This week, I've been testing the classic version of pivot points found at this calculator https://www.investing.com/tools/pivot-point-calculator A few times it was spot on at pinpointing support / resistance in advance but most times not so much. Any thoughts on the usefulness of pivot points for intraday trades?
In the 80s & 90s when there wasn't much electronics cause pits were used, more Pit traders used them, and also used Point and figure as you could do so standing there keeping eye on support and resistance, few books at the time were published to define best ways to use as well. I know there are several who still use them but to be honest, you can use a dart and toss lines on a chart and price will hit them just the same. So what it really comes down to is being able to read the past history of the chart to have clearer view of taking the trade when price hits some area, being able to define trend better than others, understand risk management extremely well than the masses, be ok taking many breakeven plus one tick up to 60% of the time till you can latch onto a decent trade. Trading is far being a zero sum game and anyone who says so most likely a broker. You have much to factor in besides fees, decent computer, fast internet speeds, loss of earnings if you were doing something else, lost bennies. Most do not take this into account. Many use fib line areas and there is no special anything of why they work other than ton of folks jumping on board at same area to drive price into a direction. Volume drives price, but unless big "boys" keep driving it, like lack of at extreme highs of the Indexes- "look out below" and drop like a rock. There been a number of different lines through the years people become vendors to sell these others, but they never tested out well for me just by themselves unless I plug in charting risk management patterns(what is left of now). Truly, the better you can read a chart and even better to program what you discover and back test, the better the trader you will become. Up until 55yo most can memorize patterns and after this age at least for me, it has become much more difficult to remember everything. As the decades have gone by, you accumulate much information and patterns. Some you learn and many you somehow discover on your own and some of the best way to decipher is take one chart and print it, and through the years try to form a name for each bar(s) and test it for 50%+/- of continuation of trend or reversing. You be surprised how hard this is to do. @birdman, you been a member since 2003, are you adding to how you trade or adding new direction?
I've done a wee bit of swing trading since before black monday. I'm 61 years old now and semi-retired and have the time and inclination to learn intraday trading. I'm completing 3 months of day trades end of month. Profitable, but i still have a lot to learn. I could just retire, but i enjoy learning new things and this is something I've always intended to do when time allowed. Thanks for sharing. I value your opinion and have benefitted greatly from the folks in this forum.