What did you learn this year?

After almost a decade of stock trading, index option and stock option trading, this year, more than any other year that I have traded in previously, teaches me the following:
1: No two years are alike.
What worked last year doesn't necessarily work this year.
One must constantly and quickly adapt to new and different market dynamics.
Example:
A trade methodology that worked in highly volatile months like
May, June and July of this year, do not necessarily work in smooth steady trending months like August thru December of this year.

2: You hear experts say all the time that the market only trends about 20% of the time and the rest of the time it goes sideways.
This is completely untrue in the last 4 years.
If you bring up a 4 year chart of the SPX and use monthly candles and the 20 month moving average, you will notice that the
20 month MA has support every monthly close since July 2003.
In those 42 months since July 2003, the SPX has had:
27 Bullish candles (bullish 64% of the time).
10 Bearish candles (bearish 24% of the time).
5 Neutral candles (sideways 12% of the time).

That combined with the fact the SPX has risen 42% in those 42 months and you can see the so called experts are totally full of crap with their sideways notion they try to feed us.
A lot of neutral and bearish strategies have been blown apart in the past 42 months and this has particularly been driven home to me this year more than other years.


Jeff
 
ror, i learnt how to give back all of my yearly gains in matter of couple of months with the last few weeks being the worse as capitulation took me to new lows. will probably end the yr b/e at best and that is if i give up daytrading for the rest of the yr, otherwise i gonna continue to get run over.:(
 
I learn patience and state of mind that is needed for transition from smaller 1,5,30min to longer timeframes (hour day week)
Less work, less stress more money.
 
I have come to respect Spyder and Jack this past year for their educational efforts. Last month the Aha moment was: "why am I stopping out, I need to reverse."

I only day trade when I can take a day off here or there or with my aircard when I am traveling for other business. Therefore I have traded 33 days or partial days so far this year with a 0.22% of account a day gain. I keep having to work on the range days... :(

Merry Christmas to all, and good trading.
 
YEP, there are many ways to skin a cat (never would do that, love all animals).

Agyar and others are saying finding what works for them has been nice. For sure that is a major step forward for anyone.

Many of us come into trading all wide eyed and bushy tailed with visions of sugarplums. The wiser of us soon realize the field to simply to hugh to play all innings and all positions. Best to find a niche and milk it for all we can while just forgetting about all the other opportunities.

Ones utility within the trading profession is best confined to one area in your head (like your house has a utility room for washing clothes, all in that same room)

This new year and all others we as traders are attempting to find our pride and joy. Some will love those squiggly lines and some will hate TA all together (they will have TA in the head as all TA people do). No one can make a good trading decision without knowing where price has been and without making a experienced TA odds based envision where it is headed, anything less is guessing.

Narrow the playing field down. That seems to be what many are saying here. there is a lot of truth in what is being said by others, Honest looking in the mirror works every time.

EXAMPLE: I like daytrading the ES 5 minute chart because it is not boring, it is not gonna take forever to tell me i am wrong (nothing worse than having a position trade on and watch it go your way in small amounts for days on end and you hold then some day it has a huge opening gap in other direction and you just ruined a few days for ZIP. In daytrading for the intraday trends (swing trading condensed inside a day, everyday. ( you do not sit and look like the 2 "red eyed" computer eyes on top of the screen) HA )

Popping into ET now and then what do we find? we find class is in session all the time. Find the right room to go to, in ET the classes range from raw butt butt naked rookie to well heeled advanced winners.
 
I've learned to simplify my trading style, I look for things that work and developed further. I've found ways to make money but only a few that I will trade, I trade what I know; if I ever wondered about my enter or exit then I don't know the stock well enough to trade.

I've learned to go with the flow and adapted quickly to the changing market conditions.

I have stopped doing what seemed like chasing the bunny rabbit. I'll stick with a trading style that is more consistent for smoother sailing, a niche that I think can go for the long journey.

Happy new year everyone. :cool:
 
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