Quote from NoDoji:
Buy and hold makes sense for those who have to be right. It can still fail, but if you're very selective and hedge properly, you can end up "right" 99% of the time.
For those of us who are making a living and want extra to retire on, or who want to amass wealth in 5-10 years, day trading and short term swing trading produce the large returns.
How do you know when to get out? Seriously.
What makes you say "I thought price was going to go up, but based on this current drawdown and price action, I now believe it is more likely to continue going down"?
I assume you wouldn't exit a long position if you believed it was going to go back up.
In essense, you are predicting that it is more likely to keep going down.
Or, is it more like "I thought price was going to go long, but I am now unsure so I am exiting"?
In other words, it's not that you're always predicting up or down, but instead are sometimes predicting up, sometimes predicting down, and sometimes unsure (so you exit the market).
So when you enter a trade it's "based on my analysis, price is more likely to go up than to go down at this point." Then price goes against you and it's "based on this analysis, my original prediction was wrong, and now I don't have enough data to make a future prediction, so I am exiting just in case it keeps going down."
Is that correct?
In reply to your other post, I totally don't understand how scalpers can trade. Their small profit targets are just noise, and with their big position sizes, there can be huge drawdown in a short period of time. I'd love to watch a scalper work, because I can't imagine it being possible. What makes one think "I think price is going to go up two ticks before it goes anywhere else?"
I mean, I get, on a conceptual level, long term price predicting. But on a frame of seconds? It just seems like noise.
Now I sit back and wait for the vague posts like "well that just shows you don't get it." lol.