Postal: Your suggestion is a good one for ET in general. However, it really wouldn't resolve anything here. None of the questions I have "posed" is premised on any trading or other skills I may or may not have or pretend to have, etc.
OK. Well, I'm here to increase my trading skills and learn something and share what I have freely with others. So, I'll just let you two go at it. Just seems like such a waste of time for you both.
I am sort of done on this subject but I just do not get it. If I made 100s of thousands of dollars as a trend trader during a momentum market --- having taken thousands of trades and almost every single one of them was a pull back to a rising 20 period moving average how can you tell me you can not trade trends. I proved it for 3 years. With mult 100% return years. I made more money short than long on the declining moving average trade becasue I was a better trader and had less competition for another 2 years. I even trained others to do it and got paid by them. Trend trading is profitable in the correct market. I can point to thousands and thousands of trades. By the way my brother traded trendlines during the last momentum market for about a year and he had tremendous returns as well. When the method stoped working he stopped trading. You have to have the right tools for the right market.
That's great, Jem. Maybe I'll catch you at the beach sometime. I go there a lot, though I don't recall why at the moment.
Jem, same here. Trend trading works well in my experience as long as you pick a security that's trending. And trending securities are easy to spot with a simple screening process. I just don't understand the controversy with it. Example: Using exchange traded funds.... You can take a 34/21 moving average crossover of the Russell 2000 (IWO) and get an average of 12-15% per year. It's a no brainer. You can do even better with smallcap value (IWN) and some of the other sectors.
The fact is you can't tell someone who has failed at trading that simple things work. It's too much for their ego in most cases.
Yes, you have a good point. "If I can't make a profit, its not my fault, it must be that no one else can either". Too much of a blow to the ego. Ironically, admitting that I didn't have all the answers enabled me to go out and look for the tools I needed. Since this thread opened I have heard from a significant number of traders who suggest that their own systems use at least some aspect of trend following. To make a simple point, it would be impossible to take a profit (or loss for that matter) unless price trended at least a little bit. Knowing this financial fact of life, one can see how silly the underlying premise of this thread is. So once again, can one know absolutely when price will trend? No.... Does one have to know absolutely in order to have a profitable business? Certainly not. In fact, a great number of businesses are based on the probability that a time based series will trend. In fact, if you look at insurance, gambling, and other related businesses, you will come to the conclusion (if you have the capacity to think clearly), that even a small positive edge can mean great profits. I refer those silly people who don't believe it to Las Vegas. In the aggregate they have a small edge, yet they are the ones who own all the big buildings. Get a clue folks. Oh, and Nickelscraper this isn't aimed at you. I can't help you as you seem to be clueless. Take Care Peter Lefty
It's clear to me now. Trends don't exist and they can surely not be predicted. Friday short Today first short and afterwards long
Here's a chart showing trends do in fact exist and they can be traded successfully using simple techniques.