Perseverance - this story is nutsTrading is just one of the many ' hobbies ' i have or had, another one is picking berries and nuts.
Now being Autumn is/was busy season, everywhere you looked, nuts. Hazelnuts, Walnuts, Chestnuts, NUTS.
On bushes and trees, in the fields, the forest, on the street, in the houses .. even most of my neighbors are nuts (err .. different story .. yet VERY much related to why I went into trading in the first .. and second place).
Even though my mother already liked, and tried to introduce us to, what nature has to offer for free .. being children .. we didn't pay attention nor cared all that much for that.
Many years ago, for what ever reason at that time, i started to notice just the vast amount of hazel- and walnuts in our area .. and started picking them.
As years passed by I didn't just randomly pick them, i started planning when, how and where to go about it.
While keeping my game up, readjusting my 'strategies' I couldn't help but notice how others started to follow my lead (for some reason people here could not be bothered with it until they noticed me doing it) and tried to emulate me (yes I am fully aware of just how narcissistic this may sound .. don't care, people close to me know this to be true). They didn't have my ' plans ' so they just ' went about it ', greedy as they are they started jerking on the branches, ripping of leaves and unripe fruits and nuts.
Nature has everything laid out in nicely recognizable patterns, structured events, cycles.
There was this guy named Ralph, there wasn't so much for market as there is today, but much like I started noticing the nuts on the street, Ralph noticed reoccurring patterns, which ultimately climaxed into an abysmal crash, shortly after that he formulated his set of rules, let's call them "The 12345abc rule" .
After many years, the markets matured more and more, people noticed that those rules often fell short .. so what do you do then ? You blame your lack of knowing them ? You throw them out ? .. oh no .. you add more rules (more is always better!!11).
Eventually that rule became known as the "12345-333-535-33333-abc-w-xyz-fibonacci" rule .. it still falls short .. but hey, the theory is solid !!1un, let's continue using it and just readjust the count if invalidated .. and readjust ..and readjust .. and readjust ..
Look at any one of those Waver-charts, the vast majority keeps invalidating, there is no consistence, why then keep tearing of those leaves and branches ? There are plenty other, far simpler and more fruitful "magic ball methods" out there.
Imo there are two categories of traders.
You could divide by smart and dumb money .. not going there (Institutional vs Retail - they all point to the other with disgust screaming and arguing "The apple is ROUND" - "No you idiot, it's RED", not noticing they both want the same (make money trading) yet use totally different mind- and rule-sets).. fruitless, useless, redundant discussions .. (Like an elephant telling a bird to stop chirping and start trumpeting, while the bird wants him to chirp)
No, the division is as follows:
The ones that trade with the trend and the once that go against it .
The ones that follow trend just do that, trending up ? go long , either in trend or in pullback : down ? short : vice-versa -- There is just one problem there, a trend is only a trend .. until it's not (and that is where the real trading 'fun' begins).
With nut-hunting, you have to start before season starts, you can not know when the first ripe ones fall out of the trees and bushes, you continue until you no longer find any (or until you decide you have enough)
(in trading this would mean: start buying before expected/estimated bottom and continue to sell after the expected/estimated top)
The other category of traders, the ones that "go against trend" are the ones that try to predict the lows and highs in advance, trying to predict ' reversals ' (those categories partially overlap since buying a pullback temporarily would go against trend).
Both parties will (usually)/(try to) use some sort of drawing (support, resistance) and sometimes other tools (indicators or fundamental market assessments) in hopes for the advantage.
One could say that "smart money" consists for the most part (again, overlapping categories) of "trend traders" .
The ones that are so overly greedy with idle hopes of getting the full "swing" are, of course, mostly "retailers" .
.. one could also make a claim about the 'Contrarians' being a third group, they are counter to .. ehm .. yeah, in a market where everyone gets served/ has a part, what do you want to "counter" here, the 'herd' ? (Pareto distribution..)?
So just like the other nuts going out to find people, the guys smashing trees, tearing leaves and breaking branches ended up with little or no usable nuts yet did a lot of work to get there .. and I got out every day just looking and observing .. and pulled the trigger at the right time (made a killing this year, ended up with more on that one day, than the combined season 'harvest' of any previous year).
so you see .. perseverance is key .. stick with something .. get better at it, adjust, readjust
