assuming you have one that works. personally, for my bread and butter strategies over the years, i found a few hints around the internet, but not specifics. i've found books and magazines worthless for the most part, although i still get them all - activetrader, TS&C, SFO, and Trader Magazine. picked up a few books recently that i'm trying to be optimistic about. haven't gotten into academic journals too much. they are often quite pricey, but i may start getting into that. i like to see backtested results and general chart pattern and indicator books, outside of maybe bulkowski, don't do that.
I put mine together from reading a few books, talking to a few traders, reading through many posts here, studying charts for a long time and trying several different approaches which failed and understanding why they failed. I wish it did not take so much work to get there but I is currently worth it and is part of the learning process in order to develop the necessary skills. I am nowhere done with the studying and learning but the road is pretty fascinating and educational as long as you have an open mind and forget about looking for shortcuts. No one person or book will give it all to you but I usually find a nugget that on its own seems trivial but when I adapt the info to my own approach or the info causes me to look at the charts differently so it becomes significant.
Books, although you have to make the stragegy your own so it matches your personality and risk tolerance. There is no point trying to reinvent the wheel.
Have come around right here..ET.Was supernoob,(fighting trends),overcomplicating,lotta futures' hyperactivity.This year have slowed down,upped timeframe,lost indicator jungle,etc.Still noob,but seeing much improvement.Thanx to all on this site.Happy New year!!
Looking at the EOD lists in WSJ. Plotting the HLC and volume on a hand made blank chart. Trading the natural cycle of price and volume. Compound interest formula says do brief cycles and make what is available. The strategy became: find stocks to make graphs for*. I just back plotted for up to 6 months with old last pages of WSJ. The blank space to the right of the bars was where I extended the envelope of price. An engineering term at the time. *Finding stocks is now called "high beta stocks". It was neat to discover that I did not have to work for a living. There I was chugging away doubling my capital every so often (a few months). It was the 50's and you couldn't even talk about it. If you want to see a reaction that is outstanding. Read a few 1,000 Trader666 posts. I had a buddy who plotted with me. We just had the paper and we looked at the rows of stocks. The hi/lo of the year wasn't even a rolling hi/lo. But we underlined stocks that were moving in price....lol.... Then we made the charts. and drew in the envelope (channels it turned out). Price gong Up Down inside of a pair of lines. Read the Trader666, its so neat to read his posts. Read hypo... to see how he thinks that volume does not lead price. He actually says price leads volume. I'm sitting around in the late 50's making graphs by hand and seeing how the HLC and volume make graphs. I always worked from Z to A because I thought everyone else who was reading the paper went from A to Z. But no one was even doing it then. Today, I cannot imagine how a person new to trading would start out. Information overload, to say the least. 90% fail in some trading areas. They say 90% fail. How do they do it? I read a lot of posts by people who hardly make any money. How can they not be making any money?
In bed. I find myself thinking, what if... Then I get up and try to make it happen - I don't quit until I'm making some headway. Then I test and refine and come up with another idea. When I'm stuck I get a good friend to write a programme for me - or I guess a patch would be more accurate. When Howard in Ensign told me it was mathematically impossible to do what I wanted I didn't give up - just found a rocket scientist who could fool the PC into redrawing the chart the way I "saw" it. Books helped with seed thinking but provided little actionable material. Over the years it came together like a jigsaw. It's unique and very powerful, but it took thousands of hours to develop my strategy.
I showed you 5 years ago in Atlanta...we "found" our strategies on the trading floor (openings and surrogate specialist of a few stocks)...nowadays, more money in Pairs as well. Have a great New Year!! Don
I haven't really found anything that I apply, on the internet or in books. Though some stuff in forums can be interesting. I found my edge by staring at the charts for months on end until I developed a gut instinct for what would happen.