Quote from cap'ncod You've gotta love these guys. As if the magic support/resistance levels are all you need. It's all 'price action', a screaming truism if ever there was one. Prices bounce around alot based on players selling or buying what they think is value. Occasionally the price breaks into new territory and has to establish a new range: if you can catch this extraordinary event you can profit from uncertainty but you have to be damn fast and getting faster. _________________________________ Yes, Cap'ncod, price is all I need, let me guess you need 40 indicators to give you the answers, right? You gotta love it because without them, you would be lost? getting close? And you're incorrect in that a trader has to be fast in order to catch or profit from a break of a key support level for example, in fact a trader can be as slow as a snail & ironically profit from this so called "extraordinary event"(as Cap'ncod describes it) when the market is moving down on the daily picture, a trader who is short the market for example understands that key support levels break with great frequency so it's not in his interest to be overly concerned or enthusiastic with buying the market, markets move down when bulls are less influential, the buyers have to make their case compelling & that rarely occurs when markets move down. And guess who is exploiting this phenomenon? the trader who is short the market, who is IN already & whose interest is not to yield to the buyers anytime soon, you gotta love it, right Cap'ncod? And if your dilemma Cap'ncod is having to be damn fast with each passing day in order to catch these moves, well i would venture to say that the market is being very good at exploiting you. Maybe you should whip out that trading 101 book & brush up on what the principle or falling markets is all about. I have a feeling you'll have a lot of reading to do.
The traders I mentioned all are independent, trading their own money, most of them from home. Most trade with prop firms, some are retail with 4:1 margin. Cheap commissions can be an edge with certain strategies, but those commission deals are not that hard to find with some work. One thing that is common to them all- they all trade stocks, not currencies or futures. There are many, many examples of inefficient markets in stocks. After all, every symbol is it's own market and there are over 10,000 listed symbols where you can look for inefficiencies.
@OP Market's are NOT perfectly efficient. Not everyone discovers for themselves an edge. You are absolutely correct to say that the majority of traders may have experienced brief periods of success, but have not coupled them with consistent, long-term, market-beating averages. It is for these large majorities an exercise of futility. For the rest it is a boon. More importantly, those that discover an edge - along with extended success - mostly do not recognize a turning point, where similarly continued success will NOT be viable. In the end, these fade away with the same losing result to once again usher in a new guard of "traders". I would venture to say that nearly all of the so-called "successful" traders can't even be designated as such. Sure they may be profitable EVERY YEAR on a decent scale...day-trading 10% off a million dollar account. Of course these would be the envy of all and do accomplish an extremely admirable act! I take it a step further. Why be the guy that makes 200% for three years and skims off $1-2M for him or herself before the "edge" blows up (the majority of "successful" hedge funds when you average all years make 0% - or worse.) Or why be the above guy, when you can make all of your effort SO much more worthwhile. Find an edge that works as long as there is a market and that beats it by a <i>fairly</i> large percentage - fully understanding and containing the risks. . .that CAN be done for 20 years or MORE. Kind of makes all of the above discussion and "trading" in general a moot point. More on me: My cursory investigations into "trading" found exactly this about 10 years ago. I figured (I wasn't born w/ a silver spoon in my mouth) why belabor the point if indeed your proposed surmisal is true? I didn't feel I needed to hock the house and <i>in time</i> will reap the benefits. Then came "the divorce" about 5 years ago. I still had my "edge", goals and dreams so kept on trucking - still without sufficient capital backing. I figured why go look for it, when in time it will come. In the meantime, I extrapolated my already quite incredible results into (cutting NO corners, mind you) now with the use of futures and in the past year with audited results have shown that my expected results indeed were much improved upon. These results meet my above definition and are truly INSANE. One day soon I will get capital backing and reap the benefits with my rather simple approach. Interestingly, I often post how I achieve these results and in turn "prove them" and even this is largely ignored. That is just the nature of the beast. If you had nothing, I am sure you could convince many that you do. If you had something, chances are most could not even recognize the value. It is just the company we keep. Did I win the ramble on post of the year, LOL?!? pay$ense
What is really amazing to me is that I doubt I know that much more than anyone in this thread. All I can do is apply my knowledge better than most. All my edge is, is reading price and betting accordingly. And most of what I have learned has been dumped in favor of things I have learned through screen time and this forum. Sometimes I F* up and make a bad bet (monday). Overall though I rarely have a day where I am red over 1% of my account and 2-3 days a month where I am green over 35%
Like the idiots with 401K for the last 10 years. LOL one needs only 1% per year to beat that. Need proof. Look at it! You can't see that in some cases there is better than 50% chance for the price to go from A to +X rather than from A to -X? You must be blind from greed or fear or both. Find your edge and go with 1/2 Kelly, you will be fine in the long run. And if you trade 60+ trades per month the long run will be surprisingly short. You do need an edge. Get one.
I donât know if those periods of success are related to trader concentration. It is impossible to maintain the attention in some subject all the time and normal also when you know nobody could be 100% precise Really bad trades make me anger for just awhile
None .... It is a typical ET blocked mind, broad sweeping statement. It is designed to pick up a few crumbs of information which the closed mind of the OP hopes will assist him him/her in their pointless quest. Or it is an expression of sheer frustration to attract other frustrated souls for an exchange of warm fuzzys. regards f9
Markets are not efficient but it takes a lot of work to earn that extra 1% return. Buffett long term returns …. Index + 10% per year Graham long term returns …. Index + 2% per year If it was easy to achieve 20% returns on capital over a 20 year period forbes 400 would be full of stock market investors/traders.