here's something to think about. in poker, they say if you sit down at a table and can't soon identify who the sucker is - you are the sucker in trading, if you can't DEFINE what your edge is, you don't have one. most don't
great point. i almost think there is far too much emphasis on backtesting as opposed to spending time with a setup to really learn it. a friend of mine who is successfull gave me his simple ema/adx setup, i tried backtesting it and it was terrible % wise. Then i would go back to him and he would add on some small rule he uses that he learned from price action and trading the same setup over and over for years. finally after about 7 or 8 of these rules i stopped testing and realized that his setup was really just a general rule of thumb that he traded price around and not a "rule".
"great point. i almost think there is far too much emphasis on backtesting as opposed to spending time with a setup to really learn it." not imo. how many traders solidly backtest their setups (i am talking non-systems traders)? from the discussions i've had with other traders, it's pretty frigging small
I'm going on my 12th year of full time trading. Had some good years (up 150%) and a couple mediocre years where I basically paid the bills. My trading is a combination of day trading and swing trading with about 20% of my net profits from day trading the the other 80% from the swing trades. I see no reason I can't continue to do this until I tire of it or decide to quit for other reasons. One has to adapt to the markets and what worked in the past may not work in the future.
Yeah, tell that to people who bought the high flyers (INTC at $75, MSFT at $60 , CSCO near $80, YHOO at $100, DELL at $55, SUNW at $60) back in 1999. Today INTC is $24, MSFT $30, CSCO $27, YHOO $28, DELL $28 and SUNW is $5. Your buy & hold mentality has nothing to do with trading. Traders go long and short and don't hold the same few stocks until hell freezes over.
Right, no losing years; a couple mediocre ones where I basically paid the bills. What's so hard to believe about that? You guys that question such must not comprehend that there are two sides to the market and playing BOTH (yes, the short side also) allows you to make $$$ in down markets.
Regarding "backtesting" - over the years I've found that backtesting tends to lead to a false sense of confidence in a strategy. (Not being critical, it "can" help talk you out of things that may not work). My thoughts are that there are way too many variables involved to give the historical data any current relevence. The market is a living being, with all sorts of "tentacles" waving around that influence the outcome of any sort of technique or strategy. Traders are the "batters" and the market is the "pitcher" - and we have a new pitcher every day. Prem/Disc, derivatives, mergers, commodity prices (oil, gold etc.), interest rates, the economic indicators, what the Fed/World Bank/Eurex, etc. are doing at a particular point in time. I'm not a real fan of "paper trading" but at least you are dealing with that particular day's influences. FWIW (for what it's worth) Don
Agree. The real value... the ONLY value in paper trading is to reveal flawed strategies. Whatever else one might think it does, it doesn't.