Holy Grail Anyone?

I've been musing. If you found a sure fire way to make money in the market - the exact Holy Grail, would you tell anyone or keep shtum. I bring it up because I think all of these courses must be a case of 'those who can't teach'. I am not referring to helpful members on these boards by the way, that are guiding ourselves on good methods and practises.

I was dismayed to see RS of Houston have a judgment against them because they claimed the trade successfully but in fact have never been successful. That looked like quite a good course, but I see repeatedly that any of these courses are just basically BS.

If there is a market secret I think you have to find it yourself. It's probably more fun that way.

What you will find is those that can trade are not likely to stand up in front of 1000 or 2000 people and try and teach them how to trade much more likely they would impart their knowledge on a small group.

Does the "Grail" exist? Yes it does it is not one thing but a combination

How much does it cost? It is freely available on the web, in fact more closer to home there has been information posted on T2W

Anyone who publisizes a market winning methodology is not acting rationally IF their sole motivation is to earn money. However, the market only rewards winners with money not esteem. To get esteem people need to make themselves known as a market winners. Hence people like Larry Williams.

Given the nature of the markets there will always be lots of providers of "winning strategies" to people seeking the holy grail. One could argue that the business of selling "winning strategies" (whether they work or not) is a good holy grail in itself.

Well I think that is the point. The selling of the 'knowledge' does seem to be the easiest trade of them all. No wonder everyone is trying it. Lets write a book about writing a book on trading!

Wow, these holidays made forget how much fun it was to go around in the fog bumping your head against everything!

Have fun guys! (ouch!)

Silvia.
(No, I don't think there is holly grail, I don't think it matters really and I think it's good to stop worrying about these things. You dictate your own pace, independently of how much information you have around. Isn't my foggy contribution nice???)

There are all sorts in this business.

I know of someone who has staggering insight into the market and shares knowledge freely and generously with a small group of people; a genuine altruist. AFAIK sharing in this way has not blunted his/her edge one bit. I know of others who make a good living trading and choose to supplement their income by teaching the methods they use. Nothing wrong with that, as long as the numbers are kept to fewer than, say, a few hundred, and the methods are proven to work through all market conditions.
Then sinking down to the less pleasant end of the scale are those who have failed to trade themselves and then devote their time to inventing systems that work at best temporarily and finding new ways of flogging as many copies as possible to the public. Not surprisingly, this last category is by far the most numerous, and much more oddly seems to generate the most interest from newbie traders.

Also remember that you can teach someone your insights and methods verbatim, but the chances are they will still fail to understand and/or use them correctly, especially if their psychological make-up does not square with the taught approach. (e.g teaching position trading to someone with the patience of fly).

Holy Grails

There are plenty of good books containing systems that work. Trouble is many people (often self included) don't apply them properly.

I think the holy grail is learning to trade per se, not any one system.

Mark

if I may add in my 2 pips worth;

I think we also have to find a system that reflects our personalities.
frugi has alluded to that already about a short-term minded person will have difficulties trading swings or positions.

similarly, some people will find it easier to trade reversals or have a contrarian approach, while others prefer trends and going with the herd.

so, perhaps, potential traders need to consider their own personalities and their view of the world, and find a strategy that is in tune with that. they will be more likely to follow such a strategy, with fewer emotional conflicts.

however, that is easier said than done.

I firmly believe that when one initially comes to trading as a beginner, rather than learning how to win large amounts of money it is imperative that firstly one should learn how not to lose serious amounts of money.

The proper and consistent use of a stop loss ( preferably fairly tight ) - whether as a firm order in the market or purely mental - is the way to avoid losing large sums of money and also the way to avoid those silly trades where one lets losses run and then waits weeks, if not months, for the stock to recover.

When one has mastered the art of not losing, one then focuses on the more positive objective of winning.

With this change of focus do we discard the stop loss ?

No, of course not.

Is there any system or method of trading where a stop loss is unnecessary ?

Not for any sane person.

Therefore, in my most humblest of opinions, this thing we call "The Grail" is none other than the good old stop loss.

Agreed!

Good post from Frugi although I'd argue people who share knowledge freely tend to do it to get respect and admiration (esteem) rather than doing it for the well being of others (alturism): but everyone is different