Re - where is the grail?

[DionysusToast]

A second sip from the grail, might taste a bit different.

Let's say this is a day, there are no OTF players on the ES, nor is there reason for speculators to feel skittish. Our 10,000 speculators are all sitting at the screen....

Some of these 10,000 speculators will be total idiots with no clue why they are trading.

Some of these 10,000 speculators will be pretty savvy with a fair idea of how the ES moves because they have a lot of experience playing it.

Then there's all the people in between.

There's liquidity providers - but forget them for now.

Some people will be looking at a higher timeframe to get direction. These people will not make money intra-day trading the ES in that direction only. They will make it and then give it back an hour later.

Apart from these guys, no-one really gives 2 sh1ts which way the market will go. They don't care if they go long or short.

The 10,000 people is not comprised of bulls & bears. It's comprised of people that will change from bullish to bearish in a heartbeat.

As the market powers up, some will be looking to go long and some looking to go short. Longs will get in either immediately or on a pullback and shorts will wait for the same reason the longs are long. They think it's going to go up some more. The very thing that keeps the longs long is stopping the shorts from shorting. Some shorts will enter and get run over, their exits adding fuel to the up move.

When the move does end. Some of those who wanted to make money to the long side still go long and get caught with their pants down, some shorts don't go short yet but get in later. People exit their trades. It creates a down move. Over time the majority thought is that the market will move to the downside. Some will trade it that way, others will look for the reversal up.

So - in this analogy, you effectively have 10,000 people trying to guess what the other 9,999 people are going to do. Everyone is effectively trying to guess what everyone else is trying to guess.

This is the reality - this is why all those 'EA's don't work. This is why all those books on candlesticks and MACDs don't work.

It's a herd. It's not mathematical any more than a herd of buffalos is...

 

[DionysusToast]

ToastMan.. Maybe you can't read or somtin' or maybe your so talented and a natural borne trader you don't need to read. Maybe you're just trolling,
I'm not a natural borne trader, and some books have been extremely helpful and I have read them ten times.

I read sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo many books MR, you wouldn't believe if I told you how many.

Still - it took an actual person to tell me how to trade.

Now I look @ those books and I think WTF?

Maybe all that stuff worked at some point in the past. I have no other explanation for why so much nonsense could exist in the Trading Section of Barnes & Noble.

 

[MoonRocket]

: punchingforehead :
I think we're talking about two entirely different types of books.

 

[Pat494]

A second sip from the grail, might taste a bit different.

Let's say this is a day, there are no OTF players on the ES, nor is there reason for speculators to feel skittish. Our 10,000 speculators are all sitting at the screen....

Some of these 10,000 speculators will be total idiots with no clue why they are trading.

Some of these 10,000 speculators will be pretty savvy with a fair idea of how the ES moves because they have a lot of experience playing it.

Then there's all the people in between.

There's liquidity providers - but forget them for now.

Some people will be looking at a higher timeframe to get direction. These people will not make money intra-day trading the ES in that direction only. They will make it and then give it back an hour later.

Apart from these guys, no-one really gives 2 sh1ts which way the market will go. They don't care if they go long or short.

The 10,000 people is not comprised of bulls & bears. It's comprised of people that will change from bullish to bearish in a heartbeat.

As the market powers up, some will be looking to go long and some looking to go short. Longs will get in either immediately or on a pullback and shorts will wait for the same reason the longs are long. They think it's going to go up some more. The very thing that keeps the longs long is stopping the shorts from shorting. Some shorts will enter and get run over, their exits adding fuel to the up move.

When the move does end. Some of those who wanted to make money to the long side still go long and get caught with their pants down, some shorts don't go short yet but get in later. People exit their trades. It creates a down move. Over time the majority thought is that the market will move to the downside. Some will trade it that way, others will look for the reversal up.

So - in this analogy, you effectively have 10,000 people trying to guess what the other 9,999 people are going to do. Everyone is effectively trying to guess what everyone else is trying to guess.

This is the reality - this is why all those 'EA's don't work. This is why all those books on candlesticks and MACDs don't work.

It's a herd. It's not mathematical any more than a herd of buffalos is...

Maybe you should write a book on what does work ?

 

[DionysusToast]

Maybe you should write a book on what does work ?

What does work is understanding the herd and knowing when the herd is what drives the market.

That was the message behind my 2 lengthier posts.

