I think most people on this forum will agree, it's even harder if you follow the market all day. No matter how successful you may be, this statement sounds very very wrong!
I need to provide some context. haha. While it's consolidating I'm still up. I'm NOT down. If I'm down then I will exit right away. What I'm struggling with is if this consolidation period is the long channel before it breaks out again? Or is this consolidation period is a preclude for a downturn. Everytime it gets to the lower range of the channel it bounces up. That's why I'm hesitant to exit right away. So there's support at the lower end of the channel. Let's see.
If you're trading a 1-minute candle, a "trend" could be 10-15 minutes long. If you're trading a 5-minute candle, a "trend" could be an hour or more. ... So: 1) don't let your [choice of] time frame lend you any tunnel vision that excludes other time frames. 2) if you are T/A-based, you will be "a few steps behind" by construction, right? and, 3) Rather than thinking about a Wash Indicator (which, it occurs to me, nobody has done yet -- but it's an interesting idea), think about the output of a trend indicator when it indicates a weak trend: where is it? What is it doing? How often, and how reliably, does it get there? If that is a Go/No-Go switch, it's an area worthy of investigation. I haven't thought about questions like these for years, and it's been fun and exciting to hunt stuff down. I think I have a fair answer, but have not had nearly the time to investigate other time frames or other markets.
I realized I have "accidentally" become a position trader! And I don't like it! LOL! Because of my work schedule, I have switched to swing trading. Lately I have been so busy that I didn't manage one of my trades well. I should havw gotten out of the local highs. It has been consolidating then it's coming back down and almost back to my entry point?!!! I mean it's still up-ish. But this is NOT the intent of the original trade. It broke out initially but didn't really continue to rally. At that point I should have gotten out. This is the same thing with intraday trends. When it's at extreme, I usually get out. Everytime I wait for longer than at the extreme points it comes back hard. Even though on a longer horizon it will still go further with the trend I don't like sitting through a big pullback even within a major trend. Can't stomach it. This tells me I'm more of a swing trader waiting for a few days to a week(maybe 2 weeks max). Waiting longer than that and everythign reverses or I miss out on the optimal exit points. Lesson learned! But being a swing trader and holding for a few days to a week has much more profit potential than trying to daytrade. Just like when I was daytrading I found it more profitable to do intraday swing than intraday scalping. LIkewise, I find intraday trend easier to stomach than holding for hours on end with potential pullbacks and reversals. Same concept. Just different timeframe. Yesterday I got out of one of my position for a slight profit. I have been holding for it too long. It started to come back then I got out entirely! Of course this morning it reversed hard. Which is good. But my biggest position I'm still stuck. I sat there too long...
This is so funny ... It's like listening to myself when I was swing trading. I had discretionary entries but strict exit (both profit and loss) rules. And still I drove myself crazy with should haves. When I added day trading to get "better" entries and exits, it just became insane (I was working full-time as well but had access to my trading platform). I learned that waking up and seeing all my positions gap at the same time was not my thing. Very possible I was doing it wrong in the first place. I think one has to accept the reality of a particular trading style and live with it. You can try doing some acrobatics and it may help in some situations but will be a drag on time and performance over the long term. From what I can tell you, the less decisions you make, the better you will be(at least mentally). Follow your rules and let the system do it's thing ... And divert your attention to something more pleasant than trading
It shouldn't. It's the trading pattern of someone without a plan. DO plan the trade, and then trade that lovely, sweet plan. Expectancy expectancy expectancy.
I've struggled with this as I had discretionary entries ... had to see certain things happen that would trigger me in. General market conditions also would play a role. So I couldn't (didn't know how) really test this. Had no idea if I had any edge or not. Couldn't tell if I'm doing something wrong or the market is just in a phase. Couldn't continue like this any longer and gave up(perhaps at the worst time). Dropped to intra-day time frame where I could quickly (within a few weeks) know if it works or not. You can only trade you plan if you know the plan has an edge. Otherwise, it's very hard to stick with it. How did you know you had an edge? How long did it take to find out?
Expectancy! When you can fiddle and twist and convert and smooth and rework and check on other time frames and tweak for other markets ..... and work up a solid w*$W > l*$L. Using end-of-day candles/data, and taking the next day's opening price, it takes maybe 2-4 hours to work up a years worth of trades on the S&P500 or FAANGs. Be patient, be insistent. FWIW, I am with IB, and the ability to offload historic prices from IB is limited to API mechanics that involve a lot of work. ("A *lot* of work.") So I have recently made friends with https://www.tradingview.com -- it's a hoot. I am not one for giving my homework to somebody else to complete, but it's likely that a free tradingview use will save me months of time setting up a trend-testing suite in a spreadsheet.
Yes, you do have a point about a trade plan. I do have one but it's based on chart patterns. I think it should be coupled with better risk management and expectancy. Anyhow, so this morning the instrument I have been holding went back up and basically erased all of the last 3 days of losses. So I'm back up again. But yesterday was scary. It went below my entry point. But I didn't get out because the chart pattern still showed the trend was up and this was just a pullback in the uptrend. And today I was proved right. Now I realized as a swing trader I should have gotten out at the swing high. And buy back at the swing low of the uptrend. Instead I was still holding on. Now this is position trading. The next question I have is should I unload some while it still in profit? Or should I continue to hold since the long-term pattern is still up. And now that I just sat through the pullback. But this doesn't mean it can't pullback again... I'm so glad I have a normal corporate job.