my point seems lost here if you have a method and with positive expectancy and you make money : of course you should not do the opposite of what you are doing ! the thread is for traders with a method who keep loosing and wonder why. they loose because of what they are doing. not because of a stop, or target, but because of their expectation of what these things should be, and what the market is supposed to be. then reversing their thinking will help. reversing the thinking is the difficult part. it takes long. the psyche will always struggle to do the same things. that's why it is so hard to change a behaviour, even a very wrong and loosing one. so it is about reversing the thinking, not the trades. the result will be sometimes to reverse all your trades (I do that for one of my style in a time frame), sometimes to change your time frame or market or type of trades. it is about reversing the behaviour, including or not your trades. That's why I liked the comparison to 'trading your equity curve' because it does include all aspects of one's trading. this comparison is mine but the tntneo
TNT...I can give some facts that we reported to the regulators during those "hearings" (not about us, but about the industry). We may be somewhat of an exception (I like to think so), but here are real numbers. In the first year, about 50-60% decide to withdraw from the firm...some for reasons other than losing money. The Good News...is that after that first year (learning curve) we have a 70% success rate (success=profitable), after 2 years of course the percentage gets better. About 92% of floor traders don't make it the first year. 97% of "retail" traders lose money consistently (this should be better now that the "shake out" of all that nasdaq trading has taken place). 95 percent of all restuarants fail, and most new businesses fail in numbers very similar. For what it's worth.
Another thread refreshingly devoid of vendors but full of constructive debate. I did read somewhere that the biggest enemy in trading is one's self; thus tnt may have a means of combating the enemy within. Note: Loose = not tied down, or was fixed (a bolt for example) but has worked loose. Lose = fail to win ( a race or other competitive activity) Toby
thanks toby. english is not my native language. so I appreciate the correction. tntneo PS : Don, thanks for some facts which makes sense.
My correction of the useof the word, "Loose," was light hearted and by no means a censure on your general English. I and many others would be very happy to speak a foreign language to the standard of your English. happy trading. Toby
From some of the posts I've seen on this board, I think that TNT's statement "90% of traders loose", might be correct .
OK Im on the verge of geting it here : 1. Imagine an uptrend on the 1min ES chart. Now its starting to pullback a little and you think about entering long 2. BUT! the 5min chart says its actually a bearflag and basically what you should be doing is shorting it. There is certainly a point where it stops being a flag and becomes a reversal (i.e. new uptrend). Now, If im not completely off track here what tntneo was saying all the time IT WILL DEPEND ON YOUR BELIEF if its a resumption or a reversal. Am I right? So in order to really understand the markets IT CAN BE BOTH! You cannot know, ... you merely risk 1 in order to see if it turns out to be a pullback and to earn 2 or 3 or whatever. If youre wrong you loose your stop and move on to the next trade. If right than you win. Please correct me here and guide a little cos this is crucial in my understanding of the markets. Simply an odds game , nothing more, i'nnit? Alex P.S.Dang tnt you have kept me awake and thinking 2 nights in a row with your "mechanics" and Matrix-spoon thing...
in your refernce to the e minis, well if on the one minute or 3 minute it looks like a bounce but on the 5 minute a bear flag, well it could be both, see on the 1 or 3 minute it could turn out to be a bounce and coud ride up a bit but youknow that on the 5 minute its a bear flag, or that is your assumption. so you could be right on both instances, thats where using the shorter time frame is good for entry like you said, the bounce, but its a good idea to keep in mind the larger picture so that you know what is a reasonable expectation out of that trade. Hope that helps. Cau >>>
yes Alex ! you are starting to question the way you think. since that (old) made you lose, thinking the other way around will, at least, let you see the other side. the perspective from the trader who would normally take your money ! be careful not to go into a loop mentioned earlier, rightly so, by another member : trying to second guess yourself. "am I right now, or when I doubt myself or the initial trade was correct etc..". that's why a method is important. good or bad, if there is a method you can either keep it (if it works) or reverse your thinking about it. and, yes, a very important strike here : it is game of PROBABILITIES ! that's why there is no holy grail. there is no sure thing and there is nothing which works 90% of the time, forever. Actually high win% is important only to hyper active trading, and as a goal should be avoided if possible. In the long run it is usually a losing battle (another thinking to reverse you see). OK. let me dare to say it. Matrix is a traders movie :eek: When Neo in the movie wants to know what the matrix is : traders want to know how the market works, the holy grail, why, why, why... when he discovers the matrix is an illusion it is hard to accept. the market is an illusion. what investors and retail traders think is bs, they are lied to and on a huge scale (it's basically a pyramid scheme). it's hard to accept too. when trying to jump for the first time, he fell. well, almost all traders successful or not will fall and hugely real hard. I sure did. after some training (and reading) our hero starts to fight back, but really the agents (market makers, pro traders, etc...) kick his a$$. Trading is hard to get. even when someone tells you what to do, you think you understand, but others understand better and in fact, probably you did not get it yet. to make it short (hehe!) at the end, our hero finally gets it. there is no spoon. the market is not against you, the market does not make you lose. you do. and there is no need to dodge bullets (hehe again!). because you become in sync with the market because you are totally neutral. you short when it is more logical to do so, you are long otherwise (and you understand that sometimes being cash and just wait is also a position). it is then easy to follow your plan. no fear, no greed, just following the plan. you won't always win, noone does, but you can follow a winning plan in the long run. well, even that is similar in the movie. Neo did not beat the machines, he just knows he can now set a plan to stop this. again, if you make money now, all this yadayada is not doing anything for you. and that's fine, you don't need help anyway. For others, really think about it. tntneo
sorry for my english but i wanna try to say a few things. /Quote: if you constantly do the wrong thing, you have within you to do constantly the right thing /Quote constantly.... the average trader don't trade constantly they jump a round from one strategie to the next from on stomach trade to an other.... Why? because they cant take the risk or think in terms of 20 trades instead of 1 trade. They crowed make a backtest see a nice result, look on the drawdown and think no problem at all but it is a problem when the drawdown occur. Then they go to a forum read about a new strategy a new system chatroom membership and so on. The game begins from the beginning searching for the holy grale. You have to take risk if you don't like this put your money in bonds. May sound scary we are in the market to win not to loos. An other fact is commission and slippage. You have to take them both always against you regardless of the direction you trade your system. And an other thing is that good trading IMHO is boring. Many people out there seraching fur a action game buy this sell this, CNBC, News. Can you sit still and trade strictly your system when the market is juping up and you have to sit on the sideline? You see the money that you havn't made. Or if you are a a stomach trader can you take only the best trades and sit on the sideline most of the time? As a daytrader do you diversify or are you petting all on one horse in a near radom environment.... There are many reasons.... Don't understand me wrong I think the tntneo posting is good. It's worth thinking about. When you do this then maybe you ask yourself the right question. On last advice for all of the 90% trader.... go out and find a very good trader give him your money and do something that you realy like... Seykota sad something like this in the MarketWizard but I can't remember exactly. Hope you can encrypt my post. take care GB