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I'm not making any money this year so far. That is very unusual that I struggle for extended periods of time. I thought I had looked at everything when someone asked if I traded the same way every day regardless of market and condition. The question smacked me a good one guys. The answer was yes, why yes, I do trade the same way every day across products. The issue or at least a part of the issue is that I had become so wrapped up in my "primary method" that I was relying way too much on the signals (confluence of indicator conditions) that I was not really trading. I was ignoring what the market was telling me and executing orders based only on the color, direction or relationship of indicators. In trying to be too smart, I had become too stupid...if that makes sense.
Yes @tigertrader that is true. I have a nice bag of tools, problem is I only use the hammer. You know because in the hand of a craftsman a hammer works all the time for every job. $15,000 in commissions and I'm net -$3500 ytd. All hammer all the time! I have a new pic I'll post to remind me. Be well.
"An error of that kind is possible only on the basis of assuming that man learns concepts by memorizing their definitions, i.e., on the basis of studying the epistemology of a parrot. To grasp a concept is to grasp and, in part, to retrace the process by which it was formed. To retrace that process is to grasp at least some of the units which it subsumes (and thus to link one's understanding of the concept to the facts of reality)." Ayn Rand ...of course
most traders lack the conceptual foundation that enables them to understand what to trade and why- so they end up trading "randomness" i.e., random set-ups in random markets
its like memorizing chess moves w/o understanding the inherent strategy or w/o being unable to conceptually integrate patterns and your opponent's moves
take any group group of buyers manipulating price through marginal buying. If only you knew the "floor" that had been set , you could front-run them and use them as a deep-pocketed stop, and if you knew the "ceiling" being targeted you would have your profit objective. Of course, any market that is really controlled in this fashion, like a cartel commodity market (see crude oil), is a prisoner's dilemma game, and although price fixing is in the joint interests of all members of a cartel, it is not a profit maximizing equilibrium for each individual member. This means that there will be times when the price set by the cartel will be higher (or lower) than the natural market clearing price. To the extent that you are able to correctly analyze this phenomenon, you will know when to exit your longs and even be able to profit from the eventual correction that occurs due to the artificial over-production and excess supply by cartel members that eventually leads to its collapse.
then there's the treasury market; its more like a monopoly. And different economic rules apply to a monopoly than apply to a cartel. Especially when the monopolist has essentially unlimited capital to support a market or decides it no longer want to
But it can't be all randomness outside of market manipulation, correct?
An example would be extreme of ranges and the logic in how prices breakout (break for some ticks, retrace, find bid/offers, find responsive buyers/sellers, break again a couple of ticks, and so on until the pattern breaks and it retraces for some value that ends the tension of the breakout).
Another would be order-flow trading, such as stop-hunting.
Trading people around these points is rather interesting, and profitable.
I agree, however, that most of market behavior is noise.
Interestingly, your line of thinking is what leads to technical analysis being used by so many traders.
If you think about it, there could be collusion on market behavior by participants that don't even know each other - like everybody looking at a massive pivot and putting stops right above it.
Another way to see this would be to look at traffic and notice that most people are colluding into an orderly behavior.