But if you follow the zigzag path through the mountains and valleys, your delusions will turn into reality as you reach the Temple of The Trend, where a significant economic gain will be yours!
Trend or not, directional trading is about being on the right side of price differences. In order to manage to be on the right side more significantly than not, one needs to stop relying on hope, greed and dumb luck. Instead, start focusing on creating a process that may work. You never know in advance if it'll work, and you need to let go of the need to make money on every trade. Those who believe short-term is easier than long-term are most probably deluding themselves or others. If you need to close all positions every day, you lose the ability to control when to take profit and when to take loss. Then, probability is forced into realization and you had better regain control in all other aspects of your trading, to compensate. If instead one is focusing on all the aspects that are difficult or not working, one is not making much meaningful progress. It's important to cast away / ignore what's not working, but also be open to the possibility one can make it work in the future. This open-mindedness and playfulness is important in order to overcome all the difficulties. Finally, even if all aspects of trading can be automated, you still have to overcome the emotional pain and doubts when confronted with the inevitable drawdowns. Except if one is a market leading market maker, they will come.
I think familiarity with a recurring situation will prevent or dilute an emotional rollercoaster ride that leads to all kinds of bad responses. Good trading comes at times when I apply what I ve learned aggressively and decisively.
I crammed an account selling highs and buying lows ... Then I've seen that a topping markets are usually bullish (Strong) while bottoming ones are bearish (Weak) ... Now I think these "facts" are useless as they give no edge since the probability is 50/50 in average. Anyway... I was holding my losers and cutting shorts my winners... No Advantage = Bleeding to Death Unlimited Downside = Blow Up As Handle says ... Emotion or not ain't the problem as neither of them give you an advantage (nor a disadvantage). What losers lack isn't a cold heart, it's a sound strategy and the needed requirements for optimal execution (Time, Capital, Discipline, ...) Most don't exploit the market with calculations (Bottom Up) but they blindly recount something with hope (Top Down)... The one that exploit communicate with the market. The one that recite is totally foreign with it. 10K hours means nothing if you don't speak the same language, share the same codes. Wolfram said programing is the only language you first learn to write (Vs Read). Losers do the same with the market... They try to overwrite it rather than to read it ^^ Exemple: We all love discounts. Shops market it with 80% or 0.2 advertisements on their store. But if you're foreign to one of these two signaling, or both, then you won't notice the opportunity therefore not exploit it systematically.
Ok, so show me that trends don't exist, and if you can, I'll admit that I've been wrong for 40 years.
Maybe trend trading works for some people trading stocks , or for few individuals but for most indices rarely trend.Trend is visible only in hindsight . http://www.investopedia.com/articles/trading/10/3-reasons-not-to-trade-range-breakouts.asp http://www.futuresmag.com/2013/04/23/everything-you-know-about-breakout-trading-wrong same as above applies to trend trading
It works for those who can read the trend. Nope, it is visible just as soon as it's established. Pls see my posting below to see how. https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/the-trend-is-your-friend-the-biggest-lie-ever.295480/page-5
It does not work for me because I have over a hundred methods in my brain , and I can easily be sucked into trades , due to my phsyche , as per OP. I know all about the technicals , but again they are dubious.