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Auto trading is only thing that conquered my darkside
Show me 1 person on this site, discretionary or automated, who has shown their live account profitability statements. Out of hundreds of traders here, if you find 1 you will not find 2, because their account equity is none of our business. No one has to prove anything to me.
If it's pointless to ask for photos of your moon lander, why is there a point in asking for profitability statements? If I tell you I have successful discretionary system you will believe me, but if I tell you I have profitable automated system, you will automatically not believe me? Do you think that maybe, just maybe you might have a bias there? Out of all those discretionary traders who you believe to be profitable, how many have shown you their account statements?
The purpose of this site is to share ideas, some of them will resonate with you some will not.
The title of this thread resonates with me, because, day in and day out my auto trading system does better than I can, even though I defined the rules it uses.
All I can bring to the equation in real time is a lack of discipline, patience, decisiveness, and every other bit of emotional baggage.
(Also: I'm only interested in the process by which the defined set of rules can be improved or evolve. This can only be objectively studied if I don't intervene with the trades that the system takes.)
I love to see discretionary traders with sophisticated market analysis, the market should stop here because of responsive buying there, and point of control here, and 1250 traders are trapped here, etc., etc. Then the market blows right through the resistance level they so eloquently explained. Then, they will come up with a different explanation why the level did not hold. Well, I'll tell you why the level did not hold, it's because you don't know. You don't know, I don't know, nobody knows what the market is going to do, no one can predict it. So no explanation you give will hold water. If you happen to be right, don't feel great about it, even the clock on the wall that doesn't work is right twice a day. All you can say is I've seen this pattern 25 times before, and out of those 25 occurrences, the level held 17 times, so I'll take my chances there.
On a side note, I don't believe anyone should leave the thread, just provide constructive comments for or against and logical arguments for or against, don't just say I don't believe you cause you don't show me your statement.
Mathematically, given enough capital any system can be 100%. Martingale money management can be 100% if you have and infinite account size. If I buy the ES at 1275 put my target 1276 and put my stop at 0, then I stand pretty much 100% chance of hitting my target before my stop is hit at 0. In the last flash crash, I could have gone against the trend starting from the top, and randomly buying every 3 points the market went down, reducing my average cost each time, at some point the market would turn around and I would make a huge amount of money, because I knew the market would probably not go down to 0. But how much capital would I need to do that?
Just for the record, it was a currency translation issue. I trade DAX (euro) but NT7 seems only to be able to show the dollar sign in combination with the euro values. The live account shows dollars with the dollar sign, what's made me confused.
It's bad that NT7 isn't able to show the euro sign, I remember NT65 showing it one time. Is this a true statement for NT7 or do I overlook a global currency setting hidden somewhere?
As you say, the markets are uncertain places. Any trader of any kind will have an expectation and sometimes will be wrong and sometimes be right. So - losing trades/action against expectation is a fact with any method of trading and is not a good argument AGAINST any method of analysis.
I find it amusing request for me to leave this thread. The OP has quite clearly stated that discretionary traders will all lose over time and that only system traders will survive. This is pretty much the inverse argument I am putting forward.
There is a reason for the mechanical mentality. Mostly on the web we are discussing what we WANT to work and not what really works because most people are here searching for a solution. Mechanical solutions have a certain allure in that they absolve us of a lot of the decision making. So, you would expect a higher percentage of seekers to be seeking this type of solution.
Also (and this is a push, I'll admit). As most people are losing money, we can expect most people to be pushing losing systems. So, the fact that more people say that mechanical systems makes them money is proof that they don't...
I'm sorry to disappoint you. Your statement that most people are losing money is correct, but I know for a fact that most of them are discretionary traders.
Just take a poll on this forum and you'll see.
I wish I could code my startegy to see exactly what my brain sees. I cannot get it to identify the entries on the correct bars with a high enough degree of accuracy. With the CL on Friday the method, produced 69 winners, 23 losers with a 2:1 reward/risk ratio, fixed 4 tick stop, fixed 9 tick target. It's humanly impossible to trade that many signals in one day. By some definitions, this would be considered and HFT system over the internet. Trading it manually from 8:00am, most days I am done trading before the market opens, and generally by noon, my brain is fried. On Friday I manually traded 10 winners/4 losers using the method from 8:00am to 10:00am and was done for the day, and I missed a couple of signals because they were just too fast, even though my entries are semi automated.
Automation does not make trading decisions. Automation only executes rules that you setup. Do they have rules for getting for in and out? If they do they have a system whether it is put in a bot or not is irrelevant in some ways.
What we are really talking about here is not just auto trading but having a system in place for entering and exiting trades. Automating that system does not mean there are no decisions. Just means those decisions have been made ahead of time based on probabilities and the computer executes those decisions. It can be done without a bot if have discipline to follow the rules.
But if the group you speak of has rules for getting in and out they have a system and are no different than a bot to a large degree if they follow the rules.
"The day I became a winning trader was the day it became boring. Daily losses no longer bother me and daily wins no longer excited me. Took years of pain and busting a few accounts before finally got my mind right. I survived the darkness within and now just chillax and let my black box do the work."
Lets get deep here I think most traders are initially attracted to a discretionary because until you develop a system which takes time you can jump in and start trading immediately. Going even deeper I think most like discretionary in the beginning because it provides a sense on control and a thrill that is until the market hands your backside to you in a handbag. I know some guys who will not go automated or system because they like to feel like they are a trader and doing something. They want to be powerful and make decisions on the fly conquering the market. Boooooyaaahhhh. The emotional high and feeling of importance they get from pushing the button themselves and making random decisions is tied to their worth. But problem is when it all collapses it is still tied to their self esteem which then becomes devastating emotionally .
I think anyone who is discretionary and lasts long term is most likely not really discretionary because they have setup rules which is essentially a system. I really do think anyone who is discretionary is a Dead Man Walking and eventually will be ruined unless they get a big gain quick and get out of the market for good or they develop a system.
"The day I became a winning trader was the day it became boring. Daily losses no longer bother me and daily wins no longer excited me. Took years of pain and busting a few accounts before finally got my mind right. I survived the darkness within and now just chillax and let my black box do the work."
