How To Not Chase?

From the perspective of the Timeframe of your primary decisionmaking chart, Would you say you are trading Reversals or Pullbacks?

 

Get a free account at chess.com and throw a challenge after placing your bid. Play a few games and come back.
Not a chess player? Then, go for a massage.

 

Intraday Trading.

True, this is why I posted on this forum.

I don't follow anyone, I look at tape and my definition of a trend. 100% programmable is quite difficult for me. I may try but not right now.

Pull backs, I do play some reversals if I see it can reverse.

Not chess but i do play a bit of poker. Good Idea, maybe I need to distract myself from bad setups.

I think my biggest problem is pulling the trigger at the point I want. I always want confirmation, but when the confirmation happens the move is already running out of steam, and heads into another pullback. Which is not good for my mental.

Thanks for the comments.

 

Show a chart or two each that worked and did not work?

 

I find it hard to have confidence trading this style. I always saw it as a 50/50 gamble, minus commissions and fees. You might as well play craps and roll the dice.

- You're at the mercy of whatever technical you picked.
- At any time a Portfolio Manager can suddenly enter/exit their position, leaving you in the red.
- You're up against quant firms with expensive hardware. They have a Ferrari, and you have a tricycle.
- Said quant firms hire Ph.D.'s in math and physics--hired specifically to beat out your dollar-store retail technical analysis.
- Where is your edge? Can you say with any level of confidence that you'll win on 4 of 7 trades? even 51 of 100?

I'd say adjust your trading style to a time horizon where you have an edge. Then you will trade with confidence, knowing that your trades are based on your work, experience, and mind.

 

Show a chart or two of your preferred timeframe that worked and did not work?

 

I don't have charts, but my best has been swing trading (weeks) based on my market insights and observations in my field (tech, telecom, finance).

Anything lower than that has proven to be a gamble. As a computer programmer by trade, this came as a surprise to me. I thought'd I'd write some algos to drain money out of the markets in milliseconds, and put me into early retirement. Maybe 20 years ago... not in today's markets! I ran into the problems discussed above--and a whole lot more.

Now my algos process data and observations into trading information. They are an input into my decision making. A far cry from what I set out to do.

 

Do you do any hands-on manual trading based on technical analysis?

 

I do hands-on manual trading, but not with technical analysis. I just don't believe in it; don't have faith in it.

...let me amend that statement: I do believe in technical trading, but I don't believe that retail tools can outsmart the heavy iron of institutional traders. I think that if there's technical alpha or arbitrage in the market, Citadel, Point72, Renaissance, et alia's LL algos will identify and soak it up long before I even get a price quote.

I refuse to play a game I can't win. That's why I moved my time horizon out to weeks. It's the shortest time frame where I have some edges. I play the big swings.

As I said before, it's like trying to win a race against a Ferrari riding a tricycle. Another example: ever try and play chess against a computer at full strength? That's what you're doing in technical trading--the hedge funds are the Chess computer, and you're the amateur.

 

Ver

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing these details on your setup. If I may ask, which ones have been the best years, i.e. more productive, of your trading?