Visaria is pulling your leg. Yes, it is a good strategy, it's like walking your dog around the same block week in week out, you get to know the neighbourhood.
Yes. To learn daytrading price action, I traded just one particular stock for an entire year. There is a benefit from reducing variables to a comprehensible level appropriate to one’s level of discernment. Another approach is to build a list of high-quality stocks that becomes your universe of reliable stocks to trade. IBD is a quality resource in this regard and can illustrate some of the basics.
Yeah....the goal is just to make loads of money....so who cares if you make it from trading one stock or whatever.
When you stop looking for the reason why what you're holding is going up/down. When you no longer think or talk about the intrigue of the market. When you no longer feel the need to look for events to make money. When your trading is as methodical as price movement is. When you don't tattoo your plan on your arm because you know there is always room for improvement. When you hear someone say about his holdings, "I'm not worried, the market was due for a correction". When you hear someone say about his holdings, "I'm not worried , it'll come back, it always has". When you discover the DNA of price movement. When you have enough confidence to help others. When you see gurus, analysts at brokers and the like as little more than glorified salesmen. When you hear someone say that his edge stopped working, and know that it was not based on the basics of price movement and therefore could not have been expected to last. When you realize that the last thing you mastered will not be the last thing you'll master. When you realize that there will always be trends in the markets as long as there are people who can't read them. When you can look at what would have been a worthwhile trade on an old chart and determine the TA reason for the move. When you can look at what would have been a failed trade on an old chart and determine the TA reason for the failure. When you can apply the above two in real time. When you realize that learning to trade is like learning a foreign language. You'll do no better than speak broken Spanish without a sound working knowledge of basic grammar. (to be continued)
I don't think all this is necessary to become a successful trader. I agree with the list and recognize most if not all of these statements. But to me it rather confiRms that improving your trading is a never ending story. There will always be room for improvement. When I started to trade and made several times improvements, I always thought that from that moment on I would not find any improvements anymore. I was sure I tried and analyzed everything possible. Now, after a few decades of trading and a lot of life experiences, I still improve and learn and I never say again: There is nothing that I still can improve. If I will not improve anymore it will be because I gave up. With the years, the energy and the motivation is less available then it was before. Most improvements came when it was not for the money anymore but for the challenge to beat the markets, to control my positions in such a way that the market could not harm me anymore, to beat all other traders, to try to do the impossible. It almost became an obsession, till my partner learned me to enjoy life and exchange trading time for quality time.
I appreciate your thoughts on the matter and the dilemma that you face. The focus on results is useful for critical thinking to a certain extent. From where you are looking it has high value. In effect it’s evaluating the end to judge the means. It seems like a no-brainer. So why doesn’t the world align with this logic? Wouldn’t it be simpler if everyone would just post their stats? There are three reasons why I don’t do it. 1) It takes one’s eye off the ball. 2) It doesn’t address the fundamental factor that differentiates success or failure of any chosen method. It’s not a ‘thing’ ‘out there.’ This notion of beliefs being a template by which one has the ability to perceive is best trained to experience. There are certain statements of fact that to those not experienced would claim are just not possible. This has the effect of taking one’s eyes off the ball. 3) Engaging in any type of pissing contest is counter-productive and further takes one’s eye off the ball. To gain a deeper appreciation of market structure and it’s system of operation is a skill learned by performing MADA. Whatever one’s system, the components are similar in the fundamentals of Monitor, Analyze, Decide and then Act. Trading timescales and the grandularity of distinctions might vary among methods. The market is like a group of blind folk touching different parts of an elephant and not perceiving the whole based on the sum of it’s parts. There is a ‘beingness’ that the observer and observed share. It’s in this ‘beingness’ I assert the answers to your more profound questions are found. Edit: In other words, it’s the difference between counting each bar or making each bar count.