A completely discressionary trader can succeed. Use a scanner and find strong looking stocks that are going up on the day, eg.- AU, SNDA and several others today. Jump in with at least 1k shares each and hold for a 1/2 point or untill P/L looks good.It's purely a bet that they will continue up. When one pulls back below your buy price hop out immediately, and look for some more - only some of them will trend up, and that's where you make your money. For that all you need is a good scanning tool to find what's moving, and basic charting. Some days are better than others for number of stocks going up, but most days you can gamble on a few of them for a 1/2 point and win.
Yes I have (one) - but his entry and exit rules are the key to how he takes money out of the moving averages having crossed over.
Right. Nothing has changed only now there are well developed cannibal algorithms eating through anything that moves and is defenseless. Although the penny pitching business will always be around because there are always individuals that will do that type of work other traders have had to adapt to new risk factors, instruments, the list goes on. But, if nothing changed for you mazaltov. There are Montana traders that trade four times per year in their area of expertise and nothing has changed for them either except everything.
as I mentioned in another thread where they were asking if a Lineair Regression was better than a Moving Average: (http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=810448#post810448) and here is what my system indicated as a higher probability some time ago when it was mentioned that the Euro would go down again: (not a prediction!) http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=799493#post799493 Next week back to intraday trading again and out of hibernation (seems IB's TWS has been working to satisfaction again. Thanks to all the traders for being beta testers and reporting their results here ) And now it is back to hibernating on ET again (too distracting while trading) All the best girls and guys Sherlock
I am new to the forum and this is my first post. One of the things I have found in general about trading is that those who can't criticize most vehemently those that do. If your reading thru these trying to sort out who might be able to help you, that might be useful information. I was a prop trader for a bank for 10 years and traded on my own for the last 9 years. I spent 10 years before the prop job learning, getting a fresh stake, learning etc. Almost everyone I worked with in the bank, which was one of the worlds largest institutions, was a discretionary trader. Most used no chart whatever. I consider myself a discretionary trader. Though I do use charts and have tested empirically the basic premise that I trade around. I consider myself discretionary. I get out when the trade is wrong not at a fixed stop. That might be 20 seconds and 2 ticks, or 30 minutes and 20 ticks or more. Same with the profits. Mostly I look pretty short term, because mostly that is all the market is willing to give without backing and filling and creating new trades. However I can often read what each trade might be willing to give in a particular instance. Five ticks is often plenty, but I can also hold for 50 ticks. I can't say how to quantify how I can tell, except the way the market "feels". I use the same stuff for 15 years across different financials (bond, index, currency). If your looking at indicators my experience was I got a LOT better when I stopped looking at too many things. One chart, one indicator, maybe a trading band is plenty. Get to know it, and it will teach you to develop a sense for the market without you being distracted trying to cover all the bases with too many different charts and indicators. I believe one can trade with very, very high accuracy once one is in sync with the flow of the market. I hope this helps someone a little bit.
Hi Joe and Brett, Your posts on discretionary trading have been really interesting to me. But there is a false impression that there is a very loose strucuture to this and that often cause trouble for me and I assume other traders when tried to shoot from the hip. So I doubt that is what you are suggesting. Maybe it's a dumb question, I just want to get an idea how picky are you? May I ask on average how many trades do you make with this type of trading on any one market each day? Are they mostly high probability and small profit scalp? Or you tend to look for bigger trades? Or both? What makes you take this route? How long does it take to become in tune with this type of trading? Thanks. Regards, William
Muskoka Joe That was a very very useful post. Thanks. Are you in the market most of the time, switching direction, or are you only in occasionally? The bank traders you mentioned, were they actually trading directionally or were they making markets?