The play was never to buy breakouts or at the very least the initial breakout. That has always been something only novice traders and degenerate gamblers like to do.
Funny, think or swim used to be one of my customers... sometimes I forget how this shit works.. I was asking my boss who the fuck orders came from and he just named off every fucking broker there is
Well how about millennial traders then? (Sheesh! I had to come up with something to describe them.) That is why popular strategies don't last long. Smart money are cunning. They know how to adapt and strike where it hurts most.
You've traded the same strategy since age 18 or earlier (based on your stated age)? Genuinely impressed if true.
I have been trading since the age of 15. Nothing to be impressed about. I have been lucky to have had parents that stimulate my interests on a young age and had the financial backbone to get me started. If I had 'normal' parents, I do not think I would have been so far, so fast.
Thanks for expositing, interesting to start in earnest that early. I was "sort of interested in stocks" at that age but really had no clue what I was doing, much less anything about trading. In comparison my parents really didn't know anything either or particularly encouraged it beyond "that's great son", and my father buying me a very dry book explaining how to walk to the bank office to buy stocks, with complete lack of discussion of any strategy.
Darn, that is really bad luck. My first book He bought me was the book from Stan Weinstein and I was hooked. Four stages, weekly charts, 11 ma period. Next book was something from William o neil. I put those two together, next piece of big influence was positionsizing and of I went.