successful trading is not more about technical skills (they are also important), but rather about giving much higher priority to the money management technics and learning and understanding yourself. I can tell you -- you don't know youself. Investigate your psychology in the "moments of truth". Nobody has them more often than active trader. Use simulation account first. It helps. A little. Because the real money makes everything very different. How different? Very. Because it's for REAL. Veterans, gurus have history of been flashed into the toilet. Some of them were successful tens of years in the row. The trick is that when once humble workaholic could invisibly become the self-proclaimed guru and "believed into his own great abilities to predict the market" -- he gonna die quickly and painfully. Soon. To be successful, you don't even need to be right more than 35% out of 100%. The answer is the money management. And, losses are expected and unavoidable. Still, the balance and the final result is only thing that counts for the long run. Some people do better investing than trading. Some people risk averse, and trade only options, etc.... Too vast topic, after all... If talking totally abstract, price, bets etc. there is something more than just snapshots. some action, momentum, etc, are measurable some sort and we can work it out in probability terms. IT's all about using probabilities in your favor. You can more sit in ambush sometimes and wait for the proper pattern, good risk/reward ratio setup, than act in any other particular moment. Sometimes, it's not about acting, and more about waiting. it's not about betting in casino, but rather about waiting when fortune wheel or one hand bandit are broken, or casino employee is drunk, etc. kinda
Rather than gambling, trading should be like mining. You process the ore and make what you "should", on average.
Oh lord.. so YOU'RE that guy who keeps spamming your blog all over dealbreaker? News flash, no one gives a damn about your blog. Go spam the yahoo message boards with your silly worthless crap.
Trading IS gambling. NO ONE wins 100% of the time. The trick is to learn to choose high probability trades and learn when to get out. In truth learning proper exits is more important than learning proper entries. I think this is why most people fail...I know it's what killed me the most when I first started trading. The reason is that if you blindfolded yourself and threw a dart at a wall street journal and went long what ever stock you hit, you would have almost a 50/50 shot of that stock going the way you want it (well maybe not in todays climate). However if you always got out with either only small losses or big wins you could still end up profitable.
I was just thinking the same. Something works one minute then doesn't the next. It's basically a gamble using money managment. I never hear of pro. traders discusiing most of the stuff that goes on here. Head and Shoulders, Flags, pennents, rising wedges, MA's, Fib, etc..........it's all B*S* ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- price action, chart patterns, setups are all just points of placing a bet. which i'm fine with... but it seems most people like to think of trading is it is some sort of science and not gambling. what do you think?
Trading certainly is not gambling. The way I trade, I am providing a service to the market. By providing liquidity in the market, I am keeping the market most efficient at all times. The money that I make is the reward for doing my job correctly and allowing the market to stay efficient. When I lose money is when my orders were actually making the market less efficient. (AKA Price A should really be Price B, but I had orders waiting in between to stop it from getting there)
First, define gambling, then you can have a meaningful discussion. Some people have negative connotations associated with the word gambling or may be using different definitions. gam·ble (gmbl) v. gam·bled, gam·bling, gam·bles 1a. To bet on an uncertain outcome, as of a contest. 1b. To play a game of chance for stakes. 2. To take a risk in the hope of gaining an advantage or a benefit. 3. To engage in reckless or hazardous behavior
exactly what i mean, trading IS gambling. every position you take can go either way. which is a gamble, anybody who says other wise is full of it and lying to themselves. now people want to disagree because gambling is looked at negatively but not to professional gamblers? now this is the issue. can someone still yield positive results, sure... just as a pro poker player can play the probabilities and put the odds slightly in his favor. how can one be good at what they do if they can't even accept the true nature of what it is they do? why be in denial? dont like the way it sounds? i dont either, but accepting reality never seems like a choice to me. so just accept it for what it is and if you can do it well then great! 1 & 2 are very different from 3 in the above definition. one should just hope that they're not the 3rd definition
if the target is to make some money in market, the definitions are not exactly your friend. both gambling and trading require discipline. using discipline, you have much more chances in trading. as far as I can have my balance positive each week, and it's growing, I don't care how is called what I'm doing. It's the same as discussing whether thinking about hookers or naked women in general actually helps your trade(s) and/or serves as some kind of stimulus, or, conversely, makes it more difficult and becomes distracting. well, at least some dirtly ppl (incl. your obedient servant) find trade setups/patterns to be very sexy SOMETIMES. Not all of them, doh.