DislikedI'll try. When I first saw this I thought:
What about Support and Resistance? Isn't that an oldie but still valid?Ignored
There can be various arguments to this, SR is a purely psychological point, a point where many traders see... again these points invite various actions from various traders. Some might play with the bounce, and some might use it as a breaking point, whether it breaks or bounce is purely non-coincidental anymore or is it? there are various setups which proves the strength of a support and some others that proves how weak one could be. Depending on the 'trend', this, again could be hypothetical it would bring different sets of traders with differing believes and mindset taking various actions which thus resumes the 'random' cycle creating the idea of market eccentricity.
Lets discuss the psychology of a Doji, one, it acts as a continutaion 'signal' in a trend correction, two it acts as a reversal 'signal' in an underlying trend. Thus from this very random fact, (which proves to have made a higher percentage revesal backed by historical prices) the real notion of SR comes into creation. Thus, how real can an SR be when its very use are still at most an act of random entries by traders who see these levels with a differing light and analysis? All these accompanied by time factor, will confirm the very fact that market has a random 'buzz', applied with various filters, will prove to create chances for every discretional/mechanical trader, when the 'buzz' decides to move with them.
Contrary to the idea of following the market trends, say the dicretional trend follower enter a long order everytime the market creates a higher close, he might be correct abt following the market trend but in the end, its up to the market to decide if they are willing to follow him/her, making the very notion of trend following a factual winning or losing process/system, which in turn either returns a profit or a loss. This proves that trend following and any other systems out there is just simply an idea, applied with some level of skill.
On psychology...again, i think its just out there to drive traders crazy. So much to creating mindset. One thing that proves right is that i place an SL that does not 'hurt' my heart when its realised, this is all the more important, when you have that, the psychology will turn out right by itself, all these shiznits by psychologist trading the markets and their anologies of the human mind when dwelled to much with can make me go crazy. While i do keep a some as a mantra, psychologies that dwells on my oppositions mindset, i really am not interested to know, i.e. what a person taking the opposite direction thinks. This is not a game of chess.
In the end, i agree that the very fact of how profitable/good/skilled a trader is by the very fact of how he minimise the losers and maximise the winners. Thats an axiom.