Quote from bone:
If you are fading a market to time a broad trend reversal, you are going to get your fucking head handed to you. You have to have a ridiculous pain threshold.
If you are buying into a correction in order to be on the same entry bias as what you perceive to be the longer term trend, the pain threshold is much more tolerable and the risk/reward skew is demonstrably greater. Demonstrably. As you can see by the numerous market timing calls made here on ET, the percentages in it are crap. Besides, you don't have to time major market reversals in order to make money trading - because many successful traders will tell you that they don't themselves.
Absolutely. I defy anyone to look at a long-term chart of whatever instrument they are trying to catch a major reversal (of course, they have to quantify "major"). Then, count all of the reversals that actually meet those criteria. Then, count all of the bars, candles, ticks, whatever, from the first reversal to the last reversal on the chart. Then, divide the number of bars, candles, ticks, whatever, that had reversals that meet your criteria by the total number of bars, candles, ticks, whatever.
You will find that your odds are better of finding a needle in a haystack.
Once I realized that, I never tried to consciously capture a "major reversal" again. Ironically, now I catch a good portion of them almost every time they happen because my methodology essentially forces me into the market in the early stages of big moves. So, problem solved. Over the past couple months, as price swings are getting a little larger, I've caught like 3 20+ point ES moves, which are big relative to my timeframe, and on none of the entries did I think "Oh man this is going to be a big move", it just turned out that way.