trading without any indicators for daytrading?
- Thread starter mounafia
- Start date
Quote from wrbtrader:
I'm a little confused...don't you still use moving averages.
Mark
I have a 20-EMA on my chart, but I don't use it to signal trade entries. I use price to enter trades and I use S/R to choose initial profit targets. If I'm in a trade off an early trend reversal signal and price breaks through the 20-EMA with conviction, then I move my profit target further away.
I'll elaborate on this. Yesterday I put on a pure counter-trend trade in CL based on a failed breakout through the previous high of the day at that point. My profit target on pure counter-trend trades is 20 ticks because 80% of the time that is easily attainable before price stages its next leg up or down.
In this trade, priced sliced through the 20-EMA like butter and I held on for more and took 40 ticks using pure price action to exit 6 ticks from the initial pivot of the down move.
If I didn't have the 20 EMA on my chart, I may have taken the 20 ticks, assuming a standard 50% pullback retrace.
A true master of price action wouldn't care even about that one bit. Price itself would keep him/her in that trade, probably even longer than I was in it.
Ok...so you do use an indicator in your trade method but just not for trade entries. Instead, you use an indicator to help manage your trades after entries.
By the way, have you tried trading without indicators as part of your trade management after entry ? If so, what were the results ?
My point with my questions...I'm curious if you have the ability to completely remove indicators from your trading so that you can truly call yourself a Price Action Only Trader.
Another way to look at it, it seems like you're implying you don't need indicators in any aspect of your trading. Therefore, I recommend you try shedding indicators completely from trading for awhile considering you seem to be developing as a trader in that direction. However, don't do such until you've backtested the results to see if you really do need to use an indicator.
Mark
Quote from deadbroke:
31 of 33 are against indicators
2 of 33 are for indicators
-------------------------------------
ratio of for versus against = 6%
You can add me to change your statistics a little bit. I love indicators.
3 out of 34
To me it is really simple. If indicators help you, use them. If they don't help you, don't use them.
If you like trading naked, just trade naked.
If you like trading with your cloths on, keep your cloths on.
So much energy spent bashing back and forth.
I think you're talking about something else. Simply, the issue to me isn't if indicators work or doesn't work considering I know a few traders that are profitable via using indicators.
The issue is that she initially stated she doesn't use indicators than later clarified that she does use indicators (a moving average) but not as an entry signal...instead as a part of her trade management after entry.
Regardless, I'm now curious if she's backtested (one trade doesn't count as an answer) to see if her performance level changes when she completely doesn't use any indicators versus just using one indicator.
I suspect her performance will be the same if she removes indicators from her trade approach because she should have learned enough about price action itself that she no longer needs to rely on indicators.
Anyways, if someone use indicators and it works...keep using it. Just the same, if someone doesn't use any indicators and it works...keep using price action only.
Mark
Quote from Bolimomo:
You can add me to change your statistics a little bit. I love indicators.
3 out of 34
To me it is really simple. If indicators help you, use them. If they don't help you, don't use them.
If you like trading naked, just trade naked.
If you like trading with your cloths on, keep your cloths on.
So much energy spent bashing back and forth.
The poll stays as-is. Its efficacy is best observed when the HERD is unaware that it is being tested. Its clear to see that you, bolimomo are one of its members - re-read your post, yes the one I'm replying to and observe your wishy-washy attitude. You lack clear intention, umph and power. Change this even by 2% and you're on your way.
By the way, in case I haven't made myself clear enough .....
this is not bashing - I don't dislike any that I've purged. I'm just getting rid of stupid people from my daily life on ET so my internship progresses smoother.
This is exactly how I operate in real life. Stupid people (95%+) of the general populace regardless race, color, creed, social standing, poor or rich, or country, get the axe at lightning speed without any upset involved (on my part or theirs).
At ET, because my internship is supremely important to me, I deliberately took gobs of time (= approx. 1 year) to get to know the layout, the setup, the think, the funk, the individuals etc. But the period of observation is now over and its time to act.
The end result of the purge is a considerably slimmed down ET engine - I get my work done fast, find my own posts quicker, and am able to see if new experienced traders are showing up, which is now the prime focus.
Quote from deadbroke:
.....
re-read your post, yes the one I'm replying to and observe your wishy-washy attitude. You lack clear intention, umph and power. Change this even by 2% and you're on your way.
By the way, in case I haven't made myself clear enough .....
It seems that you haven't known my reputation on ET. I am not wishy-washy. And who cares about your statistics anyway? Really. I have been using many indicators to trade for the past 10+ years. To the point of being laughed as as a "confused" person because I have too many indicators on too many monitors.
I just don't see that this kind of "discussions" going anywhere: indicators versus no indicators, day-trading versus not day-trading, using 1-minute charts versus nothing less than 10-minute charts (the rest is "noise")... etc. etc.. They have been "debated", discussed over and over again. In the end, no one is going to convince the people in the other camp to change their mind.
Your internship? On ET? You must be full of yourself. Out of your close to 2000 posts, most of what I have seen are only sexually explicit jokes. In Thailand or whatever.
Right. Go ahead and add me to your master ET liar list too.
I know about the ignore feature on ET but have not used it on any names. Not even Stock777 or coolweb. You have the honor to be my first.
Quote from NoDoji:
Indicators are completely unnecessary for consistently profitable trading, and in many cases cause traders to put on trades before price itself signals the move they're looking for.
When I used indicators, consistently profitable traders kept telling me to dump the indicators. I thought they were all crazy and I couldn't imagine trading without them. When I finally understood what price action means and got rid of indicators, I became consistently profitable.
The reason 94% of the respondents to this thread are against indicators is because this thread attracted responses from entire 5% of consistently profitable day traders here.
P.S. Clambill, in his post early in this thread, reveals another of the few holy grails of trading and I don't think he even realized it.
There aren't ANY consistently profitable traders here - this includes YOU.