If a truly exceptional profitable approach to trading does exist... No-one, who is in possession of it, is going to reveal it. They've probably paid a lot in "learning cost" to discover it, or they have have sworn an oath, to whoever let them in on the secret, not to share it with anyone else. You're never going to find it on the internet, in a book or through a course. So, how would someone go about discovering something that is a closely guarded secret only known by a tiny few? 1) You could offer to pay them for it but, if it really is that highly prized, they may not sell at any price. But even if they agreed, how could you be sure they weren't just peddling snake oil and pipe dreams like all the other trading "gurus" out there? OR 2) Try and discover what works yourself through experimentation and trial & error. If this is the only way then it may be a good idea to focus on keeping the "learning cost" as low as you can.
well, I am not Ion - neither implied to be it. This is just all my guessing right or wrong - absolutley up to me. No intention to tell anybody anything, just my attempt to solve ryhmes and riddles, and taking that inspiration as an input. I deem myself smart enough to recognise men wiser than me. Why would I ever challenge Socrates? Yes, there are biases, round numbers, fibs, overconfidence, confirmation bias and the list goes on. Some of them could become a self fullfilling prophecy - or not. The art lies in stripping all this away and/or recognizing were it happens and taking advantage out if it. One poster told me in a private thread: Trading is more like an art. Other posters in this thread said it numerous times: you have to do it learn it. "Love is blind": Converging evidence suggests that our perceptions of romantic partners are often not based on objective reality, but are rather positive illusions.
But it may help if you are "aware of the obvious pre-requisite to trading any market" before you start doing it. Perhaps too much focus, in this thread, has been placed on the "obvious" and not enough on the "pre-requisite"?
"What every trader has to realise, is that all the risk management and position sizing techniques in the world are of no use what so ever, unless the trader is aware of the obvious pre-requisite to trading any market." Breaking this down: risk management and position sizing, alone, won't make you good money there's a pre-requisite, that you need to be aware of, to stand any chance of making good money it's a pre-requisite, so it's required before you start doing any trading it should be obvious what this is but, because it is so obvious, it won't be apparent to many
Ed48, it is implicit that "the obvious pre-requisite to trading any market" succesfully as you can trade as much as you want without the pre-requisite, but as we all have Experienced, the successful part require the pre-requisite
What if the obvious pre-requisite was "experience?" Only saying that because it does seem like it could be something obvious... and is something if said, most people would just say, 'Oh, ok.'
Related and because it doesn't show up in "Threads with Recent Posts": https://www.elitetrader.com/et/thre...-would-you-pick-a.160913/page-19#post-5374958
OK, so what could that pre-requisite be? a) Knowing how the market operates. It's just a market of buyers and sellers, right? With market makers, and the like, acting as intermediaries. b) Knowing what causes price to go up and down. It's just supply and demand, right? Price rises when the combined $value of all the buy orders exceeds the $value of all the sell orders. And vice versa for price falls. c) Knowing about the market participants. Large institutions probably account for most of the volume, and most of the price movement, right? Retail traders are probably tiny in comparison, and barely even register on the chart. d) Knowing what prompts the large players (market movers) to buy and sell. Sometimes it could be an obvious news event. Other times they may be portfolio rebalancing. Or who knows? Maybe there are telltale signs (clues) on the chart when large players are accumulating or offloading. You can't frontrun them but maybe you could ride their coattails?