Personally, I don't think the markets are random. But, that's another topic. But, if you're getting 50% of your trades and making 3 points for every point you lose (3-1 reward/risk ratio), you're going to make plenty.
I would agree with this. Even if you have a strategy that returns 30% per year with a normal amount of volatility, when you break that down to a per day return, there is between 50 and 51% chance that a given day is an upday.
First, it has nothing to do with the software. If you have the indicators update on every tick, they will change until the bar is complete. You say the charts look great at the end of the day. Does that mean you could wait until the bar closed, then put on a trade successfully? That is simple enough. More likely, the successful trades look great and you skip over the ones that got chopped up or whipsawed. That is why backtesting s/w is useful. It takes every trade and displays the results. Personally, I think you are making this too complicated. Three fourths of the battle is understanding what the trend is on the daily and 60 minute, then having the discipline to trade only in that direction.
Good point. Waitng till the sar finally closes makes a lot of sense but the trix is another matter all together since it is two continuous lines. regards
i agree. THE DEFINITIVE ANSWER to this question is: NO, THEY ARE NOT TOTALLY RANDOM. END OF DISCUSSION, NO DEBATING IT, NO QUESTIONING IT. PERIOD.
I'm not saying the market is random. I'm saying that if you have a slight edge, any give trade is almost random. Otherwise you'd own the world in about 2 months.
Indicators are great for setting alarms, which is helpful on a day like today in that they free you to do other things. Otherwise, I've never found indicators other than the ADX/DMI to be of much help (though if I were in front of the computer all day, I could just draw trendlines). You've discovered the pitfalls of trading any system or strategy that involves crossovers of some sort. For that reason, I side with the posts on support and resistance. As to where to find the support and the resistance, just ask yourself which are the levels at which the greatest number of traders are most likely to enter or exit a trade. Where are they going to be most afraid of missing out on a move? Where are they going to be most afraid of giving up their profits?
It's not so much random as unknowable. It's assumed that in your testing of your system, there was a greater probability of winning trades over time. Therefore, the outcome of any particular trade will be unknowable, but, over time, the probability of success will be greater than that of failure, therefore not random.
I don't totally agree with that. For example, Trader Vic did a study of the Dow from 1926 to 1985. He calls it the "4-day rule"...He discovered that whenever the Dow had 4 consecutive up days or down days from an intermediate high or low within a 6 day period, there was a 75% chance the trend had changed. If you want to read more about it, check out his book...Trader Vic II-- Principles of Professional Speculation.