There are intraday trends... If you don't believe me go study your intraday charts and you will see it. If the market moves up all day with slight pull backs what do you call that? The problem is most people only have one strategy to trade the market.. And that's a no no.. If you really want to be successful you have to have different strategies to trade different conditions..
Some points: 1 - In whatever timeframe, there's either going to be trend or chop going on. A quick glance at a chart in that timeframe pretty much gives you the lay of the land. 2 - Very long term, it's all chop right now: have a look at the Privateer's monthly Dow chart, which pretty much defines secular. Since 2000 or so, it's all been chop. 3 - Chop in a really long term chart, like the Privateer's, is a very very bearish indication. If you see something like that, prepare for the worst, hope for the best. Sustained high volatility in a long term timeframe is not a good thing at all, and this is about as long term a timeframe as you can get and still stay within an investing lifetime. Unless you're trading with your grandkids in mind, this is as long as it gets. 4 - Getting back to practical timeframes, the way I do it is to have a way of defining a trend and going with it, while at the same time having a very adaptable and fast way of measuring momentum with the idea of catching a breakout to the opposite direction almost (never really simultaneously, but as close as practicable) as soon as it happens, which helps although it doesn't totally solve the problem of chop. Of course, filtering for noise, which is what widening your stops would address, is a reasonable adaptation to making sure you don't get out of a good trend before it's over. I use options rather than stops so that I'm always trading the same system with the same parameters, with the options hedging against sudden moves against me. I could never use stops correctly, partially because my timeframe is more than a day but not by much, so I'm always holding overnight, but trading pretty frequently. Stops just aren't practical for overnight gaps.
Lot of misconceptions. A daytrader does not necessarily have to be one that trades noise or chopping intraday charts. A daytrader could be scanning daily even weekly or monthly charts searching for technical damage to obtain the necessary momentum to utilize extreme leverage while preserving risk in check the whole time. Technical damage in a daily or higher chart is rarely a fluke. Crazy A
If you are confident of your system, don't stress it. Your system should be the opposite of the casino. The longer you play the more likely you are to win. Takes away stress.
Cut the crap! Dennis was a failure trading for funds.Get your facts right.His original method has not been used since.They sell mentoring and services using the bullsheet of trend trading , and those thousands of books written by failed traders.
There are plenty of intra day trends , traders have to use tick ,1 m and 5 min and be a lot quicker and sharper to see them .It requires experience ,knowledge,skill and intuition to separate these intra day trends from noise.It is a combination of chart reading ,inter market analysis and trends , psychology ,instrument knowledge ,sentiment and confluence indications on the chart including longer time frame analysis.This is not something you can learn from books and courses.Show me one book which fully describes everything required .
You are far better off identifying periods of chop early and simply avoiding them. Money management is advisable at all times.
It can save you from losing as much , but such money management systems are not shared or known.They are too complex and controversial to discuss , they also require special discipline to implement.
100% spot on. Intradaybill- take a look at the 5min chart on GOOG last Friday... As opposed to an RTM strategy--this was 100% a trend following strategy for the day on the pullbacks. You need to expand your scope of reasoning.