How do you cope with the information overload?

[mantas1088]

Hello everyone!

I have been trading (on demo though) quite often relying on technical analysis, and just recently discovered what News Trading is.. Maybe you could share some tips on how to look for the news? for the beginning, I started following people and news on social media and read comments by others about nonfarm events Maybe someone else does similarly?

I also chose to do a project for communications course about traders' experience and the opinion of personalised newsfeed.. Maybe some of you would have time to participate in a brief survey or share your comments here about how do you cope with the information overload? I would really appreciate it 🙏

Just in case: here is a link to my survey: ow.ly/3yHbcu

Thank you advance! 🙏

 

[dbphoenix]

Forgive me if I don't click on an unidentifiable link, particularly as this is your first post.

As to news, I don't cope with it at all; I ignore it. I'm concerned only with price movement. If the news moves price, I go where price takes me. If news doesn't move price, it is of no concern to me.

In any event, "news" is of little concern to a trader unless he's daytrading. Therefore, if it is of importance to you, I suggest that you trade a larger interval, such as hourly. By doing so you not only provide yourself with enough time to deliberate, but most news events won't even show up in your interval.

Db

 

[mantas1088]

Forgive me if I don't click on an unidentifiable link, particularly as this is your first post.

As to news, I don't cope with it at all; I ignore it. I'm concerned only with price movement. If the news moves price, I go where price takes me. If news doesn't move price, it is of no concern to me.

In any event, "news" is of little concern to a trader unless he's daytrading. Therefore, if it is of importance to you, I suggest that you trade a larger interval, such as hourly. By doing so you not only provide yourself with enough time to deliberate, but most news events won't even show up in your interval.

Db

Thank you for the reply! and thanks for your note. I have read that an ability to read the price is something very useful.However, I'm still quite far, I guess, from reading the price movements. Therefore, I felt quite confident to base my predictions on tech analysis even the trades were not very successful.

Would you say that swing trading is better than news trading? I'm not very knowledgable about this and all the information I have stems from investopedia

p.s. sorry for the suspicious link. Just in case you would agree to participate in the survey, I'll add the full link here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/198_GJis7oiNh9XPMbPBc5OGyzDFP3Pf8rq2LxX4kTCE/viewform?usp=send_form

 

[dbphoenix]

Thank you for the reply! and thanks for your note. I have read that an ability to read the price is something very useful.However, I'm still quite far, I guess, from reading the price movements. Therefore, I felt quite confident to base my predictions on tech analysis even the trades were not very successful.

If by "technical analysis" you mean indicators and patterns, then what you feel is not particularly germane given that maintaining records of trades based on indicators and patterns is relatively easy to do. Your feelings, in fact, are the least of your concerns. In any event, maintaining records of trades based on price movement, the third type of technical analysis, is not difficult either as long as you have clear-cut rules regarding what you look for and the options available to you if and when you find it.

Would you say that swing trading is better than news trading? I'm not very knowledgable about this and all the information I have stems from investopedia

Moving on from the lecture, whether or not swing trading is "better" than news trading is, again, easily determined by maintaining records of the trades taken in each (which I guess is a continuation of the lecture ). In other words, if you have rules determining your swing trading and rules determining your news trading, comparing them is easy. Whether or not your rules pertaining to each require modification is another matter. Which you choose to modify may depend more on which type of trading you want to devote your time and effort to; there's no point in devoting a lot of time and effort to something that bores you.

You will find, however, without much investigation, that trading the news is essentially a hindsight endeavor. Swing trading can be planned in advance, along with all the possible detours and outcomes along the way. If nothing else, this inspires and enables confidence. But if you prefer the video-game aspects of trading news, then that will more likely satisfy you.

Db

 

[mantas1088]

Thanks for your comprehensive replies - great food for thought! I haven't thought about keeping a trades journal as a way to determine your trading style.. Note taken!

I got interested in learning about News Trading due to recent economic events in Europe: for example, Russia and Europe establishing restrictions for doing business together, which led to sudden fall of EURO currency (since esp.Germany has many business relation with Russia..), or the current internal conflict in Europe after terrorist acts.. Events as such foreshadow (in my mind) potential currency moves ( I have mostly traded FOREX, therefore these example seemed significant to me..). News trading, for me, became sort of a long term planning, trying to draw correlations between political/ economical events and currency moves. And so I got interested in the information overload subject and wanted to explore, how traders personalise their news Perhaps, I didn't explain that well initially..

If I may ask you a personal question, what would be your point of view towards making trading decisions based on released news articles, etc.? Is it very risky; not recommended? Or would you say that price movements largely dominate the trader's decision-making?

I really want to thank you for your comments. I'll write them down for the thesis inspiration Have a good New Years Eve!

 

[dbphoenix]

If I may ask you a personal question, what would be your point of view towards making trading decisions based on released news articles, etc.? Is it very risky; not recommended? Or would you say that price movements largely dominate the trader's decision-making?

Well, personally, though I'm hardly the only person to point this out, by the time you get the news, the effect on price -- if there's going to be any -- has been made. What you will end up doing is reacting to the reaction, if you're quick. Otherwise you'll react to the reaction to the reaction. If there is/has been no effect on price, then whether or not one knows the news is irrelevant.

What matters is not the news but what The Money thinks about it, and that is often at odds with what one would think is logical or even reasonable.

I focus on price movement in my trading, though that is not the case for everyone. If you want to know why and how, just click the first link below my signature. If you wade into it and it comes across as gobbledygook, I have something simpler, more basic.

Db

 

[mantas1088]

Many thanks again. I will definitely take a look at your links.

Your comments have been very insightful and helpful.

 

[NVP]

How does anyone cope with information overload ?

I read once a crazy fact that many of us get bombarded with more information now in one day than the average person would do in years

a few hundred years back

So. Filter,filter,filter.....

But what bits of the trading puzzle do you chose to filter out ?

Welcome to trading
N

 

[mantas1088]

How does anyone cope with information overload ?

I read once a crazy fact that many of us get bombarded with more information now in one day than the average person would do in years

So. Filter,filter,filter.....

But what bits of the trading puzzle do you chose to filter out ?

Welcome to trading
N

Hi NVP,

Thanks for the response and your input!

I totally I agree with you - emails, news aggregators, social media, and so forth really make it harder to filter. It is a good question: which news we should filter out..

I watched one webinar with Lex Van Dam, where he has stressed that good traders usually focus on a few instruments and try to become experts in reading, let's say EUR/USD related news.. I based one assumption in my survey based on the latter recommendation from Lex According to him, this should make a life easier for a beginner or any of us - to choose 3, let's say currency pairs (I only know Forex), rather than try to process or monitor a bunch of instruments. Would you agree?

One of the assumptions I posed is that traders or other individuals would filter out the news they are not interested in.. Just don't know, if there is a tool, which makes it easier to do so

There was another trader who has shared his approach with me.. He said, he's agnostic to product updates or the news. What concerns him are news that are moving and for an opportunity to get in at a decent price. So technically, he has set his radar on FDA news, contracts or patents awarded, billionaire buy ins, etc..

 

[mlawson71]

I learned to filter out the nonsense over the years and to recognize truly important things. Or at least I think I have learned to do that. Also, I actually try to avoid trading news and stick to technical analysis for the most part. In my opinion, one should be very careful when following someone else's advice. It won't necessarily be bad advice, but one should never follow it blindly without thinking about it first.