The thing about telling the truth is that know one likes to hear it....
When i say all these bad things people can't believe it, like OMG so negative. Seriously? Is called reality of the market and what it takes to be successful. This tread isn't to start a flaming war.
I should have made myself a little bit more clear. This post was originally for the amateurs, the guys that don't really know what they are getting into. And hopefully someone can benefit from my experience. This is also form of mental catharsis for me. It's obvious that most of you are getting very offended and taking defensive stands against what im saying. I may have came on a little too strong, but don't take personally it's just how i talk... Like i said im mainly talking about s&p day trading, but you can also apply it to short swing trading.
Im not here to completely teach you TA, you have to do the work yourself. Besides even if did break it all down, you wouldn't "see it". "seeing it" takes a tremendous amount of screen time during intra-day action, which is why you need to stare at a chart for as long as it takes until you perceive the market differently. This is like being in a high school math class, when you have those light bulb moments and everything clicks.
Fundamentals are inferior to TA at the end of day - because what moves markets is volume and price. You have to understand that the news is a catalyst for the informed "Big Boy" traders to move the market in their favor. After all the accumulation or distribution is done, we can finally move out of a range, because of the offsetting of volume that has occurred. I doubt anyone here has deeper pockets than Goldman, so don't fight them rather join them.
For people that think they are too smart for TA, or that TA is somehow not a good enough reason to trade, then you don't understand anything about TA. TA is so counter-intuitive because it's very elementary in it's nature. People want explanations of why the market did this or that, but it's better to see learn HOW not why. You can theorize all day after you can see the how. TA isn't going to tell you with absolute certainty that the market is going up, in-fact nothing will be able to guarantee what will occur in the future, but it will give you a good idea. therefore allowing you to ANTICIPATE the next move. This will allow you to make an educated BET on which way it may go. By the way, the people that say trading is not gambling are wrong - we are clearly gamblers, albeit we use tactics to bet SMART. People saying TA doesn't help long term. Are you joking? If you think TA is for lower time frames only - NEWS FLASH the time frames all exhibit the same behavior.
Making 1 mil in your first year of trading, with no trading experience is almost impossible - sure you might get lucky. Hell, there are experienced traders out there that probably make millions on a good volatile day. If the account is large enough there is no profit cap. But like all those .com fellas trading a bubble in 2000 - all lost what they made after the bust. If you don't know how you made the money, you will more than likely give it right back.
The "gurus" make money from their countless subs. They may be able to trade, but they make easy money collecting from suckers. The chat rooms and systems can be in the hundreds or thousands of dollars, and the chat rooms are paid monthly. Yeah, those "gurus" are making bank. End of story.
TA is only one piece of the puzzle. There are many aspects of trading that you will have to figure out for yourself - but If i had to pick the top 3 skills:
1) chart reading
2) money management = cutting losses swiftly (mostly underrated by newbies)
3)timing of entry/exits (also underrated and rarely spoken of, especially the exit where the money is made)
TA doesn't work for some people because they don't understand how to apply it effectively. TA is developing the ability to really read a chart. To be able to see repeatable price action patterns and play them effectively. This is why i say stare at a chart, 3 months , 6 months, 1 year or how ever long it takes for you to see things differently, to see structure, accumulation, distribution ,etc. It's all a matter of perspective. People asks whats the best time frame to trade - their isn't one. Ill say this though, tick charts are better than time charts intra-day.
Better to start fresh and learn organically, than to latch on to someones method because they showed you 50k pnl on one trade.
~follow the price action...
