No - because there's no fun in us all agreeing....

Some interesting comments.

Of the traders that I know - they all rely on 'pattern recognition' to some extent but it is more related to behaviour than to a series of bars creating a pattern.

Trader 1 - Trades 40 or so stocks and has been doing so for more than a decade. He'll run 1 to 3 positions at any one time. He has developed a good 'feel' for when a stock is bottoming out/topping. Obviously some of this is to do with seeing a move slow down (which can be done with candles) and some is to do with how far each instrument typically sells off/rallies before reversing. This does mean a stock can sell off hard in the morning until the Trader figures it's done and he'll get in just based on that experience with very little confirmation off the chart.

Trader 2 - Trades any earnings/news stock he believes will put in a sustained move. He has also been doing this for more than a decade. He has a good idea which news will create moves by now and he also has an idea of the type of pattern he'd like to see. Again, the hard sell off and reversal is a play but he also plays continuation moves. For this trader, all trades are confirmed with L2/Time & Sales on entry. In a sense - it's a scalpers entry at a point in time where a long term move might develop. As silly as it sounds, on some setups his stop will be 1 cent.

Trader 3 - Trades futures. Mostly this guy trades reversals. He'll trade index futures, grains,oil as well as the Eurex - DAX, Bund futures. He looks for moves of yesterdays price levels and todays price levels. He'll trade measured moves, channels and pullbacks but is mostly interested in large intra-day reversals. All entries are confirmed by DOM/Time & Sales. I have watched this trader at work many times and his ability to pinpoint reversals is uncanny. Again, he's been at this for more than a decade and knows the instruments he trades intimately.

These 3 are retail traders. The next is a pro.

Trader 4 - Actually this is 4 people, not on. This team is headed by a guy who came through the institutions and who made his personal fortune trading. The money they trade belongs to a hedge fund. Apparently there's some deal where small teams like this can get money from funds to trade as long as they are bringing in the returns. The team work outside of market hours to identify opportunities and they also work intra-day to identify them too. The guy trading does not use charts but does use L2 at times. The rest of the team use charts as they don't have the head for numbers the trader has. They can have 30 positions on at a time which is necessary as the amount of money they are using is in excess of US $20M. Again, one of the moves they love is a sell off which finds buyers.

Meeting these people was an eye opener to me. I keep in touch with them all. Traders 1, 2 and 3 have all given me some insight into their methods but trader 3 is the one that took me under his wings.

Some of the things I find of interest:

- None of them are afraid of trading a reversal in the right circumstances. The right circumstances might be that LVS generally sells off 50c before making a move up (just an example). So - despite what we hear about reversals being for amateurs, it seems there are people that have cracked this nut.
- None of them use any indicators or candlestick patterns. In fact, the analysis employed seems to be more about how particular instruments or particular events play out.
- There is no particular personality type. One of the above is most certainly NOT a zen-like trading master in control of his emotions. In fact, he flips out when he misses a trade and gets pissed off about it. Another gets pissed when he leaves money on the table. Still - both of these have personally made millions from trading.

This is what leads me to the conclusion it is skill and experience that counts.

The type of analysis I was doing before I started to meet real traders was the typical TA/Indicator stuff. I took a leap of faith with it but looking back there is no reason I should have done that, I had zero evidence that anyone was making money that way - other than books and the internet. When I met real traders, they didn't use these methods BUT they did use common methods that AREN'T in the trading books.

This thread delves quite deeply into the relationship between luck and skill

I am wondering what the other members think of trading. My experience from using trading forums is that many people approach trading very differently to the way they would approach other new talent they were looking to develop in life.

For instance, if you wanted to learn how to ski, you would not sit at home reading books on ski-ing, looking at angles of mountains, calculating velocities and stopping distances and then after all that theory, go to the top of the nearest mountain and have at it. Ski-ing is not a problem with a mathematical solution. It is a skill. You start on the baby slopes and work your way up. The more you practice the better you get. You will probably never be the best in the world but most people could be decent skiers.

What we often see in the trading world is very different.

We see people seeking a one-shot solution. This involves a constant search for a solution to the 'trading problem'. It is as if trading is a mathematical endeavour and that the constant seeking for a method will lead to a final 'solution' that can then be applied to make money. The implication is that skill/practice is less important than the application of a mathematical technique.

This is akin to someone deciding to become a sportsman. They decide to try a new sport every week because they will eventually hit their 'holy grail' sport - the one that they are naturally good at and then start to make a living from it. Of course this is ludicrous but this doesn't stop would-be traders from going down this path.
This would define trading as a problem and not a skill. People that have been there and done this will probably be smiling at their own prior presumptions about trading. It is a painful problem to address I know - especially if that is the stage you are at.

If people accepted that trading was a skill - just like any other skill, then surely the whole approach would have to be different. There would be less time searching and a lot more time in practise. Of course, if you want to ski, you need to find an instructor that actually knows how to ski. It helps to have friends that can ski too. With trading there is the slightly thorny issue of there being so many failed traders trying to teach the newbies. This means that even when you accept that trading is a skill that you can improve over time - you still need a baseline trading method to practice. If you don't have that - you'll waste as much time practicing as people do on all the squiggly stuff.

So - is trading a problem needing to be solved with math, indicators & the application of other scientific methods?

Or

Is trading a skill which needs some training and then a lot of practice?

Whichever your opinion is - how did you form it? From discussions with profitable people you know in real life or might you been influenced by the skills you had before you came into trading?

---------------------------------------------------

Thanks for bringing up this excellent thread and topic, which is misunderstood by many aspiring traders! As Peter mentioned well in his recent webinar in 2018, many traders have an Amateurs' view instead of Professionals one on the topic of trading skill development and waste their time and talents on activities that do not lead to trading SKILL development.

People with a Professional mindset know that trading is very similar to High-Performance Action sports/games. They realize that top performers are not born but made and that spending a long time on a subject alone is not enough for mastery. Professionals were not obviously experts from the beginning and not just lucky, yet they somehow managed their time and talents differently.

The Science of Expertise in the past two decades has identified some key elements that show how professionals across a wide range of fields, from musicians to athletes, to surgeons, to chess players, and traders can train themselves from nowhere to average to elite performers.

To my understanding, half of the success depends on the Trader's professional mindset/attitude to be COACHABLE:
- Understand the 80% of success comes from Skill development and a small percentage from the knowledge of trading
- Have Flexible Adaptive Mindset - Resilient to withstand/recover quickly from difficult conditions
- Low ego and humble attitude to listen to the coach's feedback and implement it
- Patient to go through repetitive drills and not get bored
- Responsible and Honest/Transparent person willing to work hard

Another half depends on how traders research and put themselves under a High-Performance Coaching system that incorporates all elements of Deliberate Practice, an active process of skill development. A successful coach in the same field needs to develop a deliberate practice coaching system that has Level Evaluation+Setting Specific Goals+Repeated Focused Practice drills+Constant Instant Feedbacks.

Cheers,
Ray

I am a discretionary trader and I agree with you especially regarding the skill development, ego and attitude.
I also think a right methodology can be taught to "the right minded" trader. Unfortunately, finding an individual which is a successful trader and successful coach, and also willing to teach, is almost impossible.
Best!