You can not take words out of context and give us your way. WHAT i said was STOPS in certain instances are basically useless in high vollatility situations so the PLAN must be changed. There is NOTHING FUNNY how things work. Time to trade..
My issue with bias is when certain news comes out that's bullish or bearish and price is moving against the tone of the news. I now trade against my bias if price triggers the trade, but for the longest time I'd watch price just trend and trend half the day and I'd wait (sometimes for hours) until a trade that fit my bias set up. Now I'll see a setup and I'll trade it. In fact, I often bracket orders for a break in either direction just to prove to myself I'm over the whole bias thing. Just recently I had my best CL trade ever because when price came close to triggering my "biased" order, then started in the other direction, I threw on an order the other direction just in case. I assumed if it was triggered it might result in a small scalp, because surely price was going to end up in the direction I thought it would go. Well, the trade opposite my bias triggered and ran like a freakin' bat out of hell. Which is why I advise anyone I know who trades CL to use hard stops, but NEVER use hard profit targets ADD: In my experience, CL requires a 20-tick stop to survive now that the price and volatility have picked up so much.
Yep, there is not a single trader that "at first" thought the news, the reporters, the so called quests that pay to get on those bullness channels to sell their wares actually knew what they talked about. That was their job, to give us all a bias to BUY, BUY, every dip, every crash. BUY. We traders might not have a Union but we sure as hell pay our share of dues to stick around for the gravy train. Yes, that is a most difficult trade NOT to take, the one with the ingrained bias...........happy days when we all got over that hump and just did the TA stuff. PS: My comment about 35 tick stops was meaning unless a trader adjusted the game plan to the difficulty factor...........a couple or few 35 tick stopouts were not going to be overcome in a day. The strat had to be changed........ sometimes the risk is either passed or tamed. Guess who shorted ES at 1262.00 after the false breakout up to 1263.75 and came back? over a 10 I did not ride it back up, it was a long at 1153.00 for sure. , 1250. 00 was for more aggressive traders like the burned out hippie that started this thread. The following post is why i missed the drop at 11-- est ish, i was late and did not chase it. those do hurt ....still, to miss.
The most difficult trades are ones in fast markets where the speed and volume of information flow and market moves overwhelms the ability to process it, for example a market crash on surprise headline news. This is when it is most difficult to stick to a strategy or plan, because you need to respond optimally at very short notice, and don't have time to review checklists, strategy documents, and so on. A good example would be the 9/11 attacks, and its effect on trading on the European markets, or the October 1987 crash. It is far easier than usual to lose a fortune or go broke in these circumstances, even just from things like trade busts, resting orders, or fat finger error.
The most difficult trade is one when you think it is likely to be a loser AND you are not going to take the loser. That will stop you right there! Think about it, if it is going to be a loser, why do I want to enter the trade? Isn't that suicidal?
Anytime I sense the potential to get whipsawed, it's tough to enter because I absolutely hate getting whipsawed.
First of all, every trade can turn out to be a winner or a loser, even if it's based on the best setup you've ever found. If you think a setup is a losing setup, it wouldn't be in your arsenal of valid trade setups, so there's no difficulty involved. The 2nd basic assumption of this thread is that you have a setup or collection of setups you trade that present a profitable edge (if setup X presents, then profit Y follows more than 50% of the time). If you're only watching for those setups, then you should be trading all of them that you're in front of your screen for, no exceptions. So the poll refers to those trades only. Of all the valid setups that appear each day, you either trade all of them, or you pass on some of them. The ones you pass on are your most difficult trades, otherwise you would trade them.
the most difficult trade...is when you lack BP. if you have BP, u can avg out ur P/L and live to fight another day...without BP...its just over. having said that...anyone recommend me a decent prop firm please? lol i been reading and think it could be good. (pm me pls) or a good chatroom to join?