Guys.... I don't own this thread, and this is the internet and people can do what they like. But can the topic of discussion be narrowed back to "the obvious," and discussions of what that may be and how to use it in your trading? This thread never helped me directly with trading at all, but what this thread did do was make me think A LOT about what I was doing, which I appreciate greatly. So I'd like to keep seeing posts that are related to those type of things which makes one think. It seems to now suffer from the dreaded 'thread-bloat' which happens to all popular threads eventually. Just a humble request of course.
Please, show what made you think A LOT about what you were doing. If you can quote abstracts or tell what you refer to with your own words. What's the obvious you've been able to pull up to your own consciousness ? Thanks.
If you know it's obvious, it's because it makes sense. Therefore you already exploit it. So your scenario is impossible. However what's possible is that you're in possession of a valuable information. Fundamentaly it's valuable (Exploitable) but you're unaware of it's potential. Which is an Epistemological deficiency. To be vs To know that. That's why this thread is half BS. I can tell you XYZ is obvious because such and such. But it's the wrong way to go. Trials & Errors make things obvious. It requires a lot of practice for something to be obvious. Otherwise we don't get the real obviousness. Things a crystal clear only for masters. Think of an obviousness as a threat : - Someone has first to recognize there is a vulnerability. - Someone needs to get an access to this vulnerability. - Someone needs the skills to exploit the vulnerability. So there is a world btw know what, know how & exploitation. IMHO Exploitation is Obviousness. Obviousness without exploitation is Pseudo Certitude. It's a flashy bling bling made of plastic only. You said this thread has not improved your P&L. No ET thread will ever make you a master. No ET thread will ever make you rich. This is obvious that this thread ... Can't teach obviousness !
I would say it was the combination of a few of the posts, but I think that is unimportant. For me, it just made me think about what I was doing. I feel like most threads that present concepts or theory that are clearly spelled out, are things that are of no real relevance to trading. Like threads with indicators, or support and resistance, or any other subjective thing we've all read about. This thread seemed to present nothing, but as odd as it seems to me, it is presented in a way that you have to go off and do thinking of your own, instead of reading about things that are of no real value at all. That question I originally posed... I was thinking along the lines of the obvious being something that EVERYONE already intuitively knows, as in it IS REALLY OBVIOUS. But so obvious that nobody would really bother to work out how to get at it, because the response to something so obvious would be, "ya no shit everyone already knows that!" For example... and this is JUST FOR THE SAKE OF THIS PARTICULAR DISCUSSION RIGHT NOW.... Lets PRETEND the obvious is one of these two things for directional trading: Buy before the market moves up, sell before it moves down Buy the market when it starts moving up, Sell before it starts moving down I would say(again just for the purpose of this discussion ), that the two obvious statements above, would be something WE ALL could see as obvious, and something WE ALL could understand, but HOW to carry it out would be the difficult bit. So this is the type of scenario I was thinking of at the time I asked this question in the thread. About the two above statements, we could get tied up in semantics, where some people would say that they don't "predict," but they "react." Or you can't "predict," or you can't "know" where the market is going. Ya of course... but for the purpose of this discussion, let's all just agree that for you to earn a profit, you have to close out a purchase at a higher price than you bought. So in that way every trade is a prediction, guess, or theory as to where the market might be at some point in the future.
Also, just to be transparent, I DO NOT KNOW what the obvious is K-Pia. But I do appreciate the thought exercise, and I'd like the thread to return to the realm of thinking about that and nothing else.
Yes, these statements are obvious. (Buy Low, Sell High). But they have no value at all. Why ? Cause they don't improve your P&L. Even worse, IMHO these two statements creat more problems than they solve. Trading is about risk & reward. How do I Max(Reward) & Min(Risk) ? What are the factors that influence them ? What's in my control ? Can I be Dumb & Robust ? Smart & Fragile ? Smart & Robust ? Run backtests, monte carlo simulations & real experiments. What's my weaknesses ? Am I a sucker somewhere ? Find patterns, causal relationships, correlations ... It's a lot of low level experience. No maco Bs. You said it yourself... "How" is the problem. To found out how ... You must try & fail. Only experience will tell you how. You got your tentative solution, Now build an implementation. Otherwise trash it & restart.