That's a disempowering thought as well as not true from my experience. If you really feel that way, you might one to reconsider how you spend your time. I understand it is true for you from your experience. If it were not for the supportive and insightful commentary by older wiser traders here with tremendous experience, my level of progress would not have occurred at the pace that it did. The difference for me was my willingness to work via MADA to change my perception of the markets. The market is the ultimate teacher and only you can develop a productive relationship with it or not. This forum and others like it can lead you to water but it can't make you drink it. Discernment is the skill. If one comes from the viewpoint that the world is out to screw you the discernment that arises from that belief is different than the discernment that the world is out to support you. That said, I do have a fairly long ignore troll list. It definitely helps improve the signal.
An acronym from Jack Hershey for the NLP loop -> Monitor - Analysis - Decide - Act. The NLP loop builds inference at the pace of your trading timeframe. End of 5 min bar traders have 81 reference points to learn in the course of a day. There's order and there's randomness in the markets, MADA clarifies between the two. In my first logs, I tracked all kinds of indicators and compared them to Price Action. It was a very illuminating exercise. As for the MACD (as indicator), it's prolly one of the best when the settings are coupled correctly to the timescale. Imho, still one of the best threads out there on the subject. There's others I'm sure but this thread put a lot of it together for me in terms of indicators. https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/the-stochastic-indicator.14129/
Thanks, Sprout. BTW, MACD is just my "handle for ET". Not a tribute to using the Moving Average Convergence Divergence indicator. Indicators are not important to my trading. Happy that you have found your trading method through Mr. Hershey and NLP. Congrats.
I think yours is a common question, but nevertheless a hard one to answer. Recently I viewed some videos which laid out a path and perhaps you would like them to give you some ideas. Explained is how to do position sizing, setting risk/reward (stop and target), one of his methods (which combined two EMA with a reversal pattern) and so on. Adam Khoo Trade Like a Casino for Consistent Profi What it takes to be a Profitable trader Part 1 What it takes to be a Profitable trader Part 2 Identifying Support and Resistance Levels Technical Indicators for High Probability Trading https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-fc_TQSL2g Trading Breakouts. Catch Stocks Before They Make Their Greatest Gains https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWlW6H1cnlU Trading with Fibonacci Levels Stock Trading Strategies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVNOU9O5vkE Five Power Candlestick Patterns in Stock Trading Strategies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoGkfzJeR6A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adOETTJoj_k Habits and Emotions of Winning Trader https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siE2Xz8mpt4
Let me just say right off the bat that I do not read every post, for reasons I will not mention, so I apologize in advance if any of this is redundant. I actually trade foreign currency pairs in that I found it a lot easier to make money in the Forex market than trading stocks, but having finalized my approach in that market, I returned to equities just to see if my Forex charts (see first image) would work with equities as well. They did not, and I had to modify them (see second image), so I will just give you the principles behind what I do. (I have no idea how my current approach would perform with Futures, though I suspect it would fare better since one does not experience the daily gaps that come with equities.) One of the things I found most helpful was visiting the “trade rooms” of people like Anne-Marie Baiynd, AJ Monte, Scott Bartley, and Nick MacDonald when they opened them up for “free trials.” It completely changed my trading mindset and personality. Something else I found helpful was viewing video clips on YouTube recorded by the likes of Stephen Whiteside and Harry Boxer. As for the principles that turned my trading around: I developed a system based almost exclusively on statistical probability by comparing the spatial relationships between trend, typical price range, and horizontal support/resistance levels in multiple timeframes. Consequently, the only indicators I use are simple moving averages, and simple moving average envelopes. (I found stuff like Elliot waves, harmonic patterns, MACD and the like to be extremely overrated.) I like one-minute charts because they offer me the precision I need, though as you can see from the 15-minute EURJPY chart, I use other timeframes as well. I was told it’s impossible to find success using one-minute charts because you are just trading noise, but perhaps these were people who assumed that if they couldn’t do something successfully—no one could. I start off by finding a single moving average that best represents trend at the daily, hourly, and four-hour levels, and then work my way down. For example, SMA (6) on a one-hour chart would be changed to SMA (72) on a five-minute chart. I do not bother with standard moving averages, like the 10-, 20-, 50-, 100- and 200-period simple moving averages because common sense suggests to me that there is no way the same moving averages can apply to every situation and every timeframe. I also don’t bother with looking for higher highs and higher lows, or vice versa, because I see no need for this. On the second image (a TSLA one-minute chart) the first arrow indicates where I would have placed my stop loss—slightly below the most recent local low, for if price dropped below that level, it would indicate that I was obviously mistaken about which direction price was headed. The second arrow indicates where I would have entered a long position. Note that I have moved from using a single moving average to using a range of moving averages, typically in sets of three. (I find that my eye has a much easier time tracking price if I use multiple moving averages instead of just one.) Were it not for the closing bell, I would have exited the trade when the three GREEN moving averages began to hook downward. The three sets of three-fold moving averages make it easy to recognize when the asset is bullish and when it is bearish, but again, these moving averages were carefully selected by examining price action in multiple timeframes. I am typically satisfied with a 1:1 reward-to-risk ratio when trading foreign currency pairs given that my daily success rate averages between 70% to 100%. But again, this is all hypothetical when it comes to stocks, indices, metals and futures in that these are markets where I am not currently active. As for commodities, some of them can exhibit some rather, shall we say “interesting” behavior, so I pretty much stay away from them.
