I rather you succeed and I agree with your statement. All I was saying is that the market is taking too long to break which makes the possibility for a 'short stop run' very likely and right above 960 is were all the stops are. Just saying though... GL. p.s. An event is like when a market top starts looking like a base. Either way you enter the position after the market breaks, NOT BEFORE.
The short stop-run is always a possibility, and could happen. Trading is ridiculously hard, since the market could: 1. go to my stop and get me out, then tank. 2. go below say 920 stop out longs, then rally. 3. do nothing 4. break-out 5. close outside of the range and never look back. 6. double the range in either direction and then reverse. 7. endless. 8. in hindsight, my entry was pretty bad and going forward I need to actually consider where i put my stop first (hopefully at a level not as obvious as 960). I'm not going to move it now, but if we close under 920 I guess go to breakeven.
I agree with you, sometimes less is more in trading. Position trading longer term is more risk, more reward, and less time- consuming versus daytrading.
I did put in a GTC stop order at 930, and we can call it break-even. I didn't want to sell under the 200-dma for the S&P 500, didn't think the Dow would make 9,000, and since the QQQQ's were above 36.25 I thought this would be distribution. Thought means guess, so wide stop. I want to double the position if the Dow closes under 8,000. If I get stopped out, I think I will wait to sell either Dow 9,100 or under 8,000. Maybe one person read this thread and decided to trade less with a wider stop. hope so. sure, people will call it luck, and that's fine. i would rather more money based on luck than less money based on skill. lol.
Not true. If you extend your logic to the extreme, one will make only one trade in his life time betting all he has and making a killing or be killed. This is not trading. A trader needs a consistent monthly income. Some traders might be OK with consistent quarterly income. But it is unlikely that a trader will be able to function on a consistent annual income. The variance from month to month will be too big. To have a consistent period (month) you need to have X number of trades for that period based on the PF (profit factor). If you trade once per month AND you want a consistent monthly income you need to be 100% accurate. This does not look like a trading to me.
I think you are right. The hard part is the over-trading when days are slow, coupled with just one or two months of drawdowns. Then I can see the stress getting crazy. I guess I'm not a trader, more of a speculator. That's fine, to me it's semantics. The only thing I like is I limit my losses to under 20k. I know many, many people that go down 50k and have no exit plan, then they lose much more and can't speculate again. The game (I call it a game and somewhat gambling) is to make money. Everyone wants to make sense of it all so they feel smart as well. I used to be like that. I could care less now. I think the game is skewed so it's just irrational enough to hurt most traders and the big players can whip the market 5-10 points in the ES for fun and hurt your technical set-up. Some traders also assume the international market forces are rational as well, but if central banks come in and buy our dollars that can have a big effect. Are you sure they all look at the same technical analysis? The only 'edge' I ever thought I had was doing things completely opposite of the 'gurus', who i make fun of. They are so matter-of-fact with all their structure and TA gibberish, making sense of it all. It's impossible to make sense of it all, and if you think you can do that you should be a multi-billionaire by now.
I agree that it's impossible to make sense of it all. But if you can at least make sense of it enough that you win more than you lose, then isn't that the point? The market may seem like a bunch of random gibberish to some, but those people who are skilled enough can at least win more than they lose, thus netting a profit every x time period. Nobody is able to get it right all of the time and become a multi-billionaire, but wouldn't you agree that there is enough rationality to be able to consistently win more than you lose?
I remember once I won 80% of my trades, got un-disciplined with JUST ONE, and all my profits (except a few hundred) were gone. I got an email from a guru saying I got lucky and took too much risk on my trade. LOL even when you make good money, the gurus someone are smarter and better traders because they would have taken 87 trades for -99 points but managed risk effectively. i love gurus.
I'm considering moving my stop to 921 and locking in 5k or 10 points. However, I really, really want to wait for a break of 900 first. A close under 8,000 for the Dow will make me move my stop a little bit. I'm sure the gurus are "on the sidelines" and will tell us later what worked and how they made the 'easy money'. note: i always mess up my trailing stop. trying not to this time.