BigHog... you nailed it. Trading is not about capturing every last tick or top and bottom-ticking. It is about making money. Period. And that is done through capturing what the market offers. Capture 50% of the days range with (only) 2 cars and your take is 100% of what the market offered that day. Whether it's one trade or tens of trades doesn't matter. That is an accurate quantitative measurement of successful trading. And as you mention, one with opportunity for real improvement as a trader. It's interesting your post is buried some 10+ pages back with no acknowledgements. Says something about ETs collective mind. Trade On!
Has always been my contention, there are only 2 edges in the marketplace.. and both are illegal. Front-running, and trading on insider info. Doesn't mean you can't trade profitably, but I agree with you... "there ain't no (legal) edge".
so this am on "Tastytrade" Tom Preston of TOS said he/they had done a fairly intensive comparison of "edges" between 4 casino games being very generous with the casino games (assuming expert players) and trading short index options. Results: Slots = ..............................................-10% Craps (playing only don't pass line)...-1.36% Black Jack (liberal rules)......................-.28% Texas Holdem.....................................- .50% vs..Short Index options taking adv of prob and vol....+4%
They would say smth like that, wouldn't they? Somehow, I am a little skeptical about their conclusions...
I post my real-time stuff in one of the largest websites in the world... youtube. Not a little message-board sandbox
http://www.youtube.com/user/CMTrades If this violates ET no-advertising policy, please delete post mods and accept my sincere apology. Anyone can watch the videos and take from them what they may. The past ten (10) sessions of live-trading recorded, wins and losses, are meant to example many things. One of which being it's ok to not trade every price wiggle, all day every day & night. Another being it's part of the business to have losing trades and losing days. It is week over month results that matter. By no means to I mean to insult or disparage elitetrader in the prior post: but reality is, live trade calls inside this specific forum is not the pinnacle apex of sole truth in the financial world. Just because someone's doesn't post live calls here in whatever semblance of real-time the timestamps are, does not mean it never happened in the real world at all. This is one place for traders to post... there are others, too