If I knew then what (I think) I know now...

[barjon]

Because it makes me sad and also somewhat frustrated when people can't get profitable and give up.

td

then according to reported success rates you're gonna be sad for 95% of the time you poor chap

jon

 

[arabianights]

Because it makes me sad and also somewhat frustrated when people can't get profitable and give up.

I'm more sad when they continue trading to be honest...

 

[trader_dante]

td

then according to reported success rates you're gonna be sad for 95% of the time you poor chap

jon

Yes, I think maybe it was all the talk of "I've tried coding, I've tried Stochastics, I've tried Bollinger Bands etc, etc".

It feels like the dating world equivalent of a guy saying: "I've tried all the lines on girls. I've tried the whole "get your coat, you've pulled" and the "did you hurt your head when you fell from heaven"...and none of them seem to work, so I've decided that it's just too much effort trying to get a girlfriend so instead I'm going to get a whore.

Bit extreme, but you get my drift

 

[Pazienza]

Well after buying a faster PC and spending many hours learning how to code my ideas into EAs in MQL4 and backtesting them all with different optimisation variables then adding in more out of series data I have come to the conclusion that no approach is consistently profitable and worth trading. I have looked at trading pullbacks in upward trends, bounces off Bollinger bands, breaks from bollinger bands, stochastic crosses, and many many more trading setup ideas - all with different types of profit taking and in different time periods. So what I would do now if I could turn back the clock would be to buy property rather than waste thousands of hours and thousands of pounds trying to find some Nirvana trading approach. I think that the markets are so heavily traded and in so many different ways that if an edge seems to be present for a while it won't be for when you try to trade it. Also the human mind is very adept in seeing patterns in noise. So my conclusion is simply to look elsewhere to make your money eg property purchase and hold or ideally capitalising on a talent you have - this is also more rewarding that getting money from the markets.

I think I might be able to see what your problem is. Voodoo doesn't work.

 

[TheBramble]

It's just one person's story Tom. Lots don't give up. Some of them get profitable and some lose it all, one or more times, before giving up.

I'm not sure in that respect trading is so very different from any other commercial endeavour.

"...across sectors, 66 percent of new establishments were still in existence 2 years after their birth, and 44 percent were still in existence 4 years after. [...] These survival rates do not vary much by industry". src: SRB - [Data from a non-recessionary period.]

While the chap you feel sorry for may believe he would have been better off following some other passion, the statistics suggest he would perhaps have had similar outcome had he gone down that route.

At any given time, of the set of active traders, roughly half will be profitable and half will be non-profitable.

The profitable ones tend to stay in the game while the unprofitable ones tend to leave the room, to be replaced by new bloods.

I’m suggesting that’s pretty much how it is in any area of commercial endeavour. The good stay and do well, the less than good leave to try something else. Until they find their niche. Or not.

 

[TheBramble]

It feels like the dating world equivalent of a guy saying: "I've tried all the lines on girls. I've tried the whole "get your coat, you've pulled" and the "did you hurt your head when you fell from heaven"...and none of them seem to work, so I've decided that it's just too much effort trying to get a girlfriend so instead I'm going to get a whore.

‘a guy’?

Tom, it wasn't a hypothetical was it? They were your lines, weren’t they Tom?

Talking of lines, I was in a supermarket and looking for a sugar-free jelly (OK, I do normal stuff like everyone else…). The print on some of these packets is extremely small and I hadn’t got my reading glasses. So I turned to the person nearest to me, who happened to be a stunningly lovely young lady, and asked if she could help me. I honestly wasn’t trying to pull, but it was clearly a new one for her…

Tom, don’t try and embellish that one. The white stick and dark glasses will probably be a turn off and you'll be back to whores again.

 

[oiltanker]

TD

if its a guessing game then one might ask is there a science of guessing?

it is not irrational to make money from non guessing games and as you say creation of art or whatnot might be more fulfilling and socially useful.

if the aim is to get money then writing a pop song, book, creating a website might be more rational than from guessing games?

i think trading term is misused imo trading is when you have an order for something already and then go out and get the cheapest price for it. its not really a guessing game. you have a fixed price and your profit is from the spread between what you buy it for and what you sell it for.

guessing the actions of institutions etc with no buyer in mind is really guessing? so if one has to have a buyer in mind they have to believe the price is good value when its not. e.g if one buys at 50 then one must look for someone who will pay more than that. who is that person?

which is whole different focus than the usual mutter maze about indicators.

 

[TheBramble]

On Topic Post

If I had known then what (I know) I know now...

