The Water is Fine

When I react to a signal, consistently the trade spends more time green.
When I predict a signal, I find the occasional very bad entry and trades I would like to have never met.

For my sanity, reacting to signals is the clear choice. Predicting signals is exhausting.

 

That's the first time I've heard of anyone predicting signals.

 

I do it ocasionally, it's basically front running a setup instead of waiting for it to complete and trigger your trade you assume it's going to look a certain way before it actually does so you just go ahead and enter trade to get a better price, usually to your detriment..

At least that's my version of predicting signals

 

Well said, Vegas. Put another way:
"A setup without a trigger is like a titty without a nipple" Rick Quickly, legendary trader.

 

The trade off between discretionary trading vs reactionary trading is that you might make a little bit more by jumping the gun and using your discretion and entering a trade before it actually, triggers. Much more conservative and also, more accurate is wait for the move to occur then, get in. Sure, you give up a little potential profit but, you more than make up for the losses you avoided and your accuracy increases too.

 

Someone who is not blocked please explain to small fry" if you can't stand the heat stay out of the kitchen."

 

Some people like to front run themselves.

 

It is a subtle point. Usually, it happens when the signal itself is ill defined. Things like: It is rising, or it is diverging. These type of "signals" are full of holes since they are not discrete but more on a continuum. Better is rising-diverging by XYZ relative to ABC, which can be discrete, which then can be put into Boolean logic, which therefore can be coded.

If you think that systems can be based on vague (ill defined, technically speaking) "continuums", then you are in the different school of thought, than what Alogs are based upon. Which can work, but a different "style" or "model" or to use the technical term, "ontology".

It is one of those clarifications that comes from studying logic, model theory and epistemology for years.

Bottom line is many things work, but mixing stuff can be dangerous when you do it to fit your perception, versus relying upon facts of the matter, i.e. reality.

But IMO, things happen so fast in Day trading, that just keeping up with the new data at regular intervals, consistently, is enough of a chore to keep me busy. I can't deal with what is possible, only what has happened.