How do you make your trading decisions: mechanical system or mental decision?

[Adamus]

In the 1st Market Wizards book, I counted this many of each type:

3 mechanical system traders
1 uses both
13 discretionary traders

 

[Magos]

mechanical system 30%
mental decision 70%

 

[everyonerich]

combine both technical + fundamental, occasionally mental.. but that doesnt mean im random..

 

[Adamus]

I'm a mechanical trader I would say, since I'm a software developer by trade, it makes sense for me to program my system.

But I traded forex options technically/fundamentally 50/50 for a while. I just thought it took too much time to learn what was going on, and I didn't have the time working at a day job. I thought programming would be a faster way to do it but I ended up working at that full time and some and still not having enough time to do what I think I need. I'm currently stripping away some of my self-imposed requirements for trading so I can get down to the real bare essentials.

The Naked Trader maybe.

But does the Naked Trader use a mechanical system though?

Hopefully the Naked Trader will be naked in this sense, rather than naked as in lost the shirt off his back :O


PS haven't read the "Naked Trader", but a quick google shows he doesn't look much like Jamie Oliver.

 

[Magos]

I'm a mechanical trader I would say, since I'm a software developer by trade, it makes sense for me to program my system.

But I traded forex options technically/fundamentally 50/50 for a while. I just thought it took too much time to learn what was going on, and I didn't have the time working at a day job. I thought programming would be a faster way to do it but I ended up working at that full time and some and still not having enough time to do what I think I need. I'm currently stripping away some of my self-imposed requirements for trading so I can get down to the real bare essentials.

The Naked Trader maybe.

But does the Naked Trader use a mechanical system though?

Hopefully the Naked Trader will be naked in this sense, rather than naked as in lost the shirt off his back :O


PS haven't read the "Naked Trader", but a quick google shows he doesn't look much like Jamie Oliver.

There are a lot of people trading actually naked out there LoL

 

[Adamus]

not in my house with my useless central heating

 

[BSD]

Haha Adam.



Re the thread, I'm pretty mechanical, ie if I get a signal as per my system I enter on the basis that you can't predict what's going to happen next so you just have to take your setups as they occur, then cut losses on those that don't work out, while riding those that do, thus executing one's edge that only plays out over time like with a Casino.

The discretion enters in that I won't trade when eyeballing a chart clearly shows that we're just chop-chopping around at the moment, or when I'm scalping and realise some usually market moving news is just round the corner like NFP today.