 

[the hare]

I have no other explanation for why so much nonsense could exist in the Trading Section of Barnes & Noble.

cos people are dumb enough to buy them ? (and I include myself in that category)

I know at least one author who wrote a book in the hope that it would allow him to associate with profitable traders so he could pick up a few tips. I wont name names, but he's still not profitable (and never will be)

I think he's realised that most of his contemparies are as clueless as he is

 

[MoonRocket]

cos people are dumb enough to buy them ? (and I include myself in that category)

I know at least one author who wrote a book in the hope that it would allow him to associate with profitable traders so he could pick up a few tips. I wont name names, but he's still not profitable (and never will be)

I think he's realised that most of his contemparies are as clueless as he is

I'm assuming you're talking about Jack Schwager?
Tell me hare.....Some of the traders he interviewed were making 15 mil or more for their personal account per year, 30 years ago.
How are are you going? If you were trading then, would you had made it in the book?

 

[MoonRocket]

If I read a biography of a successful trader, at best I would only scan their methods. For me, it was all about their makeup....... what made them successful.
Anyway ToastMan, lets forget about the books, clearly I look at them a different way and expect different things from them then you.
Even 'tho you are some poor Pommy b@stard living in a country that elected George Bush I believe you make sense in the quotes above.
So I'm going to pm you in a day or two about the crap you sell.
Meanwhile RocketMan is going to bed.

 

[Pat494]

If I read a biography of a successful trader, at best I would only scan their methods. For me, it was all about their makeup....... what made them successful.
Anyway ToastMan, lets forget about the books, clearly I look at them a different way and expect different things from them then you.
Even 'tho you are some poor Pommy b@stard living in a country that elected George Bush I believe you make sense in the quotes above.
So I'm going to pm you in a day or two about the crap you sell.
Meanwhile RocketMan is going to bed.

Bet he has a teddy !! aaaaaaaaaaaah !!

 

[Pat494]

Meanwhile RocketMan is going to bed.

Bet he has a teddy & pink jim jams !! aaaaaaaaaaaah !!

 

[MoonRocket]

Bet he has a teddy & pink jim jams !! aaaaaaaaaaaah !!

I heard that. I'm still here, Its too hot for jammies here, but am hoping for some booby, so pray for me.

 

[the hare]

I'm assuming you're talking about Jack Schwager?
Tell me hare.....Some of the traders he interviewed were making 15 mil or more for their personal account per year, 30 years ago.
How are are you going? If you were trading then, would you had made it in the book?

No I wasnt talking about Jack Schwager.

I'm not really sure what criteria Mr Schwager used to select traders for the book, so I dont honestly know.

Things are going reasonably well thanks

 

[Joules MM1]

Well that's not what has happened at all. I reach for those books at those times and discovered the author has added a few pages to the book.
And I say Wow! I never new that!

that's self-education on the run......you're perfecting the recycle.....it's abstract and youre applying ad-hoc ideas that surround methodology and not a distinct method that you've proven......a new idea becomes apparent, you apply, a small result and peddle your way back round to the same results only now with your best study you are doing what many traders do; you've become an enthusiastic filter, a successful account churner......your size of gains has increased and equally matched by the size of the loss......nice

there was a trader who frequented these boards back in the days when i had some 1200 odd posts.......he asked me to see what i am asking you to see, the truth and to begin to trade the trade, you do not want to trade the money, you do not want to trade the joy of trading or bask in the glow of the anything via The PitBull book or Marty Schwartz and Co.....if it's in a book it's not an immediate trading method that deals with the present, that is, the trade set-up in front of you.......you are not fixing a car from a motor manual, you are framing a trade set-up that has different traders entering at different times with different sizes and all that is happening within the confines of a time period of the second/min/hour/month/quarter even decade cycle petinent to them and their ideas of value and no book that you open is going to take you through that, seriously, would you do this open your screen, your platform, the ES and sit hunched over a book and play colour by numbers? When youre reading a book youre doing exactly that and you may think you are not because you get into your fave recliner and get the feel-good juices running by reading the feel-good words of a pro ......i havent gotten to the gnarly fish yet, who can see with all their proprietary software, oh no, theyre piranhas and they know everything that you know and they know just when you'll pull the trigger so they can get you with your "impatience"


i scrubbed 1200 posts, some were utterly useless jargon filled jibberish posts with about 1% insight that was borrowed from someone else that i couldnt apply in a sunday fete, some were ok, most proved i wasnt making any money

not long after i deleted my posts and that trader deleted his posts too, T2W took away the deletion function to allow for continuity so people werent confused by disjointed conversations.....that made me stop and do a lot of thinking

....the point here; you are fronting-up against what we know has value, is proven, in practise, producing income.......you are coming in here to tell me that you know better and in knowing better you are losing money, you may become a well-versed filter for other traders, in short; a hobbyist.......if that's what you want, ok, good onya!

