trading without any indicators for daytrading?
- Thread starter mounafia
- Start date
I use two indicators for trading - Price and Volume.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
- Spydertrader
I trade price action, and I do use a 20 EMA, that is all.
My method is embarrassingly simple, BUT I can never trade volumes on it like 50-100 contracts because I trade for 1 point profit. The max I ever did was 15 ES contracts.
I did use indicators in the past, and ait did not work for me.
I have an analogy for indicators, and it's the "Allegory of the Cave" by Plato. www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave
You see what you want to see, You see what you believe in, and once you step outside of the "cave" you have a completely different reality.
What I also stopped doing is "modifying" my method to make it better, grab more pints, etc. All I want to do is program it and make it auto.
One day I will get the nerve LOL
My method is embarrassingly simple, BUT I can never trade volumes on it like 50-100 contracts because I trade for 1 point profit. The max I ever did was 15 ES contracts.
I did use indicators in the past, and ait did not work for me.
I have an analogy for indicators, and it's the "Allegory of the Cave" by Plato. www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave
You see what you want to see, You see what you believe in, and once you step outside of the "cave" you have a completely different reality.
What I also stopped doing is "modifying" my method to make it better, grab more pints, etc. All I want to do is program it and make it auto.
One day I will get the nerve LOL
Once I have a trade on, I only glance at the chart occasionally. I know the next 2 S/R levels in line, and I know my initial profit target, and I use the price action on the DOM to manage the trade. I use price bars to determine trade entries and I use S/R to determine stops and targets. I'm not sure how a 20-bar MA is an indicator because it doesn't really indicate anything other than it rises in an uptrend and falls in a downtrend and is flat in a range, but you don't need it to know that; the price bars tell you that. Traders seem to react to it so I leave it on the chart and when price approaches it I watch the DOM carefully for the reaction.
I do not use any indicators. I came to the same conclusion. When I started trading I was highly profitable in the ES and I did not use indicators.
Then I got sucked into indicator trading and it never worked for me.
I went back to no indicators and I make money. I just use a hand calculator sometimes for support and resistance. The rest of it I can see on the chart.
Been trading futures about 8 years now. Best markets for me are anything that is moving. Nowadays I never even look at the ES. In fact, I trade anything but the ES.
I'd prefer to trade futures contracts on Kansai Frozen Shrimp before the ES.
One last thing, internal emotional management is more important than any BS indicator out there. After watching the market for long enough, you get a feel for what's going to happen.
Women, other jealous traders and hedge fund managers will try to ruin your life. When this is close to happening, just take responsibility for your actions and re-center yourself.
When you take responsibility for everything that you do, then you'll truly never need any indicators other than your true self.
This is a very good topic. I would love to see more and more traders let go of their BS indicators. Perhaps the software gurus would not like this because they would no longer be lining their pockets with suckers' money.
Then I got sucked into indicator trading and it never worked for me.
I went back to no indicators and I make money. I just use a hand calculator sometimes for support and resistance. The rest of it I can see on the chart.
Been trading futures about 8 years now. Best markets for me are anything that is moving. Nowadays I never even look at the ES. In fact, I trade anything but the ES.
I'd prefer to trade futures contracts on Kansai Frozen Shrimp before the ES.
One last thing, internal emotional management is more important than any BS indicator out there. After watching the market for long enough, you get a feel for what's going to happen.
Women, other jealous traders and hedge fund managers will try to ruin your life. When this is close to happening, just take responsibility for your actions and re-center yourself.
When you take responsibility for everything that you do, then you'll truly never need any indicators other than your true self.
This is a very good topic. I would love to see more and more traders let go of their BS indicators. Perhaps the software gurus would not like this because they would no longer be lining their pockets with suckers' money.
The indicators I use are an intraday 1 minute bar chart, a 1 year daily bar chart, and a news feed.
I have not noticed any superior ability in spotting trends/momentum, or capitulations/reversals, or divergence between related markets, by using indicators as opposed to not using them. If anything, they hinder the process of being able to spot them properly. Since those are my 3 main ways to trade intraday, I don't see the purpose in indicators.
For example, what if you see price diverge from the moving average by an amount that usually precedes a reversal, but you have not yet seen any signs of the trend going parabolic and capitulating? Do you follow the indicator or the price action? IMO the odds favour further trend continuation here, and I would follow the price action. So if the price action is the superior indicator, what's the purpose of having an inferior one that might cause you to reject good trades in favour of bad ones when the two diverge?
I would recommend throwing out all indicators except watching the price, the charts, and the news.
I have not noticed any superior ability in spotting trends/momentum, or capitulations/reversals, or divergence between related markets, by using indicators as opposed to not using them. If anything, they hinder the process of being able to spot them properly. Since those are my 3 main ways to trade intraday, I don't see the purpose in indicators.
For example, what if you see price diverge from the moving average by an amount that usually precedes a reversal, but you have not yet seen any signs of the trend going parabolic and capitulating? Do you follow the indicator or the price action? IMO the odds favour further trend continuation here, and I would follow the price action. So if the price action is the superior indicator, what's the purpose of having an inferior one that might cause you to reject good trades in favour of bad ones when the two diverge?
I would recommend throwing out all indicators except watching the price, the charts, and the news.
Yeah...any type of moving average is an indicator. However, that's not really a big concern considering you're very dependent upon the reading/understanding the price action itself.
That's why I said before I believe you're moving into the direction of trading without any indicators as your understanding of the price action continues getting better. It's a natural evolution to go through for those that survive this long as they move from indicators ----> price action only.
It's a strange feeling at first when there's no indicators on your charts and may seem uncomfortable but if you need it...keep using it. However, if you truly don't need it...get rid of it.
Mark