In detail? No. But here...http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=219309&perpage=6&pagenumber=2 is all you need...
I guess I'm ready to be baffled by the numbers who will be given a gift, but won't pick it up, even though it's right in front of them.
the other guy is right.... they were probably BS-ing the fact that they're being coy and vague is typical of guru-wannabes forums are just entertainment, as long as you remember that you won't be disappointed what really happened is probably something like this... "I've got the secret to trading and you don't. Na-na-na-na-na" or "Hey Kyle, guess what? I got Al Brooks new secret market code and I'm gonna make tons of money trading. Sorry but I can't share it with anyone, too bad for you! "
You know that a positive attitude goes a long way. Isn't life beautiful when full of calm, relaxation, laughter and joy ?
.... What a story! You have spent time looking : what specifically did you do to find these clues? what clues did you come across and accepted or dismissed? We might as well look to the full story first.
Actually that is a bit too detailed for me. I summarize, buy high, don't take bad trades and take trades that are statistically probable. I like ideas that keep a trader occupied during times of being eaten up by fees. Those seem to be the most popular.
Or they couldn't make money for other reasons. Not only did they learn to judge other peoples behaviour they also learnt what not to look at. Those things should still be valid. They had a bunch of things they used to ignore. when things went electronic they lost something, but at the same time they gained some thing they did not have before. AS for the 10,000 hours, Is he saying that ALL professionals had 10,000 hours of practise? There were no anomolies at all ? They study just seems unprofessional to me. He may of simply asked people that are regarded as professionals how much time they spent practising. The only conclusion that can be drawn from that is that being REGARDED as an expert and being popular takes at least 10,000 hours. This in no way means that 10000 hours of deliberate work will get you anywhere. if every one does 15000 hours of work then the guy with 10000 is far from a professional. If I study a new program that just came out, I am already a professional.... Oh yah, I am not famous yet. What can be more deliberate then sitting down and learning and then doing exercises and then testing ones knowledge in an unbiased way? By definition of the claim. An elementary school drop out is a professional. Work at a company for 5 years and you should be regarded as a profession. The word is to vague, in this case it is more to do with fame. Most people that have worked or went to school for 6 years are not professionals. This is like saying to be a professional you have to eat. Even that is questionable one can use IVs or swallow 150 pills a day. Is there any science behind the rule ? Its just dumb. It makes me feel dumb. by now I should be famous for sitting on my ass. well i guess I'm getting there thanks to forums.
I spent nearly ~10,000 hours at the trading game (10 years, this year, actually). Took me about 8 to achieve *consistent* profitability. Now, this year, I really turned a corner. Perhaps 10K hours is the average. Some get it quicker. Most don't get it, at all. The problem, like many have eluded too already, is changing conditions. In actuality, the market never changes. The patterns and setups never change, but volatility changes. IOW, the AMPLITUDE of price action. Take a look at the VIX. It's 4 points off 30 year lows. One of the keys to this great riddle is understanding volatility, and how it impacts performance across different strategies. Really, in a high VIX environment, everything works. Single candle setups, pure price action, indicators, oscillators, momentum. Anything (that's a great edge, right there...). In a low VIX environment, you're gonna get eaten alive, if you don't know how to identify the trend, and trade ONLY with the trend. That's basically why traders fail. They never learn to identify the trend, and trade only with the trend. All the markets do is trend up or down. Sometimes steep. Often, in this environment, shallow. In an uptrend, shorts get suckered in during retracements, then longs run their stops on to new highs. In downtrends, longs get suckered in on retracements, and shorts run their stops down to new lows. That is how the market works. There is nothing more to general market operation, beyond that simple concept. Now, where do technical patterns like wedges, or flags, or pennants, head and shoulders, and multi-bar setups fit in to all that? They work too, but within their own confined parameters of each particular setup, which are usually, conceptually speaking, simply a different form of stop running. Triangles sucker in both longs and shorts, broadening wedges run up to run down (or reverse etc). Narrowing wedges signal weakness, then a quick break. Either way, they only occur with periodic frequency. The market trends ALL THE TIME. Which is superior? You tell me. The reason why most fail, is because they take a single indicator, candle pattern, price action signal, and take every entry generated by that signal. The problem with this method, is it is BLIND to overall trends. It gets you in on both the main trend AND the retracement. After slippage, commissions and spread, you lose. You traded the tree, instead of the forest. Trading is all about trading the FOREST. NOT THE TREES. Understanding the market conceptually, as a whole. Not some rote, bar by bar, ignorant logic that will leave you sliced up in shreds, because you had no idea who the suckers were at the table (half the time....you!). Where to go from here? You (aspiring and failed traders) need to become trend traders. Masters at identifying the trend, and entering only in the direction of established trends, on pullbacks. THAT is the holy grail. That secret alone just saved you 7 years chasing your tail, and possibly financial and emotional ruin. Trust me, I know. With concerted effort, this shouldn't take more than 18 months. Probably, less than a year. Now, after writing all that, I doubt one person in this thread will follow my advice. I doubt more than one or two traders will comment on this post. That's also why traders fail - because they can't distinguish good advice from bad. There's many reasons why traders fail. I could list them but it wouldn't matter. Those that read this, and it resonates as having a glimmer of truth, you need to get to work ASAP. Everyone else? They're lost. They might figure it out eventually, by trial and error, and 10 years of sweat equity (like the few of us, who went it alone). In all likelihood, they'll get turned around in the Briar Patch and never make it. There are others in this thread who know what they're talking about (Heypa, JH etc). They have echoed the same themes, in different ways. Really, in trading, "the trend is your friend". That's all there is to it. Now go, and do likewise. As a final note, some might ask, if this guy has the secret sauce, why on earth would he BLURT IT OUT?!!? The markets never change. Ever. You could print this on the front page of the New York Times everyday for a week, and the markets would NEVER change. Longs fuck shorts. Or shorts fuck longs. That's all the market ever does. And that's all it can do. This is a binary, zero-sum equation. One side fucks the other, at all times. The key is to figure out which side is doing the fucking (read: trend), and get on the winning side. That's it.
Thanks you state that the answer is that everything works in certain a certain level of volatility. 1. Why are you giving every one your sauce? 2. Why are you helping everyone? 3. Can you state what indicator works with what level of volatility? So that a trader can can look up volitility on your chart and then see what indicator to use. If everything works then maybe we simple things like moving averages and over bought's ect. 4. And will this chart give one a 1% edge ? 5. once we have know what indicator to use in a given volatility level, have you shaved off all 10,000 hours for us? 6 If I have 6 bad consecutive trades and then 2 good trades that are profitable does this mean that a change has been made and now all future trades will be good ? Thank you, for the 10,000 or so hours,