Intuition Intuition is a form of knowledge that appears in consciousness without obvious deliberation. It is not magical but rather a faculty in which hunches are generated by the unconscious mind rapidly sifting through past experience and cumulative knowledge. Often referred to as “gut feelings", intuition tends to arise holistically and quickly, without awareness of the underlying mental processing of information. Scientists have repeatedly demonstrated how information can register on the brain without conscious awareness and positively influence decision-making and other behavior. - Is there a place for intuition in placing trades or should we always be cold and rational in our decision making? Do you use it in your own trading? Particularly interested in answers from experienced traders. Discuss.
I don't believe in "gut feelings", it is based on knowledge. I trade like a machine, you learn stats, patterns, decades of doing the same thing over and over, often times you are perfectly correct. When loss occurs, so long as I trade exactly with rules, good loss. My opinions suck, but my systems do well.
Good Morning Laissez Faire, Yes, I use 100% intuition (e.g., guessing, gut feel, etc.) in all of my trades every single day. IMO and experience attempting to trade systematic or from stats is far too much work and far too complicated and complex for "my" brain.
Can I borrow some of your intuition? I don't have any and cannot simply trade the market. I need rules.
Maybe all the traders that think they are cold and rational are using their intuition and all the traders that think they are using their intuition are the cold and rational ones...
Hello ironchef, Yes I can give you some of my intuition since you ask me. Give me a hour to respond, need to go wash the car. I be back.
That intuition comes from experience. You might think that is some sort of 6th sense, but it is just a response, coming from your library of knowledge. We tend to romanticize everything so that we can give these impulses a catchy name. In reality, you react to your inputs with an output that is based on years of experience. https://positivepsychology.com/intuition/
Trading based on intuition requires a lot of work all the time to keep it sharp. After a break from trading i tend to come back very strong starting out but get worse and worse over time. It's easier to follow and fix set of rules supported by a history of data then if things go haywire it is easier to focus on the variant. So basically intuition is unreliable.
Well, you're gonna find out sooner or later whether your "gut feeling" is reliable or not. But whether you use or place high value on intuition in your decision making should not be the main concern IMO. It's what you do afterwards. For example, if you enter a trade based on instinct and it goes against you, will you use your gut feeling to get out of the trade as well? Likely not. You would most likely be scrutinizing the chart from all angles. Should I get out at this support line? But wait, what about that trendline just below it? Or that pivot over there? (What's happened to your gut feeling?)
Not sure if you can be a profitable trader (long term profitable) mainly based on intuition. And, how do you know if it's intuition or simple guess? How can you control unconsciousness? No offense, but I think there are better questions to ask/answer for the ones who are aiming to be profitable, and/or be more profitable.