from a traders perspectivei trade a lot.....i mean a lot i've...

from a traders perspective

i trade a lot.....i mean a lot

i've just looked at the OP for this thread

if youre new to trading a gold contract or a cfd please listen to this very carefully

a trendline is an arbitrary idea based on old navigational mathematics and was brought into popularity by a couple of dudes 4 score and 20 ago (yes, i jest, dont take everything so face-value seriously when it comes to opinion)

trendlines have a small edge to them.....in that, if you can prove in real time that the line you've drawn is an entrance or exit level then maybe it has a use for you...the edge is small in no small measure (keep your humour, ok)

the small measure is several fold

first, theyre notoriously self-fulilling to the extent that several screen dreamers watch them, see a reaction, buy or sell the reaction thinking that the reaction is inline with their own prescient thinking: wrong

trendlines are always "moving away" so how does that set your static levels ...it means your risk is shifting

trendlines are also useful to the person on the other side of your trade....if your long an uptrendline, someone is selling that same uptrend line......theyre in sell-to-open mode

if enough screen dreamers can bring enough liquidity to the buy side they'll fulfill the (up)trendline and price ascends

at this point there is much conviction and banging of bullish retail tables

think on this.....every mutt and his handler knows this trendline.....this is 2014, youre not discovering a rare gem of technical knowledge......every boutique fund manager, every commercial trader, every specculative mid-tier trader knows the trendline....every quant can tell you the degree of angle, rate of change and what the rsi will be doing, the options guys are cacking themselves......oh, here come the trendline crowd.....

keep in mind what i said earlier, your task is to protect your money, not your opinion

so, about that small edge...yeah, well, there's good money to be made from trading trendlines as i've just pointed out and more often than not by the person on the opposite side of your trade.....get the idea? someone somewhere is betting against that trendline and youre betting with the trendline.....

if you are prepared to exit, when told by price to exit then you can trade trendlines, at all degrees of trend, in all time frames....you need kahunas of a marine....be honest about this...how well thought out is your business idea...note the use of "business idea"...if youre a business man/woman you'll run your business to make money, not to get your juices flowing and pump yourself about the 10 thousand dollar price tag the interweb guru keeps telling you about....

massive trendlines bring massive ego:yours

when was the last time you (actually, emphasis on actually) proved the best way to utilize a trendline, enter/exit, rinse repeat, run your business ?

rinse repeat, a process of technique, an edge, a business .....not a glory-bound reach for the golden prize and book your ticket on the next space shuttle

the second thing is, your rate of return for the monetary risk you'll put in...by that i mean, youre likely to have too much on the table, price goes against you so you have to get out......youre fighting the emotive logic that got you in (remember, trendlines are a feel-good excuse if.you. have.not.forward.tested.them.correctly!!)
return for monetary risk is a question of rate...that means, how often you can risk based on the technique of trading a trendline...you get it?

what actual experience do you have of trading a trendline successfully? one? a cuple? a few? several?

if youve said several chances are youre a guru in the making

if you said a few, then of the few which ones have you logged and you can elocute what made the trades work?

if you said a couple, i'd go with the lucky-me thought...the chances that your price rose because of the trendline (extent) in realtime is extremely unlikely....whether it did or did not is the issue, the issue is how do you know to repeat the process as a business idea?

simply drawing a line is always arbitrary...this is the point....you wont know till after the fact if you should be in log mode, linear mode, if the contact points are correct, how wide the channel should be, blah blah blah.....

how do you prove that the move off the trendline is not purely coincidental with other real reasons of simple auction activity?



trading a trendline is one of the dumbest trade ideas i have ever seen, but, if you get the technique correct then you can def gleen an income.....

i think that of the 44 thumbs up for the opening post, most will get toasted.....not by the person on the other side of the trade but by the size of your holding.....how that conclusion comes (yeah, no humour here) is because i've been one of those who once thought, yep, special, found a trendline, bounce, you go girl.....but everytime i ever saw one of these posts the poster never once divulged how they would play the trade based on the trendline....

the odds are extremely high that if you gave the opening emotive post a thumbs up, youre going to get toasted....it is the business we are in....is this really your tool for being heavy long? your thumbs-up says the odds are extremely high that if youre long youre heavy long, too heavy.......waay too heavy....

you are allowed to do absolutely anything you want with your money, but, not if youre wrong, then, the other guy gets to do absolutely anything with your money

you get to decide if the trendline long is good business idea, on a small margin trade as a % percentage of your avail capital, or you can emotively logic too much money onto an untested (in real time, not hindsight curve fitted)onto and untested punt.

ideas.......all trades are just ideas....

cin cin

ps
just love those two weekly downbars in a weekly downtrend bouncing off an uptrendline........dont you?

http://www.finviz.com/futures_charts.ashx?t=GC&p=w1

i have no open overnight pos....

before anybody jumps on the Train-du-Angst ....the point of this post is to ask how well you run your trendline business

sing it, if youre happy and you know it.... toot-toot !!