DislikedI have a little saying printed in BOLD above my monitors.
DON'T THINK
HAVE RULES
PLAN
EXECUTEIgnored
Rules are great for beginners, they stop them doing stupid things. At some point, you get beyond that - as Ben put it, 'why would I want to trade like a robot?'... he just got beyond it a little quicker than most
What if your rules are wrong? An efficient market is always going to render some of your rules invalid at some point in the future. The turtle traders that everyone idolises had 'rules' - if you tried trading by them now, you would blow your account.
Everyone works differently. Some people like rules, and dont want to exercise judgement. It imposes discipline, I guess. And that is fine - if it works for you, awesome.
Personally, I'd rather put my money in an index fund than follow a strict rule based system. My alpha comes from evaluating a situation, processing the information presented and positioning myself accordingly. ANd I know a ton of people that work the same way, and consider judgement an integral part of their 'system'.
Horses, courses, etc.
When you have to shoot, shoot. Dont talk.