I was generalizing, it's the same eventually. In 90%+ of the time your other side is an agent, not a trader like you having the exact opposite view at the SAME time. Think about it, if it's so obvious to be long at major support then who the hell is selling there to get you filled? btw, you're mixing derivatives with underlyings. Forex has futures too. In the end, an asset is an asset, doesn't matter in which form (spot, futures, options, cfd's etc.) it is. And you are modelled by the agent you're doing business with. If they're not an outright counterparty of your trades then most are still doing the opposite of you. It's all about printing the stops that lie around because they are the best bids/offers which always gets reflected. People rarely think of it this way so i'm giving a simpler example. Assume, a new Iphone has a market price 1000usd. All of a sudden, someone (reputable) is willing to SELL the same Iphone for 700 (that's a sell stop order below market a.k.a a new best offer). You think it won't get printed (won't find a buyer)? Ofc it will find . And by "you" i mean most retail traders not specifically you. You seem to win
No I would actually say in my experience the other side is someone smarter than me who is hedging a big position and I'm taking a little piece of it.
If you can figure out when and where someone is doing something to front run him...sure. Though he can't be smarter than you then because a smart guy would know that there would be guys frontrunning that liquidity. So, why would a smarter guy take that hard road?
On average, I don't believe the market is actively screwing you, only incidentally. I believe the up's and downs of the market are simply the big guys positioning and they really don't care much about you and me.
By the way, this analogy is supremely flawed. First of all, a stop sell order is held at the broker for the most part and isn't visible to anyone else. In order for the broker to go after your specific stop sell order, they would have to hit market sell orders and sweep all the buy liquidity to hit your one dinky little iphone stop sell at $700. You'll say: "Oh but this is a BIG HUGE STOP SELL" ok then it isn't retail level volume and irrelevant to me. You see, even with this analogy it is nonsense to believe ((they)) are out there hunting your dumb stops. Your stops are just placed badly, that's all, and that is why I use swing height to calculate my stops. I try to get in at the beginning of an intraday swing, and if I am wrong, I give myself room of 25% to be wrong, while I try and capture 75% of the coming swing. Sometimes, I capture a 300% swing and that's fine, but that is pure luck. Edit: Also, this is why it is more useful to reason from first principles than ((they)) are out to get you. Look at my simplistic explanation of why they aren't going to hit your one little dinky stop vs your paranoid method of trading.
Over drinking, smoking and eating crappy are an insult to the beauty of this universe. I don't even think you should moderate drinking or smoking, but once a month is OK IMO. The body can handle that.
You beat me to it. Personally, I don't think the markets generally work that way. Markets move up/down when market orders deplete the order book. That's all I really need to know. Why that happen may be interesting, but it's really inconsequential for a technical day trader to know this and it may not be the correct reason anyhow. It is of correct perfectly possible and likely true that there's cluster of orders around or just above/below the most obvious levels and that triggering these orders will move the market, but that's trading 101, IMO, and if you have your stops there, you're putting them in the wrong place or had the wrong trade idea to begin with. IMHO, of course. Smoking and eating crappy, I agree. I'm sure all the good wine I'm drinking is very beneficial for me, though. Of course in conjunction with a healthy diet and excercise. Whiskey? That's a different story...
Smart choice. However, this raises another concern with these firms. I've been enrolled myself and it happened only too often that my connection got messed up. Either I couldn't connect at all or I lost connection while holding an open position. To be fair, E2T actually deleted my trades on that day, BUT, it would have been a profitable session and it was a day lost of trading. Happened a few times too many. E2T seems more honest, but with that Apex firm I'm sure they won't hesistate to eliminate your account if such a thing would happen. With live trading through Ninjatrader/NT Brokerage/Dorman I believe I've lost connection maybe ONCE out of hundreds of trading sessions. It's not something that should generally happen... Have a nice weekend yourself, dude.
In moderation, most vices are probably OK. The key thing to keep in mind is "can I maintain my work, health and relationships with the amount of this vice I am consuming?" For example, if you consume porn every night, you probably aren't going to be interested in chasing women.