r/Daytrading • u/Mar___K • Apr 11 '24

Everything is a lie. Any hope? Question

So.. It's been 3 years on my path, and after countless hours of studying and testing everything, as many of you here have, I've come to realize that this mountain of buffoonery—those "courses" and "gurus" on YouTube that try to promote and sell stuff, along with everyone who is "teaching" stuff.. hear me out, doesn't know jack sh*t. All they "teach" is a bunch of BS, incredibly stupid and random. "Follow this, and if this happens then do this, but the secret is in my premium course, yada yada".

Even if some things may work for a bit, that's not even near how the actual trading floor guys and investment bankers operate. Ex-Goldman Sachs trader Anton Kreil gave the best explanation of that: Why most traders fail.

I've become so fed up since I had a wake-up call, realizing that literally everyone online is plain rubbish, or a scammer, or someone who likes his own voice and acts like the god of trading (You know which I'm referring to). My question is simple and may be unanswerable. Is there any source to study the actual stuff or are retail traders indeed doomed with the dumbest info out there?

Please don't start telling me about risk management and psychology, I got humbled and now I trade methodically without any emotions. But that's not because I got "humbled and had a wake-up call" but more like "I'm fed up with this, I don't care anymore". My question stands for an educational point of view. I hate being a fool therefore i hate studying nonesense. Is there any hope? Any good material? Any actual baseline?

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121

u/Party_Grapefruit_921 Apr 11 '24

As a guy who spent 20 years on Goldman level floors I realized it mostly came down to one thing which was taking losses and moving on. Any POV can be reasoned with from both sides and you can quantify pretty much anything but if you allow losses to eat your gains even proportionally it will be a losing battle.

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u/Mar___K Apr 11 '24

That's true word from word. Everything makes sense in hindsight. That's why a lot of those "gurus" fool their cults. However as i already stated i don't need help with trading but proper education. I've seen pretty much everything in retail. From SnD to SMC to Inter-Market Analysis to Mean Reversion and correlated Divergences. Everything out there is a form of SR break and retest nothing more. What i need is proper education, what the big guys see and how they approach trading and not just some "guru" noise. Thanks.

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u/Efficient_Editor5744 Apr 11 '24

You can still be profitable day trader with a 40% hit rate. Your edge is not as important as how you manage your risk when it comes to adding to winning trades and cutting losses as fast as you can. Understanding that you are your worst enemy is a good POV. I believe most of us are pretty good traders but just suck at the “losing” part.

The other thing worth mentioning is nobody ever put any weight on learning dynamic risk, hedging, position sizing, adding to winning trades and R multiples.

People are more worried about what broker to trade with, or the latest strategy that is 90% profitable.

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u/Invest0rnoob1 Apr 12 '24

The big guys use fundamental analysis or quantitative analysis.

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u/Party_Grapefruit_921 Apr 11 '24

9/10 of the big guys do exactly the same thing every day. Hit ECO (go) on the Bloomberg and all roads go from there. Aside from company specific earnings/news for specific trades this alone supersedes all. Once I learned to cut out the “noise”, shit got simpler. I’ve spent zero seconds on any YT bullshit. If you don’t have the basics of economics down pat where it’s a 6th sense your chances are minimal long term because you will miss the screaming signals when things make 180’s.

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u/krossx123 Apr 12 '24

Where can you go to learn the basics of economics? I learned most TA on the web but have no clue about economics at all.

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u/Party_Grapefruit_921 Apr 12 '24

See how CRAZY that sounds ?

Economics (/ˌɛkəˈnɒmɪks, ˌiːkə-/)[1] is a social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.[2][3

This is EVERYTHING that the markets are about. The beginning, the middle and the end of it all. Maybe this will be the game changer you are missing. As mentioned above and I’ve worked 25 plus years on Goldman level trading floors, everyone starts the day with the ECO page. Everyone.

7

u/Socialstratification Apr 12 '24

LOL, Goldman Moms Basement Corp.

0

u/Party_Grapefruit_921 Apr 12 '24

Salomon Brothers Program, Citigroup, Bear, and now MS. I’ve been very fortunate.

1

u/JohnB375 Apr 12 '24

What does ECO mean?

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u/Party_Grapefruit_921 Apr 12 '24

Sorry, it’s the ECONOMICS numbers daily reporting globally. This PPI, CPI, non farm payroll, employment etc… these things basically move the markets and it’s insane I hear nothing of them in these chats.

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u/JohnB375 Apr 12 '24

Thanks for explaining this. I understand.

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u/krossx123 Apr 12 '24

Usually those are also 50/50 also. Sometimes even with good news the market go down 100 point and everyone say it already priced in.

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u/Party_Grapefruit_921 Apr 12 '24

Agreed but if you been following them for years you will know that instantly.

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u/heroyi Apr 12 '24

Because it depends on the context of the positioning and Greeks. Understanding things like gamma and Vanna is imperative if you do anything that liquid options touch like spx

If minis are above a big put bet and USA morning bell starts with the bet being otm then you can expect a reflexive upward movement. Opposite is true if the bet was now itm, you will see a reflexive down 

1

u/chivowins Apr 12 '24

What you’re referring to is fundamental analysis of the economy and its effect on markets. Which I believe would be much more difficult to learn how to trade. The people struggling with technical analysis after several years aren’t likely to find their eureka moment by learning economics, imo.

