Why do you care so much about having an "edge?

Quote from highlifejoker:

mental has zero to do with anything. mental is a lie pushed by the broker to lure more dumb money.

mental is excuse for losers, edge holders win,


edge is all you need. think about it, do you need mental to pick up 100's from the floor? NO, but you need an edge on how to find the 100's.

mental, ya ya ya ya, as your account dwindles, ya ya ya.
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It is obvious you are a not a trader.


No matter how good your edge is if you just get out of a multiple year relationship with a woman you were extremely in love with because you found out the bitch was cheating on you, if someone in your close family is very sick from cancer, if your strategy is having an off week, if you are tired one morning and it makes you slow so that you miss your out and start the day down your daily target, in all those cases you won't have the same mindset on the next trade as you did before the problems were triggered.

As long as you are human you will feel emotions while trading and no trader can keep his emotions from affecting his decision making 100% of the time because it is impossible to be aware of every single trigger in that will make you view the markets from a distorted perspective. Since no one has experienced every possibility we all can be struck or ticked off by something we have never experienced before. When someone undergoes a drastically unique emotional experience for the first time no matter how calm and cool he was in other situations because what he experiences is new and frightening he will be susceptible to errors.

The easier and more mechanical the edge the easier the discipline is - to a certain extent at least.
 
You dont need edge.
All you need is prayer.
God will make you money.
Prove im wrong.
Ask Jem. He is right, and the top 1% of scientists in the world are wrong.
 
mental dont exist anymore, it is a tale from ancient times when traders made their decisions manually as the market action evolved.

nowadays, most of the professional community relies on some sort of ats to run the operation. i believe around 90% of the volume in the eurex and globex is computer based. thus, trading is becoming an emotionless activity that is solely based on code supremacy, aka binary edge. also, there is no static edge anymore. the dynamics of competition fueled by hoards of brain and computer power alters the rules of the game on a constant basis. sustaining an edge on the long haul in such environment is increasingly difficult and it is totally based on survival of fittest (fittest code, that is).
 
Quote from NoDoji:

Jon,

Support and resistance constitute the "head game" of those who are playing the same game as you. Trading equities, support and resistance levels within your trading time frame tell you where the majority of people playing the game wished they'd gotten in or out of a position. Support is that price level where people wish they'd gotten in before and they pile in now; resistance is that price level where those who piled in at the high end of the last uptrend and got burned desperately want to get out at least at break even.

When a support level is broken, stops get triggered and prospective buyers will wait for the stock to hit the next lower support level to pile in. When a resistance level is broken, buy stops are triggered and the short squeeze ensues. The price may then pull back and resistance may be tested again. If resistance is tested strongly more than once it tends to weaken, because the many of the shorts covered. When that weakened resistance level is then broken, prospective buyers may fear the stock price will run away from them and they may pile in at that point.

Will the breakout hold up? It will if there are now more buyers wanting in than there are people who bought at that level before and got burned.

I've never traded e-minis, but I would guess the same S/R behavior applies to investors and longer term traders with regard to these market indices as a whole.

The mental toughness you need as a trader is the patience to wait for strong setups based on S/R levels, improving your probability of success, rather than the desire to "make something happen" where action is unwarranted.

The other mental toughness you need is the ability to cut losses based on an advance plan WITHOUT HESITATION.

Donna
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nice post....
 
Quote from jonbig04:

Really. I know having an "edge" is necessary for being a profitable trader. It's true that we should all be constantly tying to refine and make our edge more effective...however that's all anyone ever talks about on this site. T/A, PA, fundamentals, support/resistance...all that is fine and good but it seems to me that your edge is a small factor in determining your trading success. The main and most important factor is your mental state, how you THINK, your head game. Yet edge and method threads outweigh mental threads probably 20 to 1. Is this the reason why so many traders fail?
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Good points Jon,

Most people would rather focus on improving easily quantifiable elements of their strategy or money management rather than delving into their messy psychological hangups. I can think of a lot of traders who try different time frames, indicators, P/L multiples etc etc. Can't think of many who are working on their emotional/psychological issues.
 
Quote from highlifejoker:

mental has zero to do with anything. mental is a lie pushed by the broker to lure more dumb money.

mental is excuse for losers, edge holders win,


edge is all you need. think about it, do you need mental to pick up 100's from the floor? NO, but you need an edge on how to find the 100's.

mental, ya ya ya ya, as your account dwindles, ya ya ya.
More...

LOL, I know quite a few traders who enter a trade that literally allows them to scoop up 100s and, due to their mental hangups, end up getting out with a tiny profit or even a loss because they don't have the mental discipline to actually stick with said trading edge.
 
Quote from doli:

Capital is more important than any "edge."
Sometimes I think that only losers tout their "edges."
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no.

capital flows to those with edges.

many many wealthy people have lost their fortunes in the market.

capital isnt edge.

HLJ
 
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