Dear College Students I am trying to give you a big picture on trading that i believe would be helpful to you in your understanding the trading from eagle's eye view. The stock exchange streams data to your trading software, which presents you the data as a chart. The data format is generally: Time, Price, Volume. A super genius trader can grasp the market trend completely by looking at the data streaming. I don't know if such trades exist but it is a possibility. A genius trader can grasp the market trend completely by looking at the plain chart. Ofcourse they could earn more on par with business people. An above average trader has better capacity to grasp the market trend by looking at the plain chart than other traders. They may be using indicators and levels like other traders but they rely more on their plain chart reading capacity to make trading decisions. They should be making decent money in trading. All the three above categories I call them as Pro traders. Below average which I call them amateur traders who depend completely on indicators and levels because they lack the capacity to grasp the market trend by looking at the plain chart. Nine out of ten traders you interact with either online or offline are amateur traders. They will never suggest you to grasp the plain chart because they are not yet there. Their profits in trading are mostly inconsistent and not reliable for survival. One out of ten amateur traders are bullies. The other nine amateur traders are soft spoken. The amateur bullies are the one who will be doing the talking most of the times in any forum. My Advice For YOU Real investment is the time invested in developing your skills in grasping the plain chart. Using the indicators and levels are opposite of investing. (My previous post related to plain chart reading: https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/fundamental-market-events.374884/) All the best!
I thought your advice would be : Dear College Students Go be a surgeon, doctor, hitman, deliveryman, soldier, cashier, farmer, gambler, trading coach .... Be anything other than a trader.
Learn statistics. Stats are the only way you will have confidence when you need it. Your plan can be crude but it has to have an edge. Remember: (Excluding costs) If I risk one to make one, you need a 50% probability for B/E. If I risk 1 to make 2, I need a 33% probability. If I risk 2 to make 1, then I need a 67% probability etc. Then learn Kelly criterion for position sizing. This is just your base.
You people are talking everything other than fundamentals. Trading is like cooking soup. It needs atleast half a dozen ingredients to make soup. Some of the FUNDAMENTAL ingredients needed to cook a trading strategy : 1. Increase stoploss a bit whenever stoploss hits then immediately trend resumes. 2. Refine/scrap the strategy whenever stoploss hits and price doesn't return back. 3. Finding a strategy that works equally well on both intraday chart and extraday chart. Deriving levels by connecting both the charts. 4. Swing trading is vulnerable due to gap-ups and gap-downs between two trading days which makes it less safe than intraday. It is not advisable for traders to trade the safety of their investment with the convenience of swing trading. 5. Volatility is more in the middle of a well established trend making it vulnerable to frequently hit stoploss. Entering trade on early trend avoids such volatility. 6. Exit strategy must be the opposite of the entry strategy. Is there anyone here whose strategy works well both on intraday and extraday charts?
This thread is about studying the plain chart. You can share your wisdom or experience or whatever regarding that
Both are business and needs business skills to be developed. Business skill is super set. Business domain skills is sub set. Trading needs business skills and trading skills which is domain skills. By trying trading one can test both business skills and trading skills. Even if a trader lack interest in trading he still can develop business discipline/mindset. If what i am saying doesn't mean anything then it is called gambling mindset. I want to make money. I will learn techniques. I will master them. That will make me rich. This is what? Technical mindset or business mindset? Technical mindset is gambling with money in stock trading.