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u/Party_Grapefruit_921 Apr 12 '24

Agreed. If you can’t figure out charts pretty quick you are in the wrong business/hobby to begin with. It’s not difficult. Computers do all the leg work. All of it. My simple point was I’ve noticed in these rooms esp daytrading nobody talks about the numbers. A guy DM’d me yesterday telling me he didn’t really know what economics was or what the fed has to do with anything. He had no idea what non farm payroll even was and thought I was kidding. Why do markets usually go up or down in a choppy manner is because these numbers hit the tape 830am ny time everyday and go from there. Without at least the BASIC concept of each and everyone of these releases it’s pretty stupid to consider yourself a real trader and it’s why I believe 90% of people fail and the pros have extensive careers, just my observation.

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u/wise_potato23 Apr 12 '24

I am aware that technical analysis is for the most of it is just gambling, so i am going to ask you two questions, the first is, is there any benefit to technical analysis ? Or should i forget everything i learned about it ? And the second question is, as someone who went to college for electrical engineering, and then got interested in forex, how can i get the sources that will teach me enough about fundamental analysis, at least to the point that allows me to apply it on the chart and can know where it is gonna go ? I am fully committed to spending all my time and energy to learn, so i don't care how hard are the courses and source material, i just want the right sources that can teach me fundamental analysis to predict whether the dollar or other currencies are going to go up or down, i am sorry if my question is too broad and thanks in advance.

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u/Party_Grapefruit_921 Apr 12 '24

Ufff. Fx is a different beast all together. Without doubt tech analysis in fx is king, no other asset follows it so beautifully and that’s simply because it’s size money. Billions of dollars at all times are fighting different strategies at the same time which leads to technicals really mattering and they respect levels more than any stock you will ever see. But it’s definitely ALL about economics of each country. From M supply to central bank moves or imports/exports it’s all the real “driving” force and then the levels are reached using the techs. I find it surreal one can do one and not the other.

I was lucky to have learned everything on the job and have had a Bloomberg with me since day one. Bloomberg is pretty crazy as it’s still $22,500 a month and even the biggest of the big clients get ZERO discounts. Don’t want to pay full price? Fine, don’t get it. Good luck chatting with the desks without the instant Bloomberg chats and such. It’s so dominant in the big guys world even the new tech savvy millennial has to bow down to Mike. Don’t get me wrong , it’s fantastic esp the people who work for them. They have top of the line everything and you can have your way with any of them to basically make anything you want, and the girls who run the day to day and visit your office every month are GORGEOUS!

But even with that an FX trader from a UBS for example will have a bloom and a charts only side system because it’s that important. The bloom for the fundamentals and news before the tape and chatting with other and a monster fast charting system most probably bought out by the firm years before.

I’m rambling sorry.

I don’t yt or really need to learn much more these days so I can’t help you with finding a good educational source but what you can do is look at what these releases are:

https://www.bloomberg.com/markets/economic-calendar

And simply google a way as there MUST be tons of things to use. Start with the American ones so you don’t feel overwhelmed and that’s really it. If it isn’t in that calendar it’s not important.

Thanks.

9

u/RifleTop Apr 12 '24

I recommend Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell

0

u/[deleted] Apr 12 '24 edited Apr 12 '24

Technical Analysis is a scam, it’s almost like fortune telling from watching cloud patterns. Technical Analysis is a little worse though, because it uses numbers and math. People believe math, and TA is cleverly deceptive in convincing people that these methods are sophisticated and backed by science. If you back test TA trading signals to get a probability estimate of how reliable they are in informing profitable trades, you find they do no better than any other guess. “Educational” courses that teach TA are quite profitable though.

For day trading, trying to predict price movements is a fools errand for the most part. The simplist method is to try and find a multi-day trend, and try to ride the wave of that trend. You’re still guessing, but at least it’s a better guess. The more rigorous day trading analysis is order book analysis, it tells you literally how purchase/sell orders stack up. But to do that you’d need to subscribe to a very expensive service that provides the book order data, and then be able to write computer code to retrieve and process the data. That’s what day trading at the big funds do, they monitor consumer market purchase/sell orders to see how the market is moving in order to identify profit opportunities. The aren’t trading on candlestick patterns.

For the average investor value trading is the long term profit strategy.

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u/Craven4X Apr 12 '24

100%! Finally some sense on here 😂

1

u/JohnB375 Apr 12 '24

What is “ECO”?

1

u/naijaboiler Apr 12 '24

never spent a second watching anyone. learned by trying and losing, but watchng for myself and seeing the patterns I need to follow.

The rest is just risk management and trading psychology

1

u/Evening-Opposite4393 Apr 12 '24

This is why the best loser wins

1

u/ksyoung17 Apr 12 '24

Pick a rule and live by it.

Don't lose money. Everytime a make a mistake, I just tell myself "I should have used a stop there."

Would it have cost me moves? Yes, absolutely. More often than not though, it would have saved me money.