To begin Nihab, I will kindly ask you not to post here. I originated the thread and am seeking information. I have never been part of the debate on this subject. I couldn't tell you the name of any of those debated threads. This subject is new to me. Please read the original post. Sorry for being so blunt. I just don't want more off topic posts like yours. No contribution whatsoever.
Sorry...its a public forum and until Baron saids otherwise... I choose to post wherever I feel like it. Anyways...nothing personal against you but if you want a private discussion... You can try private messaging (pm). However, if you want to hear more discussions about indicators or why they are useful or useless... My favorite quote by one former ET member that discussed price volume analysis (without the indicator debates) extensively... Have at it. Once again...as I hinted before...the thread went down that usual path in that second reply (please re-read carefully) that we all know too familiar. My last post in this thread because that debate about the usefulness of indicators is just too worn out and your more than welcome to get the last word in. NihabaAshi
Hmmm, why can't they start their own thread if this is such a burning topic? Its always amusing to see posters bitching about the content of a particular thread. Hey, if your unhappy, don't let the screen door hit you in the ass on the way out.
You quoted my entire msg. Please point out how I made this argument. I can't find it anywhere in my post. I'm all for whatever works for the particular trader - indicators, cycles, Gann, Fibs, EW, pv, moon phases, what-have-you, as well as any hybrids and bastardizations thereof. I am not so arrogant as to criticize others' successful techniques. If it makes you money, who is anyone to argue? I was responding to a specific inquiry - Hence my contribution - Your response is a prime example of the main reason I rarely get into debates on the internet anymore. From my earliest experiences on the net back in the day, w/Compuserve and Usenet, so many people who don't know how to have a debate invariably respond to statements apparently created in their own imaginations. They have an agenda, and that's what they argue. There's not really a discussion, there's no real "give" to their "take". I'd suggest to these folks that, instead of copy and paste for quoting, rather they read aloud the quotes to which they're supposedly responding, then type them out, slowly, to get a clue. For the more inept they might even try writing them out on a piece of notebook paper, repeatedly, much like Bart Simpson on his endless blackboard. (Though Bart never learns, does he?) H
Neither can I. Of course if you go back and re-read that fairly psychotic post, he wasn't replying to only you. He included me and apparently others as well, mixing up our posts with vigor. The first reply to the OP said something like "those indicators are usually useless by themselves", but it still takes a stretch (or, as you said, an agenda) to morph that into "[all] indicators are useless."
Indicators are like training wheels. That said. To trade price only, it is necessary to define a trend, and when that trend has reversed itself. Some use hammers and shooting stars. Some use numeric support and resistance levels. Some use multiple bar formations. Some combine volume with these. The biggest piece of advice is to develop your own methods. There are no shortcuts. Best Regards Oddi
Here, below, are some comments that will further make the point which I hold as a view that is very different than where you are residing. I appreciate your comments on my comments. Maybe you, by reading what I will insert below, get the fact that there are many viewpoints about making money. There is a fundamental consideration about how markets operate. This fundamental is missed by most people. As a consequence they get to where you are and operate in the manner in which you describe what you think and do. This sharp and grating mismatch is very limiting and over time it puts a person in a place where they only succeed at th level that you are succeeding. It may be possible for you to read what I am saying. I am also asking you to do something additional. Consider what I say as an alternative in the fabric of what may be a possibility. Maybe at some point and some time you will take what I say a sewriously possible consideration that is related to the effectiveness and efficiency of making money. You currently deny yourself these two considerations, rationally speaking. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quote from Grob109: It is hard for me to imagine how a person goes about dealing with the market from an entry and exit viewpoint such as both of you demonstrate. How does the thread starter get to the place of dealing with the content and references given here in this thread? It is all oriented to entries and exits. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What part confuses you? The part that you have to get into the market to make money, or the part that you have get out of the market to avoid losing money? Why it is hard to imagine (and I am not in a non confused state) is the following: I am in the market all of the time, mostly. I am in to make all that is available at any given time. So I choose to go into the market when it opens right after the transient of the cash and commodities markets coming into synchronicity. I do not leave the market usually. From time to time I do change my particular orientation to which direction of the market is the one that is making money, currently. My expression for this simple concept is "being on the right side of the market". You deal with making money and not losing money,apparently. I just deal with making money according to the direction of the market. as amazing as it sounds, most all indicators tell you two things quite simply: the direction of the market and when the direction changes. you may wish to note, by indicators, all the time in the future, when you are doing what is required of you by the market. So far you have missed that point and you are doing entries and exits instead