Experience or Knowledge

Knowledge is king! yet experience counts but which would you prefer?

If you had to start again, or pass on the best recommendation you could to a newbie, would you choose;

1) All the hours screen time, the painful losses and the over confident winners, and all the time it took to tune yourself till you were consistent and detatched enough to just trade your strat/understanding of the market through trial and error or....

2) Would you go for the knowledge in the books read, and the forums searched for advice and reasoning behind price action, indicators or whatever is now relevant to you?

Hey Wasp
the simple answer is you need both
to know if you have the correct knowledge you have to experience it
as dpphoenix post states

All three !!!!!!!!!

wasp said:

Knowledge is king! yet experience counts but which would you prefer?

If you had to start again, or pass on the best recommendation you could to a newbie, would you choose;

1) All the hours screen time, the painful losses and the over confident winners, and all the time it took to tune yourself till you were consistent and detatched enough to just trade your strat/understanding of the market through trial and error or....

2) Would you go for the knowledge in the books read, and the forums searched for advice and reasoning behind price action, indicators or whatever is now relevant to you?

Click to expand...

Wasp

Another poll where I would say you need both. A modicum of knowledge is needed just to place a trade (a very small amount admittedly). Winning trades can be made with the bare minimum of knowledge, but consistency is maintained through actual trading combined with building of technical knowledge, but even more importantly creation of the right mind-set.

Charlton

Andy, charlton,

Thats the point... if you could only have one, which'd you prefer...?

None of the above they will both hurt your profits

Hi,
I can't remember the exact quote but it says that -
"Knowledge forged on the anvil of experience ..........."
Anyway, it sounds right.
Cheers!,
Reddragon.

wasp said:

Andy, charlton,

Thats the point... if you could only have one, which'd you prefer...?

Click to expand...

Wasp

Sorry I can't play - as I said all THREE are important.

All are equally important

Charlton

wasp said:

Knowledge is king! yet experience counts but which would you prefer?

If you had to start again, or pass on the best recommendation you could to a newbie, would you choose;

1) All the hours screen time, the painful losses and the over confident winners, and all the time it took to tune yourself till you were consistent and detatched enough to just trade your strat/understanding of the market through trial and error or....

2) Would you go for the knowledge in the books read, and the forums searched for advice and reasoning behind price action, indicators or whatever is now relevant to you?

Click to expand...

Imo, none of the books, study guides or forums can teach or prepare you for how it feels to be "in the market", the pain of your first big loss, the flow of price movements up and down. Nothing compares to trading with real money on the stake. For example, everywhere you read "don't ignore your stops", but until you've experienced the consequences of not placing a stop (or not obeying your mental stop) you won't learn anything from it. Unless of course, you're one of those rare individuals who skipped all the mistakes and got it right from the start.

So I'm inclined to say 1), but all my hours of screen time didn't teach me anything until I had a clue of what I was looking at and what I was looking for. Hence you need a little bit of 2) before 1). It's like driving a car: the driving instructor might teach you to shift higher when accelerating, but experience will tell you when exactly to shift without losing momentum.

no one mentioned discipline,which without, the other two are useless

wasp said:

Andy, charlton,

Thats the point... if you could only have one, which'd you prefer...?

Click to expand...

tough one mate
if i had knowledge and no experience then i would not have a clue what is good or bad
if i had experience without the knowledge then its a bit like being born with a life time of experience but not knowing anything
i chose the 3rd option the one both would eventually give you MONEY

Cheers GJ, That was just the sort of thing I was looking for.

Of course the real world isn't quite as black and white but think its interesting all the same. I've never read a trading book in my life and all TA I know from T2W and Investopedia, and have found nothing has taught me more than hours upon hours in front of a screen. By no means am I saying it is the only nor best way but like anything, I think experience always counts for as much, and quite often more.

Anyhow, just light hearted poll, nothing serious.