Trading psychology: is it being overdone?

Quote from nitro:


The only convincing evidence that "support/resistance" works would be to provide a detailed analysis that it works, not hand waving and claiming others are stupid.

FWIW, I too have noticed that S/R, as defiend in the TA literature, seems to have an uncanny ability at times to "predict" market tops and bottoms. The problem is, it is not a reliable measure when you take months and years of data into consideration.

Part of the problem may be that you guys are not defining your terms accurately. John thinks "system trading" is programming a system into a computer and having every single trade that it emits traded.

You may be thinking that "system tradnig" is closer to "systematic" trading, where your analysis is very logical and scientific, but it is not a program run by a computer.This may result in discretion.

In the final analysis, the point is that it is hard to know anything without providing hard data, either by John showing the output of several months of system trading, or by splphil showing that he trades S/R and giving a PnL statement.

Otherwise, IMO, you are both spinning your wheels going nowhere fast.

nitro
More...

Wow, Nitro! Care to show me where I said other people are stupid? I'm very much just trying to be part of an interesting discussion, not a flame war!

I wont even react to the "PnL statement" statement. That's the SUREST road to a flame war!

And btw, I DON'T think that support and resistance "works", where I assume that with "works" you mean "is consistently profitable". S&R isn't a system or method. S&R CAN be traded profitably TOGETHER WITH a method of HOW to trade S&R. Unfortunately, so many traders don't realise that, and feel that finding good S&R is their "Holy Grail", and unfortunately many vendors make their money from convincing them of just that... Invariably, those who think that S&R "works" by itself, will have a hard landing, no matter how great the S&R is...

All the best,

Phil
 
Phil,

Ugh!!! I confused your post with someone else's!!!! Sorry :( :(

I agree with everything you are saying. FWIW, no matter how hard I try to quantify S/R in a meaningful way that a _computer_ can understand, I fail. The hardest part is "context."

nitro
Quote from splphil:

Wow, Nitro! Care to show me where I said other people are stupid? I'm very much just trying to be part of an interesting discussion, not a flame war!

I wont even react to the "PnL statement" statement. That's the SUREST road to a flame war!

And btw, I DON'T think that support and resistance "works", where I assume that with "works" you mean "is consistently profitable". S&R isn't a system or method. S&R CAN be traded profitably TOGETHER WITH a method of HOW to trade S&R. Unfortunately, so many traders don't realise that, and feel that finding good S&R is their "Holy Grail", and unfortunately many vendors make their money from convincing them of just that... Invariably, those who think that S&R "works" by itself, will have a hard landing, no matter how great the S&R is...

All the best,

Phil
More...
 
Quote from nitro:

Phil,

Ugh!!! I confused your post with someone else's!!!! Sorry :( :(

I agree with everything you are saying. FWIW, no matter how hard I try to quantify S/R in a meaningful way that a _computer_ can understand, I fail. The hardest part is "context."

nitro
More...

Whew, ok, I was worried for a minute :-). Don't sweat it. In any case, your "context" remark hits it on the head. You said in five words what took me a whole post to try to convey :).

You're also right about the computer part. I long ago realised that I wouldn't be able to code everything I know about the market. So doing the work stays my job. But that doesnt take away that there IS a context to be seen, even though it does take the trader himself to see it (albeit with HELP from the computer!). There's a manual for trading S&R that I've written a while ago floating around somewhere on the web. If you're interested, PM me, I'll tell you what it's called (I understand the moderators don't like naming stuff like that in posts). You should be able to find it with Google.

All the best,

Phil
 
The secret to trading psychology is to not care what happens. Forget your opinions and emotions, and simply relax and enjoy the process of following correct trading procedure.

Another poster described discretionary trading as stressful. Personally I find it quite therapeutic, especially in longer-term timeframes. Stress is caused by psychological attachment to outcomes, and the consequent fear of failing to achieve those outcomes. Remove the attachment and you remove the fear, which then removes the source of stress.
 
I used to say that blah blah blah about psychology in trading is worthless. What I mean is not psycholgy doesn't count but it doesn't count much more than in any other domain. When recruiting programers for example pretty sure I should have avoided some profile not because of their lack of competence but because of their psychology: lack of commitment, lazyness, etc... it's the same thing in trading: some people just want to do only what pleases them, want to be spoon feed, want to be successfull straight away as if it was due to them (they think that a few months is all they needed instead of a few years), well I let them change by themselves: I don't even tell them because when you tell them they get angry - except if they are my employees since I won't tolerate that my money is spent without counterpart.
 
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