a positive expectancy over quite a few live trades. The reason this was different than prior times was not only were the tools I was using extremely helpful in my TA but I was following a consistent approach daily.

I keep this time in my trading career in the back of my mind. This was something I did via lots of different markets and scanning stocks over and over. I am trying to bring that same mental and technical approach to trading a single market day in and day out.

I believe it was my approach and mental method of that stint that was different than prior times.
More...

The concept of trading a single market day-in, day-out is fundamentally flawed. 85-90% of days in any given market offer such a low number of poor-quality setups compared to the best 10-15% of days, that they are not remotely worth trading. It logically follows that the correct approach is to monitor a large number of markets and trade only those which you suspect might have nice moves.

You seem to already know this from your own experience, as you say above - so it's a bit puzzling why you ditched a consistent positive-expectancy methodology to try and grind out ticks in a single market.
 
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