Tradewinds

Oh no! I was hoping there was going to be a secret society of traders "in the know".

I was worried about that! :rofl:

I've made over 150 posts, but I can't get into the Premium Members Forum. I read that it's supposed to be automatic after 150 posts, but it doesn't seem to be working.

Good question. I would think that there are traders from big institutions that have a longer time frame outlook, who need short term traders as a sort of intermediary. Traders add liquidity to the market. Without short term traders, big institutions would have to trade amongst themselves. Which I guess they already do, in the "dark pools".

Are you talking about an association run by and governed by traders? A group that is independent of the government? How would that work?

If the regulations should be world wide, then who will regulate it? The U.N.? :rofl: Are there trader organizations that get involved in lobbying politicians? Because this is what we are really talking about here. We can discuss it for the next hundred years on Traders Laboratory, but that probably won't get the actual laws passed and enforced.

I know the price pattern that you are talking about. I would call this a retracement. It originally looks like a reversal, but it isn't. But I am looking for something more in depth than what you are telling me. At the very least, I'm looking for price levels that break or fail to break. Even on a retracement, there are price levels and price behavior that succeed or fail, are weak or strong. If I try to catch a reversal, right at it's extreme, I'm immediately looking for a stronger move in the reversal direction. If that doesn't happen on the very first close in the reversal direction, then I just exit, or reverse back.

Thank you for describing what being aggressive really means to you in terms of trading. The first thing you mentioned was risk toleration. One thing I find ironic in the market, is that what most people may initially or intuitively perceive as risk, in reality may be very little risk at all, and in fact be the best opportunity. For example, price dropping very hard. That may be the bottom. Not necessarily, but it happens quite often. If a trader is looking to go long, you may want to "catch a falling knife". That phrase "catch a falling knife" is something that many traders use as an analogy that implies terrible danger. But it may actually be the least dangerous situation, depending upon the situation. Some people like fire breathing, sword swallowing and lion taming. And people will pay them to do it. :rofl: So, my point is this. What typically is defined as "risk" by the general public, may just be opportunity for a trader. The market rewards risk. It's a risk/reward system. So being aggressive towards risk tolerance, may be consciously forcing oneself to go against the "natural" perception of what risk in the market is.

Good point. Bears will take over a kill that wolves have taken down. If the bear is big enough, and at the prime of it's life, a whole pack of wolves may not even dare to challenge one single bear. I'm not necessarily convinced that the whole animal world vs. trading is an accurate analogy, but maybe it does serve some purpose.

I think it also depends on how good a person's strategy is. If a trader aggressively executes the worst strategy in the world, then aggressiveness doesn't help. Even predators avoid being injured at all cost. Predators don't like getting kicked in the head or speared by the horns of a herbivore.

It would be interesting to know what happens with the 90% of traders that don't succeed. Are there any costs to society and the government for those traders who don't succeed? I don't know. With smoking, if smokers and the tobacco industry had to pay all the costs of smoking-related disease, I'm wondering if the industry would go out of business? Either that, or smokers could sign a legal agreement that they won't be given any health care. I'm not against people smoking, but if they get throat cancer, then just go away and die, don't bother me or the rest of the people who don't smoke. But I doubt the smokers would sign an agreement like that. So, if pushed right to the limit, the hypocrisy would come out.

Yes, I do believe in that principle. Which brings up the issue of how interrelated we all are. People may want to believe that we are our own autonomous units, responsible for ourselves, but our actions will almost always effect someone else.

So my question is, does the predator mentality cause more stress or less stress? I suppose a predator mentality could mask stress, or be a very strong counter balance against it. But masking something doesn't make it go away, and counter balances can swing wildly the other way.

For system sellers to be registered. Absolutely. And for everything else you mentioned, yes, I would like to see that.

I would not be against retail traders needing to be licensed in the sense that the process was meant to give them the whole truth, and force the industry to tell people things like what the failure rate is. So, in that sense, I'd be all for it.

This is true. And in the animal world, that system works very well. The natural world is a system of overcompensation to balance out high attrition. Many of the young, weak and sick need to killed off, and eaten, or the population would go out of control. The human population is growing out of control. When lemmings overpopulate, they all run over a cliff into the sea and die. Human's do find innovate and better weapons to kill each other off. But we are also keeping more and more people alive with better standards of living and modern medicine. Plagues and wars killed off large percentages of the population in the past, but we haven't had any big plagues lately. Trading is a system of high attrition, but it doesn't kill off large percentages of the population. "Feeding" off the young and the weak in the investment markets doesn't solve the overpopulation problem. If people who make a lot of money in the investment world, are genetically superior, then they should have more children in order to keep the genetic pool healthy. But it seems like poor people have more children. So that isn't working. The system of killing and eating the weak and the young in the animal world keeps things in balance. I'm not sure that the investment industry is keeping the world in a healthy balance.