This thread started by NeedToKnow is turning out to be one of the most revealing and helpful threads ever seen on ET. Not that it is of interest to other "ET-er's", but I often wonder how valuable it may be to read and participate here at ET. (For the most part it is, in my opinion, a waste of time.) With that said, I realize that some will respond, "then leave ET and not waste your time." I continue to perhaps "waste" time here but amazingly every once in 100's of threads and posts a few are worthwhile -- so I quickly scan and filter those that are of value. So, why do I say that this thread is among the most valuable to an experienced, profitable trader. The last two posters aquarian1 and expiated are sincerely posting what their experience has provided to their trade system formation and generously, are willing to share it here. Sincere desire to be of help to the OP. It is true of many of the other contributors to this thread -- sincere desire to be of help. For me this thread allows me to gain an insight into the collective mind of traders here revealed by their honest disclosure of their trade plans. Whether based on Fundamentals or Technicals or "Just Price Action", Market Profile, or how to use indicators to profit, forget not using Jack Hershey's methods. Even poster Simple's thread embraced by some posters like Sprout. Whatever the basis of their system or thoughts are it leads to a conclusion that if it works for them it should apply to others. References to books, chat rooms, YouTube, etc. -- fill out a panoply of impressive thought on trading. Thanks all for that. For me, the value is the obvious confusion and variety of trading ideas carefully expressed in response to the OP's question. If this was a thread on the best way to improve one's, Golf Swing, or how to master Microsoft Excel, or what is the best car for resale and high miles per gallon -- there would be a simpler way to determine some consensus of opinions based on some criteria, previously agreed upon as a measure of what is "the best of" based on some objective measurable units. Most professionals in any endeavor, have an agreement as to what makes for the most validated skills needed. I used to race cars and the winning cars and drivers all had an understanding of the basics. Such as when to accelerate in a turn or how to drift their cars. Baseball batting swings and golf swings can be analyzed to show what makes for most generally acceptable form. I relish the confusion and diversity of thought shown here. It gives me comfort to know that traders who I am trading against have not codified and defined what is necessary to be successful. Remembering that for the most part trading (particularly commodity trading) requires a loser or multiple losers so that the few winners can make a substantial living. (Zero Sum Game). Viva the fact that the traders, in general, do not possess the Keys to trading success. It is believed that successful traders will not share any of their methods, for fear that if adopted, there would be Less Dumb money in the pot for them to win. Therefore if that be true, is this a forum to learn from? Now before those Troll Police leap on me -- Let me assure you that I am not here to Sell anything. BTW if any fool believes that they can attract paid clients from "trolling" in ET or other message boards they really are desperately stupid. This post is now way too long so, for now, I will rest my fingers from typing and come back to read any comments. In the meanwhile I have been communicating with NeedtoLearn privately -- so maybe that is the best way for me to be of some value. Thanks all for your stimulating posts that enlightened me to the state of the expert advice available here. (Not sarcastically put.) I truly value the efforts shown to be helpful to others.
It is true IMHO, but while they would not share the nuances ( and the devil is in nuances) they do share some thoughts on the issue , although I doubt it will benefit many readers, without those nuances and because of the fact that even for proper understanding of the generalities most readers luck sufficient trading experience
Keep it simple. In my opinion: 2 types of trades Trend continuation Trend reversal If you have had little success, trend continuation is easier. Short term, intraday is a fare amount of noise, start with longer term charts. Lastly, if you don't have an edge simply don't trade. (Need to test strategies first) Learn to differentiate between noise and when the big players operate, that's the trick. test, test, test, test + risk management = success. (Don't trade noise)
How do I develop my day trading strategy? Its easy. First... you write a program that sells when you hit the buy button and buys when you hit the sell button. Then.... studiously hawk all your indicators (macd, bollingers, ema's, sma's, flying squirrels, doji candles...) while diligently applying the summation of everything you've learned from hours and hours of study... and then when you are 110% sure you're right....Hit the button! You'll make a fortune.