I'd have thought, based on what works for me, is that 'the obvious' is to have a clearly defined process of what instrument to trade, when to take an entry, when to take an exit for profit and when to accept a loss. Crank the handle day by day and let the odds play out, and above all not to be reckless. How such a process is developed is just common sense and can take time and effort, and won't be explained to others by those who may have experienced some pain getting there, but there is no secret as far as I am aware.
I think the obvious is to interpret whether current price is high or low vs where it was in the past Day, Week, Month, Year, Decade... That way you can buy low and sell high when those opportunities present themselves again.
The Obvious is insight in the true intent of big players and reading their footprints. Seeing or measuring their levels where price (eventually) will take off. Some say that it is even linked in time (levels and take off) Before anyone asks questions: no, I don't know. I only know it has been the most frustrating problem I've ever come across in my life.
For me, the "obvious pre-requisite to trading any market" is this. Before you even think of placing a single trade, you need to discover an approach/method/strategy, whatever you want to call it, that will actually make decent money. I know what you're thinking; well, that's stating the bleeding obvious isn't it! But think about it for a moment, it can't be that obvious, can it? Otherwise, why does trading end in failure for the overwhelming majority? Surely, no-one sets out on their trading journey in the knowledge that they're using an approach that will never make decent money, or worse still lose money, and it will all turn out to be a complete and utter waste of time? Of course, maybe there is no approach to trading, in the long run, which makes decent money. Perhaps the tiny few, who are successful, just got lucky. Unfortunately, knowing the "obvious" is only the beginning of the process. But, as the OP said, it puts you way ahead of the majority who don't even realise that what they're doing is almost certainly destined to never make decent money.
I believe the more obvious a pattern is, my stats come down to 50/50, whereas not so obvious patterns, the ones most retail not clever to see do better for me.
You have to remove the pain points one at a time by starting with the ones that hurt the most. For instance, if u find exiting a trade on a 4 hour chart prematurely, use alarms/reminders to just glance at the chart only at every fourth hour to check the enter/exit conditions . Its hard if you try to correct yourself on several fronts at once. Make a routine to avoid the mistakes you are committing, but again one at a time, let it go on for a few days, then head to the next one. This has helped me. Overall, you need to develop a process, consisting of routines, implemented and practised by reminders , excel sheets and notes. Its how well you are organised that makes it, and interestingly you will need to organise a plan, to practice trading in an organized , stressless and easy manner, hope that helps
I pm'ed almost everybody in the know now, but they all have vanished (or got banned...) King Sisyphus showed up recently and he was polite enough to answer a few questions (before disappearing...) To stir things up a bit, I'm going to repost some statements from this thread (or similar) in the next couple of days #1: "eta - truth be known I don't really believe the market reacts to anything (except possibly major events) - It, for the most part, just does what is necessary to make "most" lose..."
+1 to King Sisyphus. I had a very interesting discussion with him too. I do hope some of the people that ran this thread come back for more at some point.