"The answer, when found, will be simple." - attributed to IBM when I saw it. True, but not true. You can't teach someone to hold when every fiber says they should exit, to not average up or down on an extreme move that goes against them (a temptation I wind up fighting at least once every couple of weeks), and so on. There's lots of simple systems. Some of them might even work. But there aren't a lot of people who know how to let those systems be successful.
There is a story of the student who finds a problem that he can't solve. He goes to the brilliant professor and says, professor, is this a simple problem? The professor, looks at it, thinks it must be obvious. He looks at it some more. He says to his student, let me get back to you. Days go by. Then weeks, no one has seen the professor, except once in a blue moon to eat. He is seen holding papers and talks to noone. Two years go by, and the professor finally appears and calls his student in. He says, yes, it is obvious. nitro
Appropriate statement for swing or position trading, not as much for scalping futures where size on Bid/Ask are both large. I swing trade high dividend ETFs. I know I missed the low point of one Fri. when the Bid became 391 to 1 at Ask. That's why you have to buy on the way down when you want more the a than 100 shares...it is simple. A good book for the mechanics of "smart" money is "Master the Markets". You can get a free e-book by email from info@tradeguider.com, with "MTM book" in subject.
That's because the student still didn't fully believe that trading is simple and that the market is random.
As usual the comments are far afield of the original post. Successful people look for interesting environments for work and pleasure...Ask yourself what would interest a successful person here? There have been a number of successful traders who have dropped in and left. I can think of several including Acrary, AMT3SWA, nopmplease, Tripack, etc. Some have commented at length on subjects including their own systematic trading. "Nopmplease" even disclosed a profitable (at the time) system on his thread titled "Emini divergence". After a while, I think they got bored and tired of the crap. Since the culture here is essentially low class begging and whining (take a moment to check the thread titles including "I need a mentor"..."I am almost in tears"......."I hate Jack Hershey"....."I don't want my wife to divorce me and take my stuff" Why do successful traders keep silent....are you kidding me? You all have a nice day. Steve
Nice story. It reminds me of a comment of a professor I had: "everything is easy, once you understand it"