I would have carried on betting on raindrops on the window pane, confident that the general direction was sufficient information to keep me in the game, but I wouldn't have spent thousands of hours thinking it was necessary to predict exactly the path they'd take or precisely when they'd get to the bottom.

 

[Black Swan]

If I knew at the beginning that this business was going to cause me to make a decision between money and everything else that is important in life, I would have pursued my career in the arts.

Perhaps the creativity of trading is in some small part worthwhile?...Nah..

 

[TheBramble]

Hint For Newbies

The raindrops; don't wait for a pullback to get in at value.

 

[Black Swan]

Because it makes me sad and also somewhat frustrated when people can't get profitable and give up.

You could be profitable/successful and still "give up", or have to find a different niche for yourself as the drudgery of trading (same 5hit different day) just doesn't offer enough..

 

[barjon]

Drudgery? Well, whatever turns you on I suppose. I always think that the people who've got it made in this life are those who do as a job what they would otherwise choose to do as a hobby.

 

[Black Swan]

Drudgery? Well, whatever turns you on I suppose. I always think that the people who've got it made in this life are those who do as a job what they would otherwise choose to do as a hobby.

Perhaps, for pro sportsman..Otherwise folk treating trading as a "hobby" don't need (or want) to make it work as a living..

 

[arabianights]

disagree; the thing about trading is results have nothing to do with how "hard" you work

 

[TheBramble]

If I knew now what I knew then...

I wasn’t thinking of an alternative thread for Alzheimer sufferers, more that I suspect for most, the take what is simple and self evident at the start, doubt it can be that obvious and then work hard to make it more complex. Or perhaps it’s more a case of striving to understand the basis for price doing what it’s doing and in the process forgetting what they really came here to do in the first place which was to profit from those movements, rather than account for or predict them.

 

[Hoggums]

Talking of lines, I was in a supermarket and looking for a sugar-free jelly (OK, I do normal stuff like everyone else…). The print on some of these packets is extremely small and I hadn’t got my reading glasses. So I turned to the person nearest to me, who happened to be a stunningly lovely young lady, and asked if she could help me. I honestly wasn’t trying to pull, but it was clearly a new one for her…

So... did it work?

 

[TheBramble]

So... did it work?

Well...I wanted the jelly for myself, but was so emboldened by her friendly response, found myself telling her I was preparing a special tea for my diabetic grandmother (which I don't have)....

One thing led to another. I went to the checkout, paid for the jelly and sat at home alone eating it and watching the rugby.

 

[Black Swan]

Well...I wanted the jelly for myself, but was so emboldened by her friendly response, found myself telling her I was preparing a special tea for my diabetic grandmother (which I don't have)....

One thing led to another. I went to the checkout, paid for the jelly and sat at home alone eating it and watching the rugby.

 

[Pazienza]

Jeez, I thought mid term was over? Crackrock I'm not fookin interested in you or anything you have to say. What is it with these pathetic schoolboy challenges, any forum time I spend on here I'll spend it how I want to, not how others want me to..comprende? I don't see my future in the same way you sandpit dreamers do, irrespective of the rewards the mechanics and lifestyle impact of trading does not offer me enough, I'm capable of more..

If you actually traded you'd understand the sentiment I voiced last night, it's a dilemma a lot of consistently successful traders experience, "is this it?" I'm watching it all kicking off in the M.E. folk piling up on the borders of Egypt and Tunisia, scrambling for food and a future better than 2 dollars a day and I'm sitting there waiting to see if the news announcement re. Aussie GDP bleeds onto my charts and effects my short Aus trades..In terms of this thread it was a perfectly adequate observation; I wish I'd known I'd be looking in at my positions from 7am to 1am and have to adapt my lifestyle to accomodate this, there is no glamour and there is no alternative.

But you, Pazzy and Dave have to swoop, attempt to score cheap points and moreover attempt to de-rail the thread, as you and they do with most threads with what you think is humour..Dave kinda has an excuse, given his illness and addictions, perhaps your condition is similar but tbh you and your ilk are tiresome. If you want to troll and play games go over to Dave's ickle forum and knock yourselves..

Hey!

Don't have a go at me, I didn't do anything. He asked someone to quote his message, and since he's been good enough to post some interesting charts in a thread I started, I thought I would oblige. I'm not interested in getting into another spat with you.

To be fair to him, that post you made was a bit odd, and obviously you thought better of it because you quickly decided to delete it.

Recommence hostilities if you want, but don't blame me.

Where is the love?

 

[arabianights]

I'm not interested in getting into another spat with you.

chiny reckon

don't abandon the lulz just because of ill conceived and executed attempts to tug at ones better nature!