True
Why most traders are losers
- Thread starter tomsmith
- Start date
True
Thats true. Self-taught? Or with a firm?
:eek: :eek: :eek:
Yes. Although it can go both ways. An intuitive trader can 'feel' their way to profitability. Whereas, more pedantic types need more structured rules to execute.
Wrong.
Retail turnover comprises >5% of volume. At least in FX. Does it follow 95% of traders are therefore profitable?? No, to that. Yes and no to your above postulate.
Hi Chris,
You're not far of the mark. Just because someone is a discretionary trader, it does not follow that they will lack a strategy, or discipline. On the contrary, it actually takes more discipline and better strategies to survive in the markets' dynamic and potentially confusing environment! Having gone thru charting, TA and then on to discretionary, I often compare various methods particularly TA to my current method, not suprisingly TA shows itself to be about as reliable as a drugged up street whore, with the accompanying misery. Buy low - sell high, business people do this successfully day in day out, not a chart or TA in sight, work it out for yourself.
p.s. The comment re strategy posted earlier in this thread indicates how these approaches are diametrically opposed.
Regards
Johno
There is so little of the standard TA ideas that are not entirely random that it is just awful. To dig out TA that you can actually use you have to be one heck of a researcher imo. You definitely have to be a programmer and you definitely have to spend an awful lot of time at the computer... I'd say that a high number of people just aren't cut out for it, the work involved is similar in length of time and amount of effort that the typical Nobel Prize winner puts in... I'd say that the reward is much higher than any prize but the chances of success are pretty small really...
You know I hate to say this because people will think I'm blowing wind, but I actually have a sysytem for shorting stocks based on a specific criteria that has been working on paper for the 4 years I've been keeping records of it. Unfortunately, I only trade in my IRA now and it doesn't allow shorting and I haven't ran the system using puts to see if it will still work.
Standard TA - In this definition lurks the error in this approach. Everybody has their own definition of what TA is, in the same sense as every woman has her own version of what feminism entails. Consequently, we find people trying to use chaos to create order out of chaos. On both counts I ask, how has it worked so far.
Further, Price and Volume are simply end products of the trading process and are not required (actually get in the road) to understand market behavior.
An example - Brokers report this morning - " the markets in the US fell heavily overnight albeit on light volume". I couldn't care less, as based on market conditions I started looking for opportunities to enter short positions from 17/6/2009. The fact that the markets were down overnight says nothing reliable about what they will do next! Remember the very next tick can be the start of a move up or down! Price and Volume only show you the outside of the market, you really need to see into the soul! Anyone with a grasp of the markets' nature should have recognized the three recent stages - bull trend changing to consolidation around 21/5/2009 and then bear trend around 17/6/2009 which at this stage continues! If you can teach yourself to recognize these phases without price and/or volume, then the rest should be obvious!
Best Regards
Johno