"patterns fail because they don't exist.. they are a creative illusion in the mind of the trader who desires a repetition of order in chaos.. just as the brush strokes of a master painter are wholly his own, the interpretation and recognition of chart patterns belong to the trader.. to understand their meaning, one must first understand the artist.. -qwik " Thx qwik and oneway.. explaines it well..
This is one of the better threads I've seen in quit a while. So much so that I've taken time to post this. There has been much said about a Holy Grail. It seems you can't read a book or a magazine without it being mentioned, yet everyone seems to emphatically agree it does not exist. I'm here to tell you it does; just go to my web site... just kidding. There have been 31 trading days thus far and p2 is already up 120% some of this accomplished in a mild drunken stooper. Remember- there is no Grail. The Bright brothers have managed to build themselves quit a trading "empire"- No Grail Cooper, Raschke, Conners etc. have all managed to amass small fortunes with out a grail. The Holy Grail is quite simply ones methodology. If it is making money, especially 120%, consider it a Grail. There are as many methods as people, thus this grail is going to be different for everyone. What works for me is not necessarily going to work for you. Go back and reread mbt3's first post and SGD's post. Of course there's plenty of confusion as to developing this system. Nitro claims 99% of books are not worth the paper their written on. Echo33029 claims 60% of his knowledge comes from books. Who is right? They both are. Can anyone claim that their methodology is completely their own? Most are variations of ideas picked up through books, seminars or magazines. You may have to read 30 books, getting one piece out of each to develope your system. So until you come up with your holy grail you are slated to the search. The Holy Grail lies within the search.
[bold]nitro[/bold] i didn't mean no disrespect, yes, you are very fortunate to have "chicago experience" and i doubt that any book is going to teach you something useful to you and your particular trading style. but i wouldn't tell anybody not to read a book i don't like or attend any courses, because that book that course might be the turning point to that person... if the bright way makes you money, good... i have never trashed bright because i am open to the possibility that some people (not me) can benefit from his courses, prop firm etc. but it's quite another thing to say that the bright course is the only way to riches, and that it's futile to try to learn from books, newsletters, etc. that's not a good attitude imho. if you throw $10,000 in worthless stuff and making stupid trading mistakes but at the end find a way to suck money from the markets reliably i think it was money well spent.
here's the secret that everyone is always looking for- and only those who lose consistently have the real key to THE holy grail decide on your position for a trade and just do the exact opposite - short for long, and long for short, raise the number of contracts when you would have lowered them, and vice versa
Books, books. There is a lot of wisdom contained in books like Stock Operator and Wizards. You can tell a book is good if you can read it several times and get something new out of it each time. They have depth, layers of meaning to be dug up like a treasure. Most magazines, Stocks is a good example, despite all of the pretty pictures, are empty, vacuuous, or at best shallow. They make promises and then don't keep them. The good books make no promises, but they are where the good stuff is, but you have to labor to get at it. Most people aren't willing to do that.
Read the above again and see how you feel about it , it may be the reason you are where you are today in your trading
buzzy, non taken Not true! Just not Larry Williams books or similar types of books about _CHART_ patterns. Agreed on all points. But where do I tell people not to read trading books? I just claim that 99% of them are trash _TO_ME_. If someone has a parallel experience, where they have tried "all the books," but are stuck, I offer my _OPINION_ (and knowing that someone out there has suffered as well along the same path) Again, agreed on all points. But I never said this was the way he or she should do or not do, only _WHAT_I_DO_AND_DO_NOT. I am glad you are disagreeing with me, 'cause then there are people out there that you are representing that feel differently than I do, and they may well trade for a living trading flags and pennants and reading this guys or that womans' newsletter... Agreed! I will be the first to ceed to success! I will say it again, you will find in the markets the person you are, not the way the market _IS_. nitro
i agree l.w. is the poster boy of snake oil marketing, l.w. books it's so obvious they are 100% b.s., but some pattern books have been useful to me, i always get ideas from crabel, raschke, connors to give a few examples.
The only Holy Grail system that works the majority of the time is to open up your own chop shop or trading firm. You teach people how to scalp because you can ring up some serious commissions here and if you have time write some books give some seminars then that's just extra gravy. The question you may ask is that "if you can make all this money trading why waste time writing books and giving seminars". I believe the correct response should be you want to help people be successful. The best people to recruit are college graduates because you can sell them on the dream the easiest and they live with their mommy and daddy while they go to your chop shop so you don't have to worry about them not having any living expenses. They can scalp and scalp all day long while you rake in their commissions. It's quite an interesting concept ain't it.