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What I'm realizing is, that now as I'm occupying myself again closer with the charts and become more familiar with looking at my chosen markets every day, I tend to see more patterns and wonder more often if "looking at it this or that way" if there could be a valid pattern or not.
Also as I'm skimming at times over Diary of a C. Trader, I see quite some patterns that Brandt traded, but I probably would not have taken. But I see that by no means as a bad sign and more as a confirmation for how subjective the patterns actually are and that trade identification is the least important part in the equation.
"Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things"
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
I don't put much stock in all the various patterns. Like you said, it's very subjective. However, there is one surefire pattern that I always trade. The ducky.
Seriously, I've always been a little skeptical. But I'm sure proponents can provide us logical reasoning for their use.
My current theory is that the subjectivity might be a two edged sword. I think it can work against you, but also for you. I think the perception of them could correlate with the traders state of mind, degree of fomo, greed and so on. But in the end, I suspect process beats the subjectivity involved, so that there's enough room to take trades that could be questionable and to also miss trades, but the endresult won't get influenced to a considerable degree.
I do have a reasoning why I think the patterns should work. I have to, because otherwise I don't think that I could have enough starting-trust to be able to trade them for the necessary period of time until I see if they actually do work or not.
"Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things"
That's fair. I wasn't trying to discourage or dissuade you from using them. Sometimes, I see someone pointing out a double bottom or similar on a 2 range chart separated by 3 bars and can't help chuckle a bit. Hardly what I would call a "double bottom" but then, if it works for you, it really doesn't matter if you use tea leaves and horoscopes.
No problem.
For that matter I have minimum durations in my plan that are required until I can call it a certain pattern.
Lately I read in a book I consider credible, that moon-phases which influence frost in areas where oranges are grown are to a usable degree predictable. The trading universe is really pretty vast.
"Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things"
I know that my "Commercial Transaction" wouldn't even be correct in that way, even if it were live trades, but looking at it from that perspective helps me to stay serious and seeing myself even more as a type of merchant who makes transactions in the market.
If you think about it, that with just 1 contract corn you move almost $40,000 worth of goods which is 5 truckloads for this type of truck:
It definitely makes you respect the market more.
"Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things"
It seems almost everything I touch turns into shit currently. To a degree that I have to start to take care better....
I bought a used car in an effort to replace my current one which is falling apart. Turned out the new one is even worse. Got duped by a fuckin crook! I really don't know if I should laugh or cry. I feel like I'm in a frickin movie!
I looked at 4 cars.
In hindsight the first one was probably the best, but it had some white slime at its oil filler cap. That could be from driving only very short distances all the time, or from a defect cylinder head gasket. So I thought to better not buy it.
Then I looked at a second one, which was obviously way worse than in the description and I immediately decided not to buy it.
Then I looked at a third one. The guys were such blatant crooked liars, that I thought that just can't be true. They claimed that the timing belt got renewed recently, but the car had a timing chain. On the phone I talked with the "father" who said he moved here from another state and got a car from his employer, so he is selling his old one. The accent he had indicated that he probably lived here already for all his life.
I then drove there to take a look at the car and met with his "son". He looked like he was high on 10kg weed and moved and talked only in slow-motion. Unfortunately even slow-motion was too fast, because at one point his "father's car" became his "uncle's car". The document from the last inspection was a color-copy and I could go on and on....
The other guys who roamed around where I viewed the car were obviously his pals, but that didn't match at all with the "father's" recently-moved-here-from-another-state-story.
Those guys felt like the gang in the last season of Breaking Bad. I don't know what exactly was wrong there, but I wouldn't even be surprised if the car was stolen.
The fourth car, which I unfortunately bought, was surrounded by similar not-making-sense-circumstances.
He was a foreigner, but who already lived here for probably 10 or more years. The problem with those guys is, that if they try to deceive you, or don't want to tell you something, suddenly their German becomes so bad and they beat around the bush that you just think "Shut up, that hurts my ears"
He played a type of "dumb-good-guy", but I think he's the type of person who instantly snaps to the opposite if something isn't going his way.
The car with which he came (his car, not the one I bought) had a huge dent on its roof. He told me that the other day he just quickly stopped at the bakery, and while he was in it, some out of control "narcotized" drug addict threw a bag of pebble stones out of the window in the second floor. What should I think?
However the car overall is in good shape, but as I drove it uphill for a longer distance, it overheated and the coolant started to spill over. Those 3 cylinder VW engines are doomed engines. I knew that, because I already had a car with an earlier version of the same engine a few years ago which screwed me. And I bought the same shit again and got srewed again.
Why the hell did I think "This time it will be different"?
"Why don't you chase down that crook, or why don't you nicely call him and talk to him, maybe he really wasn't aware of the engine problem and takes back the car?", you might ask.
I don't do that, because I have to stay away from the "everything car related" - market, cut my loss and don't try to make up the losses and lose even more in the attempt.
If something gets just slightly out of hand with that a-hole, there's a probability of 74.7% that I'll do something that I will later regret.
I'll leave that car sitting on the parking space and decide in a few weeks how to go on. My current car is still running, the diesel-sweat is still not that bad and I can drive it still 4 more months until the inspection-plaque is running out.
And otherwise, I'll gladly take the bus!
On April 1st I'll start in my new job. I'm really looking forward to it. It's a type of customer-related job, which requires communication-skills. I have put huge effort into my application there, because that's an area where I lack the most and I want to improve. And I also don't want to work in some environment anymore where I get dirty, people drink too much alcohol, and overall circumstances are just unfavorable.
The company is pretty awesome. It got founded over 200 years ago, one of the founding fathers actually was a preacher. It's in a market-related industry and even traded on the Vienna Stock Exchange. So I can buy some shares and own about 0.000002331% of the company.
I even feel a bit honored that they took me, because it came through, as I did my research, that they put more weight on character than on job-related expertise.
The application process was pretty stressful and they did some hidden tests to look how I behave under different circumstances.
At one point they "put me above" someone else and kinda encouraged me to criticise or put down that person, even if there wasn't anything to criticise.
I figured that out later at home. If someone knows the "Milgram-Experiment", it was such a type of situation, but not that intense as in the experiment.
However, I see that job as the winning-trade that runs into the right direction and I add to that position and focus for the next time on that and give my best not to screw it up.
I wrote some things about honesty and tolerance in my application letter, and I thought a lot about that, because that's a commitment I made there, and I have to stick to that!
It's time for me to push the reset-button and finally grow up!
So I terminate my "daily-report-duty" for now. I take a step back from the market and maybe check in once or twice a week but won't do any trades, live or sim.
I definitely have the intent to continue where I stop now, but I have to get my life back together before I can do that.
From now on I'll take it more leisurely and write something whenever I feel to do so.
If there's too low a tide to leave the port, it's better to spend the time preparing the ship and double-check everything that once the tide turns you can set sail safely and reach your destination without the constant danger of sinking.
"Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things"
