Intuition

I've been sitting here thinking about the role intuition plays in trading for VERY experienced traders (ie years of trading). In other words, I'm wondering if trading is like driving in that at first you have to really concentrate on everything you're doing and eventually you can drive subconsciously. Or is it more like building a house. You know what you're doing after years of building homes, but you're always following a blue print and really sticking close to the plan.

I know for a noob that trading on intuition is going to be a disaster - I'm just curious if oldtimers ever get to that point.

With the market closed my mind starts wandering to these useless kinds of things

Squid

I think your analogy of building a house is accurate......

you know what your doing and familiare with all aspects of constrution but you still have to follow the blue prints for the hose to be built according to spec.
the blue print is your trading stategy.

your title got me to thinking some more regarding what we call intuition, alot of times intuition is a signal from your subconscious. kinda where the old phrase let me sleep on it came from.

SOOOOO here is an experiment for you, remember the old Kreskin ESP game?
there was a pendulum in the game and it was used to get answers from your subconsious, so try the experiment and let me know how it turns out.

Kinda out there huh? maybe we'll start a new thread and call it psychic trading, LOL.

Squid you need to get yourself a girlfriend .

i have definitely developed an intuition about the markets over the years, as do most traders. at first i didnt understand what it was when people said that. i dont get a sudden feeling that the market is going north or south, its more like i get a feeling about the state of the market. i can feel when the market is tense or relaxed, and when traders are in trouble (ie get in on the squeeze). i often get the feeling that i have seen this situation before, and get a sense of what the market believes to be true by looking at reaction to economic data. its much more subtle than i originally thought it would be. intuition definitely helps, not only does it keep you alert of potential trades, but it keeps you out of trouble.