5 years and still no strategy

What Calculus is saying here is true and obvious.

in any field of life we can witness competition: animals competing for food, plants competing for sunlight etc. etc.
what makes you think trading is an exception ?

many dreamers don't get it:
it's bulls vs bears.. not bulls WITH bears !


Knowing this surely puts us in advantage, but how do we profit from this knowledge.. we can't !

we can't anticipate anything, forget it!

FOLLOWING is the only way to profit in the long run.. statistically speaking.

So simply putting an MA on the daily chart with sensible RR or MM profits in the long run? I'd love to see a TE or myfxbook that backs up this claim.

Follow the leader. Did you know that Alpha wolves lead from the rear of the pack? Or that among many species the dominant organisms consume the least resources? It's almost as though gluttony isn't a virtue...

Vee

1. I like the really short term price action as there's always so much opportunity. People think under the 1m is too fast, it's not once you get used to it. I like to use the 15sec for main analysis and also the 7sec as it often gives a good clue (can also use 15s/30s or 1m/2m). Now, down in those short time time-frames you cannot be a cowboy trader (shooting at anything that moves) otherwise you're going to get cut to shreds. So what you have to do is be patient and look for real quality which probably comes 1-2 times per hour but then sometimes not at all over a one hour period. I used to trade Cable but switched at the beginning of the year to Euro because I think that's got more potential this year. So far that move hasn't been the best one but it doesn't matter because there's still action, just not the best action. If you trade under the 1m you cannot follow more than one market. If you trade the 1m you can follow 2.

2. Exiting trades is very hard. It is the hardest skill in all of trading and it separates the great traders from the also-rans. With exits the hardest thing to learn is to accept imperfection as there is not a perfect profit taking plan, they all have weaknesses so you have to learn to accept them and be happy, that is not easy to learn. What I look for is twofold, 1) an out of character move and 2) thrust into a level (which is often the same thing). We traders can also learn from the great man Bruce Lee who said when my opponent contracts I expand and when he expands I contract. In trading - when the market expands I cover and when the market contracts I get interested in putting a position on. The first part is really about the thrust and potential out of character move so when you see that (expanding/thrust) cover (contract).

If you look at a current swing you'll often see that the swings are in character, ie the price action is moving in a similar fashion. But if you get a thrust move that would be out of character so cover into that. If that thrust move is into some sort of level then I always cover. That is a probability play but of course that doesn't mean the market won't continue, if often does. If the market doesn't do either of them I will normally look to cover into the second move, so I go long, market moves up, retraces a touch and then makes another move up, I will cover into that. Also, think about the concept of everyone wants it, if/when after that event as price is moving higher you'll probably get stops and panic buyers hitting the market, cover into that which will also probably be the out of character price/thrust action.

3. 7am London till 4.30pm London. And you better be able to CONCENTRATE in those hours as concentration is a massive edge in this game. People complain that the banks/funds and the like have advantages over us, and they do, but we also have big advantages over them. One of them is our ability to concentrate in a quiet room with zero distractions including the telephone. Do not discount this point as in a busy office concentration is very hard.

4. Health touch wood is pretty good. 8 hours sleep a night is important. Early to bed sadly early to rise because I'm not a morning person.

5. I like what I do and don't like to think at what I'd be doing if I wasn't trading. Working for the man probably. For me, sitting down in front of my computers gives me a good feeling, for others working at a desk all day would be nightmare. Just depends who you are. But one of the good things about the ultra short term price action is because there's so much action and opportunity it's possible to only work a few hours a day and get quite a few trades. So for people that don't want to spend all day in front of the screens, or can't, then why not trade 7am-9/10am and then 1.30pm-4pm. Those hours would work really well and you'd be in the market for probably 70% of the action. If I was a family man that's probably what I'd do.

As for spikes Vee, I'm not looking to enter on the spike as who knows it could spike lower. What I view that spike as is an EVENT that probably minimised a lot of people. So I concentrate on the recovery and that may well mean I enter at a lot higher price than the spike low. Sometimes it's nearer, sometimes further but I will only get interested if I see evidence that everyone wants it which may or not come. I don't therefore try to buy lows I try to buy hidden momentum after the lows. We all know Newton's 3rd law so the event is the action, I'm looking at the reaction to that event. Sometimes the recovery from an event is very fast, too fast for me to get on-board (see the perversity at work!) so I won't. Other times it won't be, or will be slow, so that gives me a chance. Nobody can expect to trade all the good moves because dramatic price moves tend to unfold from price structures that minimise participation...

If anyone wants further information, read all my Shouts, they give some more information of how I look at things and what my views are.

Finally, don't think any of this is easy, it's not for 2 main reasons, 1) the markets aren't setup to be easy for anyone (even the greats), and 2) we have to all deal with the problem of the crowd of price action.

