Traders who win but really have no clear strategy

I have a few stock strategies based on ranges and probabilities that work ok when executed "to the letter", but I'm starting to see the value of 'cheating' them based on more dynamic factors.

So I think ultimately you always have to have SOME hard and fast rules (especially stops), but I also think any system manually executed can be enhanced on-the-fly by adding an element of hard-earned market sense.
 
Quote from monty21:

I like it... I pay 300 a month for the Trade the News service (200 for squawk and 100 for equity news) so it is kind of expensive.

It won't make you profitable alone, but it provides me with more comfort. I don't have to stare at the screen to see where the futures are going. Plus I can gauge momentum and whether paper or the locals are buying/selling. It also makes it more easier to predict whether tops/bottoms will be broken or whether the fade at support/resistance.
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mmm

Tradersaudio offers SP squawk box for 125 $ ...
 
Quote from Nexen:

Interesting, I try not to let my gut feeling ever get in the way of what the charts are telling me. I actually make an effort to keep it that way.

After many years I accepted that I cannot predict the market but I can react to unusual events that spell doom for one clear side, and that's where I make my money.

Lot of patience required from my part.
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After many years I accepted that I cannot predict the market but I can react to unusual events that spell doom for one clear side, and that's where I make my money.

Lot of patience required from my part.



Amen
 
Quote from Sky123987:

That's amazing... I wish I could do that
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I tend to believe that this game isn't really to hard. People make it harder than it is by so many layers of studies etc. All of that information comes down to buy or sell. Your gut can sum it up quickly. If you have a lot of experience in the game (I have about 10 years) it's really not that hard. This ability has something to do with talent/balls/decisiveness, but that's 20%. It's 80% having seen it before and acting on it; not throwing more sh!t into the pot to confuse things.

Wilt
 
Most of the posts here attest to the same thing, viz., it takes experience to trade well, and that's true of investing as well -- but trading and investing are very different disciplines. It's been pointed out many times that trading is something almost anyone can do, because there are no barriers other than enough cash on hand to get started. And that in itself explains why so many fail. But of those who have been involved in the stock market racket for many years, i include myself, and somehow survived the early years of learning, there is a much higher percent than realized that make good money. (I won't say: "It's our dirty little secret because we need the neophytes to add liquidity and fatten our accounts." But I might be thinking that.)
 
I have had the privilege of talking and meeting with some of the greatest traders out there (The Turtles, Hedge Fund Managers, and Individuals). What most traders don't realize is that the most successful traders out there really stick to 1 methodology of trading and apply it to different market. If you read about someone like Ed Seykota, he will tell you that he follows a specific system and just applies it across different markets. Jerry Parker who is one of the original Turtles always says that he's not some genius, its purely that he just trades his system.

Think about any other professionals. Dentists dont wake up one day and say "I'm gonna be heart doctor" They stick to one thing and do that one thing well. For some reason traders have a hard time just waiting for specific signal to occur. They have the problem of jumping from one thing to another. Trading Head and shoulders one day and then double bottoms another.

Sure you may win some, but the real successful traders out there are very specific to what they do and they make sure they do that one thing very well.
 
Quote from Sky123987:

...And then they come up with a feel for if there is bias to the upside or downside?
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That's more or less what I do, although on longer timeframes than "daytrading".

Essentially, I look for places where "everybody" is trying to lean one way, then look for a cheap way to play one or both sides. There's an awful lot of gut feel to it, and it does require the fortitude (more exactly, the willingness to not over-leverage) to let positions run and/or accept inevitable losses.

I think experience - especially the experience of having been wrong - is an important part of it. The brain is a giant pattern matching computer, and not everything it does is observable or deconstructable. Sometimes you just have to trust your instincts.
 
Trading is a risk- reward . First of all , you don't daytrade , you
build a position and wait.....that's how big money is made , strategy should be simple , buy fear and sell greed.
 
I have a buddy like that -- he's been trading profitably for 14 yrs. I watch him trade all the time and can't make heads and tails. Sometimes he's a momentum trader, sometimes reversion to mean, sometimes scalper. Mix of everything, no real system, but very successful.
 
Any new trader that trades off gut feeling, is sure to fail, but any successfull trader along with most traders in general have gut feeling after the years of experience, becaue there are no "sure things" in the market. There is always a little guess work.
 
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