all based upon opinions that you have garnered from trial and error. The comments that follow will, further, make this point How can anyone expect to make money trading if he doesn't consider TIMING (when to get in, when to get out, i.e., entries and exits) of utmost importance? He can do it by payig attention to what the market and indicators are telling him instead. Consider staying in the market at all times. Totally avoid going to the sidelines at any time. the thing that is of utmost importance is making money at all times and what is also of utmost importance is being in the market all the time and what is of utmost importance is always being on the right side of the market. What do these kinds of traders focus upon in the utmost? They look at "holding" all through the trend direction being told to them by the array of indicators that efine the trending of the market. They see, continually what is going on and what the direction is. as a trend slwos, stops, and a new trend begins, they follow suit by using a market tool that you have never used. this tool is not part of your equipment mentally or tradingwise. It is foreign to you so far in your trial and error approach associated with sidelining to prevent losses or to allow yourself, indepentantly of the market, to stop making money each time you chose to stop making the money that is there to be made after you leave the market People have different methods (TA; FA; both TA and FA; intuition) but they all are aimed at timing (entries and exits). This is not true for me at all. TA and FA are requirements for staying in the market at all times. People who spent time have to focus on making money all that time. You cannot recover lost time. It is unilaterally spent all the time. And it is non recoverable. Effectiveness and efficiency are new to you at this point. thses are two terms associated which spending time. The market is disgorging money like a cement mixer unloading during the open hours of the market. You do what you do inconsideration of a few minutes of each day. the minutes you are entering and the minutes you are exiting. In between, you are generally missing the boat and using a substitute for what you could learn to do. You waste time as the cement mixer is unloading money into other peoples accounts. you trade like a guy with a wheelbarrow. I trade like a guy who fills forms with concrete. All the time the concrete truck is unloading, it is done in the forms I have available for the whole load. You are picking up a wheelbarrow load once in a while and putting it in your equity curve. have you noticed that there is concrete all over the ground between your wheeling loads? The market does not turn off when you sideline. It keeps dumping money in the forms that I have build using a "hold" and "reverse" strategy. Money management is necessary as well but it means nothing without good timing. I have a big surprise for you. Money management has nothing to do with the use of your time and when you take the actions that you do. I am illustrating to you other sets of words around the market myth you believe makes of for trial and error learning approaches. Money management occurs as a practise that requires but one thing: Don't be in the market when you do not know what is going on. Beginners begin with least money, only trade when they know what is going on. the more you know what is going on, the more time you are allowed to spend making money. I am glad you exit; it is definitely a time when you do not know what is going on. Loo at your equity curve, it is not rising in slope continually ans you spend more time in the market. Two current difficulties with effectiveness for your and with efficiency for you. to get out of the place where you are and to consider reading what the market tells by indicators and charting and fundamentals, you have to go through a total overhaul. That is not possible and is not going to happen. There was a fork in the road for you way back when and you took the wrong fork. You talk about "edge trading" as if it was some sort of silly hocus pocus. Try using money management on roulette or casino craps or any other endeavor where you demonstrably don't have an edge, and see how long it takes you to go broke. If you have a successful trading strategy that doesn't boil down to dumb luck, you have an edge. It's not a dirty word. Were effectiveness and efficiency the measures of what quality trading is, then edges would be absent from the running. People who edge trade missed the boat you as you have. the objective is to use al he time available to continually extract money from the market. It is not difficult to imagine that it requires help of charts and indicators to determine "when to hold 'em and when to reverse 'em" as Kenny Rodgerswould say. Kenny didn't say "when to enter and when the exit". The way money is made, big time, in the markets is to be in the market all the time and to not "spend" time on the sidelines. what you now think of as an exit, could be, but it isn't, a place to continue to make a different kind of money. Getting far away from considerations of losing is what I have put on the table for you. For your life, it is out of reach for you by your choices, and, therefore, my views are repungant to you. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quote from Grob109: Indicators invariably provide information about the market's preformance and activity. They are primarily useful for telling the viewer whether or not he is making money, how fast he is making money and when he has come to the point of not making money. Run a tab on how many minutes of the day these conditions prevail. You will find, that expressed as a percentage, it is almost all of the time. Compare that to the entry and exit percentages which border on being nill in comparison. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My equity curve tells me whether or not I'm making money, how fast, etc. I somehow don't confuse my equity curve with any of my indicators and still do just fine. Fine is a relative measure. Nice wrap you start with confusing and end the same: first me and then not you.