What's the single thing you've done that's improved your results?

Discussion in 'Trading' started by ms33, Jun 4, 2016.

  1. Except I make no claims.
     
    #31     Jun 5, 2016
  2. Gotcha

    Gotcha

    Fair enough.. and for the record, I like the things you write, so I'm not picking on you, just stating that the rule you mentioned would apply to all.

    I remember once contacting a member on here in private about his strategy. What was surprising was that the way he was actually trading, which was for ticks, was much different than the things he discussed, which was more so swing trading and looking at the macro view.

    Now of course anyone is free to discuss whatever they want, but you would think that it would follow that the way a person talks, is the way they see the market, and its the way they trade it, but this couldn't be further from the truth.

    So at the end of the day, what you have here is people suggesting things that are generalizations, that they might not even know much about intimately, and offering advice about things they don't actually do themselves.

    If there was a way to simply identify those who trade versus those who don't, and also separate out those who are profitable from those who aren't, and then put all the advice offered and their perspectives in the context of the aforementioned categories, I think the results would be enlightening.

    As an example, there are those who say trade the breakout in the direction of the trend, and then those who say fade the breakout, and if both traders are profitable, then neither advice (fade or not) is all that useful if its advice given in a vacuum without any specific metrics attached. And of course since nobody talks specifics, then everything said is not that useful. Which of course brings us back to not listening to anyone. :)
     
    #32     Jun 5, 2016
    alfa8 and wrbtrader like this.
  3. ktm

    ktm

    Whenever I have a loss that is greater than expected, I do what I call an "autopsy" on the entire structure from beginning to end (I only trade option spreads) to determine what went wrong - and learn from that.
     
    #33     Jun 5, 2016
  4. Handle123

    Handle123

    https://www.tickdata.com/historical-market-data-products/futures-data/available-futures-data/

    Have bought much from this company.

    <<What's the single thing you've done that's improved your results?>>

    One thing I have noticed of myself in my trading, like every four years, I do discovery or understand a concept that I didn't understand before that can be another single thing that improved my results. But often afraid that is will change my bottom line for the worst, sort of like if not broke, why fix it. For me it seldom relying I could think better of myself doing better where it is easier to think I don't have ability to do better. But I work through those feelings. So like added Time stops of being positive, then plus one tick stop at so many ticks positive or make it new target after Time Stop limit, building more signals that are not breakouts, naming each bar(huge backtesting), dissecting swings/waves.

    Really ongoing improvements.
     
    Last edited: Jun 5, 2016
    #34     Jun 5, 2016
  5. I don't include the Globex high/low...basically, my strategy is based on price action; or if you are a pattern seeker, then you can call it head and shoulder patterns or V patterns; I find that the price action very reliable than any other strategies. I do incorporate the risk management into my strategy - I set my stop loss at the new low/high in case it goes wrong and wait for the pullback to come . It usually don't go wrong and there is a low risk and high reward with this strategy; you can identify the market sentiment either on daily chart, or after the opening session
     
    #35     Jun 5, 2016
  6. Market sentiment can change with ease at any given time particularly in futures, you make it sound too easy when its not.
     
    #36     Jun 5, 2016
    Aaron Cole likes this.
  7. AbbotAle

    AbbotAle


    Yep, same with me, this is a monstrous tip everyone.

    YOUR CHARTS AND LEVELS DON'T MEAN SHIT

    yes, sometimes they'll work perfectly, other times they won't.

    So what's happening right NOW. Work that out and get your piece, in, out, profit (or take your small loss).

    The hardest part then remains concentration. Concentration is a massive edge in this game and it's one big benefit pro traders working on their own have in regards to people working in an office. Hard to keep concentration in an office, there's always something going on, always a joke being told, always an argument, always a girl with big tits or short skirt walking by etc. But there's none of that if you lock yourself away in a room...
     
    #37     Jun 6, 2016
  8. Trading education. When I first started trading I basically gambled and had no idea what I am doing. Only when I came across my present broker I started training. One on one lessons were the best help I got from this broker.
     
    #38     Jun 6, 2016
  9. Simples

    Simples

    There's no "single thing", no holy grail. There's no button to push and out comes success guaranteed.

    I will mention 3 things, not just 1 thing.

    Studies have shown that statistically 2/3 improvement initiatives have either neutral or negative influences on outcomes.
    Generally, only 1/3 of efforts to improve are actually improvements.
    So 2/3 of efforts are waste, or even worse: Efforts spent making things worse!

    This is one of the main reason average initiatives / projects either cost too much or fail too late, and why systems and processes tend to gravitate towards mediocrity (or below!) over time. Thus there's 3 things you should do: verify, verify, verify

    From that. what you should do next will become clearer.
    It's so simple, most people cannot for the life of them do it. Doesn't make it easy though.

    Besides, doing so is a sign of intelligence.
     
    Last edited: Jun 6, 2016
    #39     Jun 6, 2016
  10. %%
    Wise words; NO Bias. Even though the Market Makers Edge[MM book writer Joshua Lukeman]6 month candle charts are still real helpful; 10 year monthly candle charts proves what has been done, meaning it could happen again.....NOT that you would use a 10 year chart to think BAC would ever, ever get to $60.LOL; not a prediction
     
    #40     Jun 6, 2016