The Police are scared of crowds because sometimes a crowd can create a character and if that character turns bad many people can get subconsciously caught up in it and do things they normally wouldn't do. The mood/character of the crowd therefore captures their minds. 'The boys', who are a loose knit cartel of super traders operating in all markets and especially FX are masters at using the price action to subconsciously capture many market participants. When you hear the term 'paint the tape' that's what they're doing, it's all about manipulating our psychology into thinking the wrong way so they can force people to do the wrong thing at the wrong time. Why does this work? Because when a human is under pressure they often don't think properly and so normally always do the same thing. That is why intelligent people often struggle in this game, their intelligence and rational thinking ability is neutralised when under pressure/danger and in pain. The boys speciality is therefore to put traders under pressure, in perceived danger and certainly in pain.

The crowd of price action is the concept of following the bars, getting sucked in by the current action and subconsciously taking on that character. So if price is going down and down we steadily become more bearish and then only look at the market from a potential shorting perspective, we never consider the fact that price could well reverse OR the probabilities of a short working after so much bearish action is not good. This is why it's so easy to sell the low or buy the high, we've been captured and don't even realise it until it's all too late. In effect the market has forced us to do the wrong thing at the wrong time.

Everyone has the potential to be captured by the crowd so this is why I always say having a good trade plan is not enough in this game because we need to be able to implement it and if we've been captured by the crowd we won't be able to. So all traders have to work hard at recognising the damage the crowd can do and also work hard to stop being captured. The easiest way to do this is to ask yourself many times a day 'have I been captured' (I use this free software http://freealarmclocksoftware.com adn every 30mins it pops up and says 'crowd!'). If you answer NO, you haven't. If you don't instantly say NO, you probably have so go run around your house for 1-2 mins to shake yourself out. If you don't ask the question you'll never know you've been captured until it's too late. If you short term trade do not discount the problems the crowd can cause you. The first defence against it, is to recognise it's there. It took me a long time to realise the concept of the crowd, how could my game-plan be solid but I was struggling to implement it and often doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. I had been caught up in the crowd and didn't even realise it because I never understood the concept. You cannot cure what you don't know...

Dear Professor Calculus

Very, very rarely now on FF does one see a gem of a post. 99.95% of the time the signal-to-noise ratio is so negative as to make reading of almost any thread an experience not to be undertaken lightly... and only then after a Vallium and a large whiskey...

Wonderfully insightful sentiments and beautifully expressed! Many thanks...

Old Dog

P.S. Please give my regards to the Thompson twins... and if you see him, please pat Snowy on the head for me....
.

@calculus interesting post, thanks for taking the time to post that.....

yes it's actually that simple and yes you can definitely be profitable with a simple MA. If you can't see it it's your "visual" problem.

Hey, look what I just stumbled across... ://www.forexfactory.com/gurangax#acct.53-tab.report

~91% drawdown. Seems he went from $13 to $150,000 or something within less than 4 years.

He used 500:1 leverage but a +1,000,000% return isn't bad. I guess that sort of throws your argument out the window, eh?

You are incorrect..... this is a myth..... you must do research and not believe all that you read and hear -- most of what we think we know is all wrong.

https://www.truthorfiction.com/photo...wolf-behavior/

Regards

Says the man who takes things literally and uses trivia to invalidate a very sobering point... lol

Your sobering point, as you call it-- was based on non fact -- babble on my friend,

Okay but do you have any evidence of it?

Surely someone has tried putting an MA on the daily chart since forex trading has been around, no? Then there must be a lot of evidence that this works. Just one piece of evidence, TE, myfxbook, etc., is all that's needed to backup your claim.

Easy to explain.
Don't have a draw down you can't recover from. (;

Depends on what you consider 'fact'. You'd first have to know what you're dealing with... and your quick google search is terribly flawed.

Where does the Alpha wolf lead the pack from, my friend, if not the rear? :-)

The alpha wolf is not pertinent to this thread.... the Quick Google search was for you..... I have first hand knowledge of this fact of discussion -- back to trading

That Google search was only for your benefit..... as a start --- can you see it to completion, if you have the inclination.

I wish you a green future,

Then don't waste people's time with YOUR nonsense.

I'm not going to lie and say the results aren't impressive, but they certainly aren't typical. He uses a PA trading technique according to some quick reading, but here's the kicker - he doesn't usually use stop losses. So that also explains his crazy drawdown. Note he's also never withdrawn from the account. Kindof odd. Interesting experiment combined with probably good entries but I doubt it's practical unless you want to have 10,000 positions open and never be able to close most of them.

You can ALWAYS close a position. The question is whether or not you wish to.

I actually can take a very good guess as to why he stopped a few months ago.

Depends on where you live. NFA regulations on FIFO suck.

FIFO is an inconvenience but it doesn't change anything. It matters not if you are selling expensive inventory or inventory you bought at a discount. All that matters is it's value now and in the future.

Sunken costs my friend. Don't let them get to you.