Who had and solved problem of fighting the trend?

Discussion in 'Psychology' started by 00009, Apr 19, 2006.

  1. ramuk

    ramuk

    Traders in general look to do things that the normal crowd is not into.

    And what is that? It's going against the trend.

    You have to realize this and learn to go with the trend (after taking quite a few losses)

    I believe Soros mentioned that he lost the most money by shorting the market.
     
    #11     Apr 19, 2006
  2. =================
    Lets define a main trend as 200 day moving average;
    so even most of shorting even below 50 dma,
    shorting with weekly trend AND 20 day DOWN trend would actually be counter trends .

    However those countertrends would be good probabilities sometimes:p Can be a bit more tricky/ precise in timing required.

    00009;
    Sounds like you just havent studied trends any where near enough, try 72 hours a week , years/years, thats wisdom;
    & counter trends just dont last anywhere near as long as trends any way :cool:

    Not really that hard to believe in trends & occasional counter trends;
    just have to do the study.

    Dont speculate part time-Benard Baruch
     
    #12     Apr 19, 2006
  3. 00009

    00009

    I appreciate yor remarks.
     
    #13     Apr 20, 2006
  4. As is usual on the site, there are no shortage of opinions, and to the uninitiated they sound good. To those few of us who actually make a living at this, the misinformation is obvious.

    Trend is directional movement. In using language to describe any phenomena, we have to distinguish between what is poetic, and what is accurate, useful and empirical.

    Decide for yourself what a trend is. Do that by looking at your trading system. What size move are you looking to capture. How many ticks or points. Once you have made that decision, for you, that is the minimum directional movement (trend) that you are interested in finding.

    Look at possible "target" markets. I trade index futures. I look for two things. First I look for a market that shows me repetitive patterns of movement (swings) in a direction, and I look for moves of at least 2 points.

    Next, look to characterize the way your market moves from one day to the next. Those of us who actively trade for a living know that there are a limited number of "days" Trend days up, trend days down, consolidation days. etc. Learning your market can take a long time if you are an amateur, or if you are a professional you can use specific techniques (I can talk about those) to profile the market, thus speeding up the process so that it takes hours and days instead of weeks and years.

    Finally, there is a use for optimizing. This is a term that connotes "fitting" your system to the data. In most cases amateurs learn to do this in a way that is counterproductive. In fact what you want to do is to fit your "decision making process" to the data. If for instance you know that the Russell contract usually trades in one direction for the first half hour and then reverses about 67% of the time, you want to develop a way to fit your system to that knowledge. You want to ask yourself, how do I characterize the open in such a way as to know when the market is reversing and when it is going to continue in a direction. I use the concept of "tests" to tell me whether a move will continue or reverse. In my view all trading is about learning to interprete how price acts when it "tests" specific price points. As you get better at that, you learn how to "bet" on whether price will test and fail or test and "take out" a specific price point, moving past it with enough momentum to give you a profit.

    In my opinion, these are the important issues to learn about if you are going to make it in this profession.

    These are the concepts that you need to learn about and expand upon if you are going to make money.

    I hope the dialogue will turn in this direction, and that someone will say something useful to help you out.

    Best Regards,
    Steve
     
    #14     Apr 20, 2006
  5. 00009

    00009

    Thank you Steve.
    I understand your concept of "tests" and think that I can easy implement it in my way of trading using "tape reading" just watching how price behaves at certain points. And yes it's true that it behaves one way if trend is going to be extended and in the other way if not. I think that is valuable tactic I could use.

    regards
     
    #15     Apr 20, 2006
  6. Cheese

    Cheese

    It is hard to know what anyone means when they write 'trend is your friend'. Most often this mantra is repeated without stating a formula or notion as to what trend is and when it is in place. In fact it may mean no more than a belief in a current underlying direction up or down.

    It may just be semantics. A price going up for half an hour may be an uptrend to a trend follower. I simply have always looked at the market (eg DOW) and characterized its price behavior as gyrations. I can rely absolutely on the expectation that gyrations will continue and that argument about what, if any, trend is in place, going up or down, is irrelevant. More than that you can start your understanding of the market (intraday) without a mindf**k confused and dependent on a speculated trend.

    Of course from that I developed and put in place a predictive trading model. I know I can expect gyrations (eg YM) and I refined that proposition by giving myself more detailed and accurate information which now comes to me available for each day ahead. It is built on a series of parameters and resulting templates. Whilst this is an institutional approach (of which there are a number), it turns out that the small universe of the independent trader does not consider or prefer such an approach, although it is not beyond one individual to do the considerable work and construct such a model for himself.

    Even apart from all that, gyrations can be understood and exploited by learning to understand price operating within the gyrations you observe each day live.

    Those gyrations offer consistent money.
    :)
     
    #16     Apr 20, 2006
    Laissez Faire likes this.
  7. Making sense, as usual. I hope the thread originator is paying attention.
     
    #17     Apr 20, 2006
  8. wint

    wint

    Mr. 00009

    The problem I have with your question is that you throw the word "trend" out there like it's some objective, tangible, THING we can all agree on.

    Just last night I watched a TV show where a geeky scientist was complaining that the term "dirt" didn't mean anything in the laboratory. "Dirt" could actually be a combination of particles of several hundred types of material. The word "dirt" is meaningless.

    Likewise with your use of the word "trend."

    You haven't described what you're trading nor what time frame you look at. You also failed to describe the technique that you're currently using to identify your "trend."

    If I don't know what a trend means to YOU, then how the heck can you expect me to share any advice that could help you?

    So, part of the problem here, and I mean this with all due respect, is that you seem to be suffering from sloppy thinking.

    Go back and try asking the question again but this time add necessary detail. Be scientific.
     
    #18     Apr 20, 2006
  9. 00009

    00009

    Well it may be hard to explain myself in English so I didn't go in much detail.


    Let me put it this way, If eur/usd advances 40 pips ( I trade forex mostly intraday) or 60 pips up I have though time in getting next 50 pips that are usually in same direction this time up. So I start looking for a top. I waste time trying to short (fighting the trend) and I don't use established intraday uptrend to get myself in some retracement and targeting more up action.

    Coolweeb nicely explained possible reason for that
    "Because you missed profits of a nice big trend
    and you are itching to make money so you enter at any subpar signals possible."

    It look really bad looking after all is done in chart, with that much need for a reversal and not just let myself trying to use possible nice outcome of uptrend.

    I put some attachment, I hope it will give some light.

    I think I would trade like this other instruments or other time frames also with this problem. I think it's mainly psychological because I would like to trade different way and in the end I always trade the same. Like trying to quit smoking you want to but in the end you always smoke another btw. I don't smoke.

    regards
     
    #19     Apr 21, 2006
  10. 00009

    00009

    .
     
    #20     Apr 21, 2006