Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
I've been thinking about writing this post up for a few weeks but finally got around to it. As some of you know, I'm just starting down the path of discovery and learning regarding futures trading (more as a day-trader). I work in the financial industry and am a programmer.
I've learned soo much already by reading through this excellent forum, watching suggested videos and reading some of the recommended books. However there's been one nagging question I've been meaning to ask people that have walked this path before me.
If there was one thing you wish you did NOT learn/experience, what would it be? I understand this is a very subjective question and that one person finds meaningless, another could make millions off of. However I'm trying to get to an "Advanced Beginner" phase and I don't want to go down any routes that might mislead me.
I'm currently reading Tharp's book as well as Mind Over Markets (Which was recommended as a way to understand MP in the webinar). I intend on going through various books (heck that's the reason I got this iPad) and learning ALOT more before donating more to the market.
Again, any suggestions on what I should NOT be concerned with this early in my path to futures-trading success?
a) Don't fall into the indicator trap. There is a discussion about this on my advice thread, so I don't want to repeat everything here. But, in my opinion, indicators are addictive little things and you end up spending 4 hours a day fine tuning the "perfect chart", and one day wake up six months or a year later, or worse, realizing it was all a complete waste of time and energy.
b) Don't fall into the programmer trap. (a) and (b) kinda go hand-in-hand if you are a programmer, but more what I mean here is automated trading. Programmers think, "oh! I can program! Most people can't! Therefore, I can make more money than most people!. No. Your time is far better spent on just learning to read price, improve your money/risk/trade management, journaling, and reading.
I agree that too much indicators are only a hindrance. However, what I think that's important to realize is that, when you have little experience, you should focus a lot on indicators and programming. I think that this will help prevent a lot of chasing the wrong strategies, and besides, we as beginners would have a lot of trouble trading mainly on price. This is because we don't have (yet) the (implicit) knowledge and discipline to trade of price and to develop a good "feel" for the price action, in my opinion.
I'm less experienced than the topic starter, but I think it's also important to learn that trading is not difficult. I haven't found a good trading strategy in my backtesting, but I "lost" a lot of time prior to really beginning with backtesting because I thought "trading is difficult, so I must do it as good/perfect as possible". So I studied a lot of books about trading, backtesting, evidenced-based technical analysis, and so on. In effect I was merely procrastinating. I guess that's also a version of the programmer/indicator trap which Mike already mentioned.
I'm just curious; where lies the border between "enough indicators" and the "indicator trap"? Is 2 indicators too much, or 4?
The problem with encouraging use of indicators is the trap itself. I almost equate it to the drug dealer providing the first hit for free, they know you'll be back!
You can learn a great deal by doing something yourself. No one taught me HTML, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, C++, .NET, C# etc... these were all self learned, and that is really the best way in my opinion.
But, with trading, it's not about 'raw knowledge'. It's more about experience. I'm sure you could say the same about being a good C# programmer, but with C# it just seems so much easier to equate knowledge with facts, whereas with trading knowledge is equated to experience, because the market is not something you can objectively quantify like C# programming.
This is why many people solicit the advice of mentors in trading, because it is this experience that is being taught and not so much the method itself, in my opinion.
How many is too many indicators? There is no answer. The only real answer is the statement from your broker at the end of the day or month
I totally agree with you Mike Price action is everything. So once you become a profitalble trader how would you go about learning how to program strategy based on your trading style? Or would it be better to just hire a programmer?
