we finally agree!! ... with one caveat.. sticking to one's setup (when that setup has no basis or foundation or basically no change of ever being even remotely profitable) is suicidal at best... so I would say, learning the instrument, finding a setup that works and then sticking to its probabilities without changing, and doing the homework/hardwork part... there is nothing in this business without hardwork (or any business) and by that I dont mean killing yourself learning something (it should be innate or otherwise you wont succeed at it and it is best to find something else to make you $$$) but using the time wisely to learn and being diligent about it.

@MWinfrey

If you have been at this for so long without succeeding, I would say that intraday discretionary trading is not for you. Most that have an aptitude for such trading, usually succeed fairly quickly. They only need to refine their risk/money/trade management...

This leads me to my final point, why would an unprofitable trader give advice in this thread?
It escapes me why someone would have so little regard for other's well-being that they would give advice they are unsure if works themselves... When I first started trading, I did not make a post for several years.

my opinion is that intraday discretionary trading must be learned - that there is certainly a role of aptitude, but that one integrates an internal intuition about discretionary trading through hours, weeks, and months of structured analysis of price action until one can see where/when situations exist in which the expectancy on a given trade is skewed such that a trading opportunity exists. What is your opinion here? thx in advance...

Ahhh... ok, then that makes sense. But it makes me even more curious to hear his answer/opinion about his statements about either you get it quick or you don't.

Incidentally, I do recognize the varying distinctions between TA vs. Price Action and indicators vs. no indicators, etc, etc ad infinitum. However, for me, I simply draw the line at fundamental analysis vs no fundamental analysis. In other words, if you don't use fundamental analysis then (to me), you're a technical trader whether you use market delta, price action, indicators, whatever. I understand this distinction can be more refined but I find that at a gross level, this is a major and meaningful distinction between discretionary trading styles (as opposed to the distinctions between spread trading and directional trading or automated vs. non-automated, etc).

I'm curious - how do you make the distinction (or how to you distinguish) between technical analysis and price action?

@Lornz - you seem to contradict yourself here, or maybe I'm confused about how you trade. I had thought you would count yourself as an "intraday discretionary trader"? But here you say that this is something you either succeed at quickly or not at all. But then in the last paragraph you state that you did not give advice (and by extension from your statement here - were not profitable) for "several years". I'm assuming I'm wrong about you being an intraday discretionary trader? I enjoy reading many of your posts so am interested in your views here.

Regardless - I'm curious as to the source of your opinion about intraday discretionary traders either succeeding quickly due to an aptitude or not at all. I strive to become a consistently profitable, intraday discretionary trader and I have found that after 2 years of work at it I'm much better than I was in the beginning and what stands between me and profitability are the manifestations of what is essentially a self-control issue. And so my opinion is that intraday discretionary trading must be learned - that there is certainly a role of aptitude, but that one integrates an internal intuition about discretionary trading through hours, weeks, and months of structured analysis of price action until one can see where/when situations exist in which the expectancy on a given trade is skewed such that a trading opportunity exists. What is your opinion here? thx in advance...

Thanks @Lornz! I appreciate you taking the time to answer my question. Glad to hear you didn't have to suffer through a couple years of failure on your journey of learning to make a living trading - I can tell you that it is not pleasant.

Having the background you do seems to have been a good preparation for trading - certainly the experience of sports betting at a young age must have been really helpful. "Betting" is really what trading is all about. If you are going to be consistently successful at any kind of Betting, you are going to be well suited to the mental orientation you have to have towards trading. Coming from the background I do (science and then land development) has given me no preparation for dealing with uncertainty. And it kicks the crap out of me for sure.

Finally, I really hope you're wrong about either being successful quickly or not at all because I sure as heck have not been successful quickly.... :puke:

Except for the first couple of months, I have not used any indicators. Thus I cannot really speak of the validity of them, I have just never met anyone successfully trading that way. It seems you are always "just" a little behind, but it looks perfect in hindsight. Of course, even a MA crossover works during volatile times (like the past couple of months).

However, I do have spreadsheet that is dear to me. And I also look at market internals and various relative strength relationships, thus one could say that I use "indicators". I just don't believe that manipulating time series into beautiful collages is the way to go. I also do everything else one is not supposed to do... Like trading during the first few minutes and during news releases, try to predict the market and I even pay attention to the news.

...

2 years isn't really that bad, it took me a bit longer to develop my first mechanical system.
My gawd, man -- suck it up!