Excellent points! My opinion is there is zero difference between fading and going with a trend. Without information both are simply guesses as to direction. Asymmetrical information flows allows the market to exist. Everything else is noise.
To those who are friends with trends: time is now around 2:16PM. EUR/USD has been rising after the Fed news. It is now at 1.4053. Would shorting it at current time and price be with-the-trend or against-the-trend? Could you answer before Mr. Hind Sight?
I can tell you don't make much money trading. I'm not a trend trader myself, i actually pick bottoms and tops, whether short term inside a longer term trend, or downright BOTTOMS and TOPS. The point is, that a winning trader would know one reality in trading: you can make money with ANY strategy, whether that's trend trading, range trading, buying major bottoms/tops or whatever. The reality is that money can be made in many different ways. It is all about taking entries which have a higher probable outcome than your risk. This is possible to do in trend trading. It takes experience and understanding, but it can be done. For someone who doesn't understand this very simple reality, you have a lot to learn if you're going to start making major money.
I think by its basic approach, trend following would mean being late to join the party and also being late to leave the party - the objective being to take a decent chunk between high and low. The best explanation I have encountered about how to identify a trend and a change of trend is in Chapter 7 of "Trader Vic - Methods of a Wall Street Master" by Victor Sperandeo.
You can make money trading or fading trends (although I make most of my money doing the later). Trend traders get paid to jump on the train; RTM traders, for jumping in front of it. Both in a timely manner. Neither is inherently superior to the other, IMHO.
How many of you find the above statement complete/correct/accurate or inaccurate/incorrect/incomplete?
Ummm, I still have not seen a post yet in this thread from a trend advocate who did not also admit that fading markets is also a profitable strategy. Same cannot be said for the faders. Almost like class warfare. And how is it that market fundamentals are somehow extremely late getting priced into a market ? Does a big commercial or producer neglect to price fundamentals into the marketplace ? I was a commercial energy trader for several years, and I did not find that to be the case at all - we ALWAYS priced our viewpoint as an energy producer into the marketplace.