The Edge: Absent inside information, Buy em when they go up, Sell em when they go down. It really is that simple. The hard part is recognizing and trusting the move enough to enter a position. That can take years of experience.
If you want to see an honest to goodness real thing edge visit my journal. It's what I use and to prove it works I'm posting everthing in my journal, good or bad. Come on in fellas ,the water is fine. Rennick http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=65265&perpage=6&pagenumber=19
Perhaps the most important Edge would be "Honest with oneself". "A good trader must have a personality that is always honest with himself?" http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=71024 "Honestly... Honesty..." http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=1159291#post1159291
I think as regards your own professional life (I assume you all want to obtain professional status), that you have to be "black and white". Either you are making it, or you're not. If you're not, you're not a professional (yet), and more importantly your not making your living from trading. Therefore you are having to do something else to pay your bills. Its about that simple. Now the details, the nuance, the style of trading, how you do on any single day, sure I can see where folks are going to distort their results based on their self image. I think that part is a matter of character. You learn to take the good with the bad and to do so with a sense of humor. Those of us with less character seem to want to tell the "bigger fish" stories. I guess I would say that a sense of humor seems to be a barometer of sorts in that respect.
I'm afraid those who think Edge is discipline or any type of psychology, including being "honest" with yourself, risk or money management, keeping a journal, advertising your own thread or website or even a result of merely being profitable in a certain type of market condition have missed the point entirely. These are all very well and good, but the things mentioned above must be distinguished from a true edge. I suggest re-reading the original post. This may be a poor analogy, but it's as ridiculous as saying the reason one car is faster than another is because it has round headlights vs square headlights, or because the windows are rolled up instead of rolled down. If I gave you a quarter that was somehow weighted so that it landed on its head 55% of the time instead of the normal 50%, and you noticed this over the course of several million flips, would you attribute it to the shirt you are wearing, or your mindset at the time of your discovery? I'm saying most of the edges to be found solely in the OHLC and V have been exploited to the point of nonsignificance - especially as datamining by large firms seeking these types of edges becomes more pervasive. Yet this does not mean that it can not be done, but you're going to have to think a little more outside the box. The same is true for fundamental analysis as well as statistical analysis - for the most part, all of the low-hanging fruit has been picked by those who came before you. That does not mean the tree is barren.
To be honest: Are you going to openly disclose your trading edges with us in this thread? Yes or No. When? Why suddenly you want to disclose your edges to us today? If you don't have any trading edge proven yet, how can you provide so many comments about others' trading edges, whether the claimed/ disclosed edges on the Net are true or not? I'm just curious.
âGive a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for lifetimeâ I believe genuine help can be offered without someone giving away their golden goose. Perhaps they can tell us what the golden goose looks like so we can catch our own if we ever come across one. Just my .02. -shanoballs
Some seem to be consumed with the thought that once you "teach someone to fish", especially for FREE, they might catch out all the fish and you'll be left with f... all basically. I don't quite agree with that, but I understand why they wouldn't want to share, why give it away for free? Which is fare enough. I still believe that apart from all the strategical algos that any system SHOULD have (Steve I am agreeing with you, please remember this one), most struggling traders do not understand WHAT IS A MARKET? I see it in numerous posts on ET and not even mentioning places like Yahoo boards, they are on a different planet there, mostly.
You're missing the point. OddTrader doesn't want tireg's edge. He's asking him how can he say that other trader's legitimate edge is not an edge at all. For which I gotta agree with'em wholeheartedly. An edge can be made up of many different things, it doesn't have to be just one, or two or even three things. Putting many key elements together can create a powerful edge for a trader which can last a long time ... It doesn't have to be an I'm right, the other guy is wrong two sided dynamic like it is being presented here. Best, Jimmy