Why? Well, let's see: 1) You have to do your own research. If your wisdom doesn't come from your own research, it's close to crap. 2) What they say about the markets in their books and videos and whatnot... it's equal to zero. At least 90% of the knowledge out there... Why? I don't know, but if it was true or complete 90% of the ppl would make money. Based on this, you have to understand that trading is all about being conventional up to a point and then become counter-intuitive from there on... Example. There's nothing wrong in trading a high/tight flag pattern after a huge rise or steep decline. This is conventional. Everyone knows it (yet only 10-20% actually make money out of it). However, this is as much as conventional as you want to stay. For the sake of this example, most of the knowledge tells you to buy on a break of the upper trendline of your flag and make a projection, set the target and put a stop below the flag's support level. This way you would achieve a low risk vs a high reward.... Nonsense! Any professional trader knows that this low risk/high reward thing is a false friend. Any professional trader knows that the closer you set your target and the farther you set your stop, the higher the win/loss ratio. And any professional trader (at least day traders like me) know that win/loss is far more important than risk/reward (provided risk reward is not a ridiculous 2:1 or more... I mean... we're still playing for money). So, by being counter-intuitive, this is the point to go against the grain and approach a conventional setup in a different manner. I mean, coming back to the example.... Place a stop below a support level. Well.... The market doesn't give a rat's ass about that. Furthermore, the big boys love hunting your stops (stops=volume=commision). Place a target too far away and you'll have multiple obstacles until it reaches the target. Each of that obstacle is decreasing the probability of your trade reaching it. One obstacle is the patterns flagpole main resistance. The other is the retest of previous resistance becoming support, that can fail, and so on, and so on... Remember, the simpler the trade, the better the odds. So to this day, it simply amazes me how people choose to stay conventional even when they know 90% fail. I mean, do they thing the other 10% are successful doing the same thing as the other 90%?? Of course not! With this said, trading is still simple, and you don't have to go about reinventing the wheel, and NO... you don't really need anything else but price... BUT.... it's not the kind of "simple" you are familiar with.... Turn the tables, flip everything you know upside down, question everything you have learned so far and act like you know nothing. If you haven't been successful so far, it's safe to go back to that step.
I'm not commenting on the example given here but I agree, you cannot expect to win over the long term if you do not approach the markets conventionally.
it's just an example. i'm not going into actual approaches. it would be a bit controversial to many ....