I don't have vast trading experience but neither I'm completely new to the topic and I realize that the idea I've been maturing over time is that to have profits and even good profits it would probably be enough to master one single technique. In fact it is probably better to constantly leverage one single technique than many, and maybe the single most important reason to trying your hand at many different techniques is to exactly identify the most effective one. Does it make sense to more experience traders in this forum? I'd appreciate having your point of view on this. nt
Start with one. Since nothing works all the time, after you "master" one, whatever that means, learn others and test them.
Are you referring to trend following, swing trading, etc. strategies as techniques? It's difficult to have a single technique that would perform well in all market conditions. Unless, you are willing to stay on the sideline when that particular technique is not doing well. Over the years, one should accumulate enough tools to operate in that technique. The most important of all is the sense for the market condition and this experience takes time to learn.
A lucky one trick pony who started trading full time back in 2010, coincided with the start of this bull market. I have no idea what to do when this bull run stops. That is why I am desperately trying to learn trading flies, condors...
Master one simple technique. Understand why it works and how it could be improved. Maximise its returns. Be aware that the more detailed the strategy or the more specific it is to a certain market, the more vulnerable it is having simply been curve fitted or optimised to a unique situation.. Some simple strategies work on all markets but not all markets will always be in a tradable set-up all the time. The simplest answer to this is simply maintain a watch-list of just enough markets so you can trade enough. When young gunslinger traders say trends only exist for 20% of the time, having just 5 uncorrelated markets on your watch-list would compensate for that.
That's my opinion too, except that for me the word "simple" should be removed, as my experience is that "simple" does not exist if it should be performing above average, and work in any markets. It took me almost a decade to completely fine tune my first, and only, trading system. First many years to build the basic version, and then again many years to improve, remove, rethink, reanalyze, retest the trading system, and to learn how to trade it quickly (discretionary) and faultless. So I always wonder how people can build a few powerful trading systems. Each system should be build on another strategy, if not it is just another derived system that just uses a few other parameters. Developing a totally different trading system is very time consuming and needs a lot of creativity and inspiration to avoid falling back on the previous trading system. I always think it is like telling “I am a good tennis player” and” I play basketball good too”. But the question is: what is “good”? For me it is clear that for many here it means that you can beat your neighbor in tennis or basketball, but for me “good” means play tennis or basketball in the top 20 of the world. That probably explains also why many here don’t believe me if I would post my performance. They have another definition of “good” and maybe never went as far as I did. So they never exploited all the potential of what is possible. PS: I have one trading system but it covers all kinds of markets. So if I would split it in different trading systems I would in fact also have several trading system. But I put everything in global system that covers all kinds of markets and trends ( or non trending).
When talking of markets you mean forex, futures, stocks, options? Sorry I'm still trying to learn..... nt