Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
Another way to trade...to all those angry holy grail seekers..
OK this is my LAST comment in this thread or about what Im trying to say here.
This is a post from someone who obviously DOES knows what their talking about because there is JUST A MASSIVE amount of WISDOM in his words. NOT because he posts profits. NOT because he has a fancy SYSTEM and has it all coded and has it all figured out but... because of his WORDS!!!
I personally have nothing else to say...
Tigertraders words below...
I wrote this while trading and haven't had a chance to edit; so please excuse me if it makes Joe Biden appear coherent and lucid...
I believe there are at least a few points we can all agree upon; because they are blatantly obvious to anyone who has ever endeavored to become a profitable trader. And for the most part, they are self-explanatory. 1) Adequate capitalization 2) Emotional Aptitude, which includes the requisite temperament, attitude, patience, discipline, mindfulness, and humility. 3) Risk/Trade Management i.e., traders must strive for both a high win rate and asymmetric payoffs. It is essential in trading that a high win rate is attained in conjunction with high expectancy, because the risk of ruin is a function of the loss rate. If your method does not have a high enough win rate then the risk of ruin will be greater due to the inevitability of an idiosyncratic loss or consecutive losers. As an addendum, an approach that provides quick feedback to alert the trader of failure as soon as possible is highly preferable. That being said, no matter how crude or refined a method one employs, it finally boils down to surviving against one's own incomplete intellect, a misfired bout of randomness, in controlling the risk, and in executing a set of consistent ideas day in and day out, so that chance can prevail.
Perhaps another fact we can all agree upon, is that there isn’t one correct way to trade, nor one correct approach to the market that will afford you the best chance of coming out a consistent winner. A lot of that has to do with the fact that no two traders are exactly alike. Allow me to generalize and classify the 3 main types of traders. 1) Those who don’t know anything, or have a very limited understanding about the markets. 2) Those who think they have an understanding of the markets; but are unable to recognize their lack of relevant knowledge. And, 3) Those who understand how the markets are structured, how they function, and who drives price.
In a very generalized manner (once again), the markets are still the same as they were in the past. Markets go up and they go down, they back and fill, and risk and uncertainty is still a fundamental reality in trading; and just as in the past, the best we can hope to achieve is an incomplete, but probabilistic knowledge of that environment. However, today’s markets have evolved considerably from past markets. Not the least of the reasons why they have changed is the shift from active to passive investment, and increased AUM of strategies that are on “autopilot” There are still decisions being made by humans; by active value investors, and the fundamental/discretionary crowd, but their influence on price has dwindled dramatically. ~90% of trading volume comes from Quant, Index, ETFs, and Options.
Back in the day, the market used to work something like this. The market had been moving in a certain regime, and sooner or later a fund manager would get the inkling that a change was afoot. His action or inaction would disseminate exponentially to others, and then the regime would change. The key to keeping up with this was to know what the fund manager was keying off of, and then following that signal. So, back then 2 of the most important things that counted with regard to markets were sentiment and momentum. That is, it was all behavioral, and reasonably efficient. Sure, they would like to comment on fundamentals, but the fundamentals were only important because they influenced the behavioral.
.A great deal of the human component has been removed, and this is why a trader should have a foundation of knowledge about the market and an understanding of how it works, before he actually begins to trade. One used to have to monitor data with human input, and you had best be making your inputs adapt to what the fund managers were watching (i.e. usually the length of past data). If the in-crowd had switched to watching the last week and you are watching the last two months, a change would occur before you become aware.
There Is still a herd effect, in a sense. It’s self-referential in the same way that the human phenomenon would feed upon itself.However, it is much more mechanical than psychological in nature. For the most part, non-human influenced data is fixed and linear And, it all falls neatly into place. “An increase in volatility typically leads to an increase in systematic selling, which happens in an environment of reduced liquidity, and hence can produce outsized market impact” Volatility spikes lead to less liquidity and also to systematic de-leveraging, which means selling into a falling and illiquid market, which in turn drives volatility higher, and around and around. Once trailing realized starts to move higher in a sustainable fashion, target-vol. deleveraging starts and executes “passively” in the market over the ensuing days until there’s nothing left to purge."
The markets have changed and that requires an approach built on an analytical framework that is relevant to current drivers of price. Accordingly, the tools we use have to change and so does the perspective needed to understand the context of the modern market. Therefore, it is not the tool nor technique so much, but the features of the market that count and define if an idea might work. The goal should always be to figure out the game that is being played, and then play that game.
Well I'm sorry if I am being "rude". I have no intention of breaching the rules. However, I will never be one to hold back what I think about a situation. That's one of my unique traits. It's a little hard to call people out without being rude, but that's not going to stop me from trying. If it still comes out too rude then moderators are free to take whatever action they deem appropriate.
