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I think that no one likes to hear that their 'idea' is crap. Even though the market tells them daily that it is.
Nothing is new under the sun, nothing is absolute, everything is gray, and everything works sometimes. I can make a MA work one day, a fib the next, a TL most of the time. Problem is there is no sure fire way.
The only thing that I have seen work is what @Big Mike has said, trade a large enough timeframe with enough capital that you can actually let a trade 'work'. Then learn what drives price.
I see all S/R (MA, fib, etc) on the chart as traffic signs. Sure you go down the highway and the sign says 55 mph. You think it is common knowledge, but people drive faster or slower. Some don't even see the sign. Price moves from sign post to sign post in the same way, sometimes it may appear to adhere to the sign, others times it ignores it.
One of the traits of a good trader is to be able to adequately digest information on an ongoing basis and be able to take trades based on it. One of the hardest things to do is to abandon an idea, especially if you have tied your ego to it. You are not your trading, you are not your method. Many of the best traders have multiple methods, and the best know when one is working and knows when one isn't and will use the correct method for the current market. Chefs, pilots, doctors, and many other professionals do the same. They will use what method is correct for the context of the task at hand.
One last post. I re-read my above post, and it reads like I am shitting on him -- not my intention. So, to further expand, FT71 knows more about the markets than I ever will most likely, and I firmly believe he is an excellent trader (no doubt better than me). But I think he leans towards the 'dark side' a bit with assigning some properties to some of his tools they don't posses.
Don't worry Mike, i think if we would all sit in front of each other taking a nice beverage in front of the sea discussing about markets we would certainly have a lot of fun and laugh at each other for beeing so serious at times on futures.io (formerly BMT).
Adam recently wrote a great post on managing bias, with the question "how do you know when you're wrong?" When a market has gone up sharply, many traders will only know they're wrong if it falls quite far, so for many of them the risk does not justify the reward. Some will say that the risk of being flat outweighs the risk of loss, and that is also a compelling argument at times, depending on how far and how fast it has gone, as only one factor of many to consider.
As for time frame, it is an endless discussion/debate... But the above holds true, regardless, IMO: the trader must have some way to know he is wrong.
Another thing I find funny is when someone misses a trade and then they wish or hope for the trade to fail. LOL. That means if you would have entered you would have chosen a losing trade. Now I know it isn't just about 'choosing' the right trades. That is a fallacy because you will more then most likely cherry pick the bad ones. But I would rather had been right in my read. And even more I know that the need to be right can cause its own issues, but you know what I am saying.
If my read was right then I can also enter later. Problem I had was 'aiming' for the most opportune time to enter. That window is so small you will most likely never hit it and the ones you do hit will be losers.
I ve watched countless webinars on futures.io (formerly BMT)--everyone has their style and there is no one way to make money. Took me a long time to get on with the auction theory and to start thinking like FT71 thinks. A statistical edge is something that has to be developed and not something that is given or handed to you. There are many ways to skin the cat. Having said that I couldnt go thru first 30 minutes of this webinar. I know I'll get flack for this but I've tried it 3 separate times to go thru this webinar.
Too bad you feel like people are picking on you. Part of having confidence in what you do is being able to be open minded enough to hear others criticize a belief or process. Often people who approach religion with both faith and reason find their faith strengthend when people question their beliefs; those who only have faith and no thought get offended, close their minds and hearts, and become stubborn. Same with trading. If you have confidence in what you're doing, which you should if it's making you money, then there's no reason to feel attacked or picked on. Hopefully you decide to rejoin because I'm sure you have a lot which you can share with others.
Warning, dead horse being beaten, flayed, and dismembered below:
I'm always astounded when the successful long-time traders like @Big Mike and others offer advice and challenge the intellectual underpinnings of newer traders, only to have the newer traders take it personally and storm off in a huff. The underlying goal of those offering advice is almost always something like this:
Certainly, there's the occasional rhetorical shortcoming on the part of the experienced folks on the forum, but I think a lot of that comes from having seen the same silliness over and over again and having little patience for it. While it may be true that you catch more flys with honey than with vinegar, I don't think anyone would like to think of themselves as a pest being lured into a trap - that kind of mentality applies better with bullshit indicator/system marketers promising guaranteed profits. How about this analogy: you wake up more fainting victims with smelling salts than with perfume.
Really, which is the ruder of two choices: challenging the notions of someone who might be doing something that could harm their profits, or letting them believe/do things that you have seen harm dozens/hundreds of other traders?
[I am a trading neophyte, so my two cents might be worth exactly that, nonetheless, I think I'm more right than wrong here.]
This post is quoting Ryland but its more directed at the conversation in general.....
For what it's worth, I am enjoying this conversation....its pointed but so far, professional. I've been impacted by Adam's webinar and some of the other materials he's written in the last few weeks so looking forward to hearing more about it here.
That being said, there's a huge difference in challenging someones views or ideas vs personally insulting them, calling them stupid, ignorant, etc....some of which has gone on in the name of "helping"....none of which was or is....
Contrary to those "comments" this thread has been pretty even handed, even with some of the more pointed remarks. I agree @jlwade123 presented no data to support her theory and that Adam Grimes has. However, perhaps she has done a significant amount of research and makes her claim based on that knowledge without specifically detailing that knowledge here in the thread.
I've been doing a lot of the type of research advocated by Adam lately and while its time consuming and it's always with benefit of hindsight, at least its based on hard numbers and price action vs other less material factors. And its leading slowly to better and more confident trading. Slowly.
Something @Big Mike said a few posts back resonated with me "buy retracements". This is of course right out of the Adam Grimes playbook...the issue becomes which retracement on which time frame?
As an intra day trader, I've been focused on simple pull backs that don't disturb the existing intra day trend.....BUT and its a big BUT, the moves appear to originate from DEEP (50% or more) pullbacks that appear to disturb and invalidate the current day trend, if there is/was one.
Yesterday and today both are examples of this point at least in crude oil. Example, today we made a NEW LOW following a short trend BEFORE rocketing off into space for a significant new high taking out yesterday's high by a wide margin.
Yesterday, we had an up trend overnight followed by a downtrend (intra day) that was simply a 75% pull back off the overnight highs and happened to line up with resistance from the prior day.....my buddy bought there in the face of what looked like a strong intra day short trend and ended up with a 125 tick winner.
So what I'm saying here is this, I've tested this theory, (longer than two days!) it appears valid, but without forward testing it and recording the results, I'm not 100% sure....but I do know this, only allowing for simple pull backs against an existing intra day trend may work on some days but it appears most of the time, the deeper pull backs (current day) are the real ones.
As has been pointed out over and over, what works, works until it doesn't.....lines are random until they aren't.....things like order flow at a level are important and can't simply be reduced to a simple formula or rule. That's why its called discretionary trading.
I do know this though, if something fails, the opposite is likely to happen....no follow through on the shorts today, longs are likely to win and vice versa.
A final word about auction theory.....I've been in several AMT rooms over the years, no one seems to actually trade it. There's lots of generalizing about what MIGHT happen followed by lots of explanation about what DID happen, but have yet to see anyone actually place an order at a level and say, I am buying the VAL, take that trade and then do more than a scratch with it. Not that I don't think there's merit there but I'm just stating my experience with the AMT guys. I'd love to hear from others that actually trade based on AMT. I'm sure there are, its been around to long to not be discredited by now but I'd like to see charts with live orders or at least calls ahead of time (supposedly there's enough time to do this) and then some actual results.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris