You mean the difference between someone who trades on the basis of what he thinks/feels the market SHOULD be doing as opposed to what the market is actually doing.
No, not what I wrote at all, read more carefully and try to understand.
I'm defiantly someone who looks at what the markets is actually doing in order to make trading decisions.
That is all very good but it was you who posted that you did not see the distinction in the OPs question.
My word, you guys sure think deeply about all this 🙂.
I suppose price moves by what all these other participants are getting up to, but so what?
So you can improve your own trading through better understanding of how and why the market moves. Or not. Horses for courses.
All I do is to make an assumption about what price might do (a guess if you want to be cruel 😆) at particular points. If it does what I assume then I take what I reckon I need to keep my account ticking along (don't care what the damn price does after that). If it doesn't then I wave bye, bye with, at worst, a set amount of damage.
Without arguing semantics, yes we all make an assumption, forecast, or whatever you want to call it, about what price will likely do. The difference is what reasoning we base this forecast on and how accurate we aspire to be - the motivation to improve, the level of personal effort, and the quality of our reasoning will dictate our trading outcomes.
I long ago realised that I was never going to be clever enough to analyse what's going on to any significant degree so I don't even try nowadays.
Not a particularly inspiring attitude, but your prerogative and perhaps it is a realistic one for you. For what its worth I wasn't (and probably never would have been) clever enough to figure any of this out on my own, but I certainly had enough sense to listen to those with more knowledge and experience.
I take issue with your comment "so what" - coming from a moderator of a trading forum - the attitude "why bother to try its too difficult". Why impose this limited thinking on others? If its too hard and you don't even try, why not hang up your hat and find another hobby rather than continuing to moderate here? Surely having given up yourself you can be of no help to others.
You've been shown that there is a level of proficiency in this business beyond taking an educated guess with fixed stops and targets. Whatever level you aspire to is your personal choice, but why advocate for others to adopt your limitations?
I've not visited in years but my brief return has been an unpleasant reminder of how my mentor was treated many moons ago - interesting experience for me to see it from the other side. I understand more now than I thought possible. The attitude here hasn't budged a bit - collective defeatism schizophrenically juxtaposed with irrational delusional hope. Little sign of personal responsibility or original thought either. In some ways I am glad that the majority approach trading in this way, but that is just sheer selfishness on my part.
With this level of response* to those who try to pose interesting questions, maybe it is best if we don't even try either! How many people who have some of the questions (and answers...) actively contribute here now? Why might that be?
We'll keep stum and you lot can carry on without asking the questions which might lead to sustainable and scalable independent trading success.
*
The gurus don't know any better, anyway.
So I suppose nobody else can be beyond your limitations? More ego protection at play.
This goes also for the poster who suggested on the other thread that my contributions must be worthless as I had referred to scripture- ironically proving the continued validity of the parables in Matthew 13.