Rules are not inherently right. There have been plenty of people, groups, governments and rulers that have made some very bad rules. There are good rules, there are bad rules. Right at this moment, I'm not saying that the rules governing the markets or trading are good or bad. I'm saying that there needs to be a deeper look at good and bad, moral or not moral, than just looking at the rules alone.

So far, the posts have been how to deal with the uncertainty of not knowing whether price is going to continue or pause. But no-one has suggested how to predict when price is going to continue or pause. One thing I look for is a strong move up in the market internals right after a reversal. That often predicts a price surge that has no pause to it.

How true. Licensing is all about protecting OTHER people. The government requires trades and professions to get a license to make sure that the customers are getting some level of competency. If you are trading your own funds, then you don't have a customer. I would hate to see the age of everyone in the world being totally manipulated and controlled by big government. But that's a whole other subject.

Sounds like you are disciplined to take your profit, then wait it out for the next good entry signal. Unfortunately, I'm not like that. I'm trying to trade every price move, almost constantly being in the market. It's not something I recommend. Don't do as I do, do as I say. :rofl:

You got that right! I've been through that scenario hundreds of times. I start comparing an indicator to the price chart, and think I see a pattern. Then I check it out, and find out that it really doesn't tell me anything. That's one reason I've stopped using indicators based on price.

Does predatory activity happen in the market all the time? Does a predatory mindset help in trading? I think that adapting a mentality of being ruthless, predatory, opportunistic and stalking your "prey" may help some people be more successful at trading. I get the impression that some traders take on this mentality, and this point of view as a strategy to put themselves into a mental state that helps them to be more objective and disciplined in their trading. I'm not saying it doesn't work. And I'm not saying that I wouldn't, sort of, engage in those things myself when trading. I guess I would practice opportunistic and "predatory" strategies in the sense that it will make a profit. Is this view of trading good in the long term? Can it affect your life outside of trading? Is it morally right or wrong? Personally, I have a mixture of feelings about the whole investment industry, how it works, who it benefits, and what the implications are for the predators and the victims. But let's hear what you have to say.

I think that "getting into line", and trying to be at the front of the line really does make a difference. Well, it has to. The downside to having an order in to early, is that it could minimize your profit if price goes way past your target. But trying to maximize profit and trying to squeeze out every last penny has it's downside also. So there is a never ending risk/reward decision to make.

I don't know that there is a "trading gene" that attracts people to trading. I would not rule it out though. I watched an interesting science TV show that documented a study done on why some people find the taste of broccoli bitter. They scientifically proved that some people have different taste receptors in their tongue. It is genetically determined. There is NOTHING you can do about it. You have absolutely no choice in the matter. If you have a certain genetic make up, broccoli WILL taste bitter to you. Period. So my point is, that we do have traits that are genetically pre-determined. And although I can't state that there is a "risk taking gene", I would not rule it out either. It is possible for people to acquire a tolerance, or even a preference for something that they originally did not like at all. And it is possible for people to become aware of their pre-dispositions, no matter what the origin, and consciously and willfully affect the final outcome. So I'm not saying that we are doomed to being slaves to our genetic and environmental programing. I believe that a certain percentage of the population will be attracted to risk, or acquire an attraction to risk. Without risk, there probably would not have been the advancements in knowledge and technology that we have today. The obvious reasons people are attracted to trading have already been stated. Income, opportunity, freedom, lifestyle, etc, etc. That's kind of a "no brainer".

I think that adapting a mentality of being ruthless, predatory, opportunistic and stalking your "prey" may help some people be more successful at trading. I get the impression that some traders take on this mentality, and this point of view as a strategy to put themselves into a mental state that helps them to be more objective and disciplined in their trading. I'm not saying it doesn't work. And I'm not saying that I wouldn't, sort of, engage in those things myself when trading. I guess I would practice opportunistic and "predatory" strategies in the sense that it will make a profit. I don't want to get too far off the original thread topic, so I won't take this topic any deeper. Maybe I'll start a new Thread somewhere.