So I'm just going to more specifically lay out the issue I have here with what's going on:
I am very concerned when I see people out of the gate attempting to discourage people from questioning things. There is lots of advice out there that sounds good, but fails in actual practice. By giving such attitudes a free pass we create an atmosphere where it is easier to mislead or outright scam people.
The author is claiming that he makes money off a system that gives him entries, stops, and directions off purely mechanical signals on an intraday chart. That is a big claim. This is a claim that I have seen made many times that ended up being a lie. I have seen many profitable track records, but never such results on a purely mechanical intraday system. I'll see some that work well in certain time periods, but never over multiple years. To truly verify such a claim it would be necessary to produce broker verified statements verifying that he traded it live, and that the results were representative of all their trading activity in that account for that time period. However, that is a verification that is really too much to ask for one individual posting on a forum. So I just ask for stats. How did it actually perform when it was traded?
Without even basic statics on the historical performance of the system there is no way to verify the effectiveness of anything in the author's post. It is just more noise in a sea of opinions. But what really gets me is when you ask for some data, and you get responses like this
In my view this is a statement designed to manipulate people into not questioning things. The author is unable or unwilling to verify his claims, and is attempting to discourage anyone from asking by implying that if they don't see it they must be dumb. There is significant reason to be skeptical of this user and the information he is sharing. People usually don't respond well to having their strategy called out. I get it. But I am compelled to point these things out when I see them for the good of everyone involved. The reader can come to their own conclusions after reading interactions.
I have tried to maintain upmost civility and have tried to convey my message in the most succinct terms, but you simply choose to ignore every single statement I've made except the ones that try to force your narrative on the reader. Your constant bickering and accusations do not carry much weight with me at all. Your actions illustrate why you are probably one of the angry holy grailer's who refuse to acknowledge that there might be others making money in the market and you're not. Your thought process and arrogance is what I believe might be stopping you from being profitable in the market, because whatever statements are made, you only see the ones you want to and nothing else. You have become so laser focused on back-tested results and proof that you do not read anything else I've written or my explanations. It really is no skin off my nose if you believe me or not, but I would really suggest, if you ever hope of making money in the market, you need to change your attitude and open up your mind to what others are actually saying, not what you want them to say. This will probably get the attention of Bob the moderator, but it needs to be said as you are not here to share ideas and discussions, all you are doing is trying to argue, anatagonize and get some type of reaction.
I want you to remember that you are on FIO, not on a site where personal attacks are tolerated.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, as long as the debate and disagreement is about the ideas being discussed, not about the users themselves.
Also remember that, should this kind of behaviour continue, moderators can step in at any time and either temporarily or permanently ban disruptive users.
@TraderDoc007 since this is your thread, bear in mind you have the option to regulate user participation with the 'ignore' feature.
@TWDsje and @Sandpaddict this post is to ensure you get notification about my prior post in this thread and that you have read it. TraderDoc007 was already mentioned in the prior post so they will have read it too.
"The last straw for me was an account that I wiped out in the 2008/2009 bear market. I was disgusted with myself and said I would not trade again until I worked out what I needed to do to become successful. I felt I didn't have a means of trading that was mine, that I was comfortable with, that was non discretionary. I traded a whole lot of different techniques but each one did not fit my personality. Each time I blew up an account, I became more determined to succeed and put in more work and read more books. All of that extra reading and seeking was a total waste of time, as the problem wasn't going to be cured by another book, it was a problem with my non existent methodology and damaged psyche. I needed to formulate a system that incorporated those 2 aspects and that fitted my personality. Something that I could trade with ease and not question or second guess. I now sometimes look back at those days with horror, as I refused to face the reality of the 3 most important aspects of trading - a good methodology, a well trained mind and to never be over leveraged."
thanks posting this. Sounds familiar.
Well done on the persistence
I see indicators are good. It is at the very least a "training wheel" or at the very best a "flight instrumentation". Indicators especially those custom build yourself are the best. It creates a guild post and a way to tweak it or re-tweak them when post mortem. Since nothing in trading is 100%, most early traders write them off from a high failure rate lacking of a quick result.
I think the author here offers a pearl of wisdom. At a certain time of the slow journey, persistence traders found their way. People bias one way or the other like "Blind Men and the Elephant".
Simplistic observation, the opposite of using indicators is price action or a mix with trend lines (S/R). Price action takes a long time to master. Indicators can help to speed that process up and you can re-code it the way you trade. Indicators are objective vs a trader subjective emotions. That got to help if you spend a lot of time to backtest the indicator and learn its limit. Add another indicator to compensate etc. During that time, your price action experiences are accumulating.
After a few years of backtesting and forward simulation, you got your setup. The rest is psychology and money management.