I think most people lose money in the market over time due firstly to bias, and secondly to bad trading habits.
When posters come in and say 'critical price level $x ahead' it creates bias. When this price level doesn't get hit, they just ignore it and move on. Old mate clearly loves to trade trends, however the previous trend he was talking about back in late Jan was wrong. If people bought in based on his posting back in Jan when he bought options at 7c and shares at 15c, they would be down.
You can see people frothing the confirmation of their own bias when dc posts his price level 'forecasts' on the number of upvotes he gets. His posts are more often than not optimistic on price. Did you ever notice he talks about price levels, yet has never posted a chart to bolster his argument?
My arguments and trading are basically contrarian in nature, and that is the least popular stuff you can do / say, so i'm not expecting to win any popularity contests in these forums - however I have only ever been in profit with BASO. I broke my own rules and bought heads at $0.165 because I couldn't shake my own bias, but should the thesis of high oil prices in the second half of this year play out, this should still be a profitable trade for me on the heads.
BAS Price at posting:
9.9¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