Pros do not just reach for the occasional indicator, pick up the swashbuckling memoir of some dead person who won "it" all then lost "it" all then committed suicide, or read the personable book of someone who traded the major bull phase of the 80's and 90's that has no relation to the last decade volatility or even todays, pros look for what other pros are doing......

i'm going to jot a note or two that will be against how other traders engage but you have to work your way through the evolution of self-education if you refuse to get with someone who's income producing......pros that i listen to actively, day-to-day, have different reaches into their way of "seeing" price discovery, some of them only position in zones and some only in specific pivots points or price levels, some look for one size play with small points, others cones of book-build, others on volume exhaustion, others on liquidity squeezes, bond plays, nfp releases, fomc traps the list is endless.....they have distinctive ideas on time, the role of time as a function of momentum, when to engage in the auction process, when to sit out, when to allow lower tier money to show their hand...you see, this is all an active thinking process, active as in today, not in a supposition of a book.....that exactly what the word "dynamic" means......

hobbyists play rsi divergencies, ccl's, macd's, slow stochs and some get pretty good at it, they eventually learn how to frame a trade set-up, smart part-timers, great filters......hobbyists open the screen and look for the play they "understand" , looking, scanning, fitting into price rough-cut ideas wrangled from a book, an ending diagonal wedge here, a pennant break-out there (oops, head-fake!).......theyre trading the rsi, theyre trading their impatience, theyre impatience is a substitute for lack of knowledge.......full circle, take a deep breath, read another well-informed book from yester-year.......halle-farken-lull-yah!

running a trade on knowledge gained from someone who's running a trade on knowledge gained from someone who's ........see?

not books

the whole deal with "i have no patience" is simply a fill-in brochure in the tour guide of ignorance.....get the knowledge and the impatience begins to dissipate.....you stop getting killed, you like not being killed more than you like the income, your eyes go off trading the money onto trading the trade and into honing your knowledge, you get enthusiasm for strategy, your imagination allows you to see games, money in tiers, time as a function and how it best serves not how it dominates you......

books are the ultimate head-fake for a lot of traders, the confidence reboot, the power to forge on no matter what the universe brings (damn, that orchestra is playing our song) books take people into nirvana of possibility and then the needle scratches across the record....sssccccrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeettttccccchhhhh (the sound of someone shifting a stop)

books dislocate from reality......a book cannot engage you to focus on (TD's) buffalo pack

books encourage you to isolate and seperate, a visual representation away from fluid reality

quick, draw another diagonal line......can you see it? yes, it;s W formation, nope wait, it's a cup n handle.....you win this weaks prize.......



Before photo:

I reach for those books at those times and discovered the author has added a few pages to the book.
And I say Wow! I never new that!

After photo:

Still - it took an actual person to tell me how to trade.

 

[Joules MM1]

but wot would i know, ha! i thought rocket man was a song about someone reaching for the stars not elton john's preferrences whilst holidaying on the isle of mann

 

[VielGeld]

Too much goddamn truth, Joules. Too much goddamn truth!

 

[Poem 101]

Toast makes some reasonable points in this thread. It is a shame that his need to sell his software seems to permeate most of his posts, as this leads him to make some less credible statements. That aside, the fact is that most trading books are not only useless, but worse than useless. The very few exceptions are superb, but they tend to get lost in the swamp.

In terms of learning how to trade, there really is no substitute for experience and independent thought.

 

[robster970]

Bet he has a teddy & pink jim jams !! aaaaaaaaaaaah !!

Frank Butcher Oasis Advert - YouTube

 

[robster970]

the whole deal with "i have no patience" is simply a fill-in brochure in the tour guide of ignorance.....get the knowledge and the impatience begins to dissipate.....you stop getting killed, you like not being killed more than you like the income, your eyes go off trading the money onto trading the trade and into honing your knowledge, you get enthusiasm for strategy, your imagination allows you to see games, money in tiers, time as a function and how it best serves not how it dominates you......

outstanding description.

 

[scose-no-doubt]

good post. That's why I dont get why so many people trade FX where there is no usable volume available.

Cos you can just TA it and hope for the best.

 

[darktone]

Worth a read for any trader imo.

Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy: Amazon.co.uk: David D. Burns: 9780380810338: Books