wednesday wobbles, page-41

gunntrader, a few scattered thoughts.. basically there are two types of traders: discretionary and mechanical. Most here are discretionary, which can be a lot more stressful and sometimes we get carried away with a view of the situation and miss whats really happening to price. Within the both camps, however, another major distinction is between the forecasters (gann, eliott wave, etc) and the reactors (trade what they see, or trend followers) However, most discretionary traders still have setups that give them a framework to trade within. The essential common ground for all traders is 'the edge'. This can be almost anything, but it must lead to positive expectancy of your trading setup. That is, it must be profitable overall despite the losses. Most traders won't reveal their edge in any detail, because despite the cooperation between traders here the fact remains that futures trading is a zero sum game. Your profit is someone elses loss. The thing I suspect that allows us here to cooperate is that we are almost all small traders, and so represent a small part of the market. The major battles are between the big guys, and thankfully they spend most of their time trying to out play each other rather than us tho they are happy to take our money when they can. The single most important thing with any form of trading is the stop loss. You must have a stop worked out before you enter a trade because in the inevitable draw down situation, a stop will allow you to exit with enough capital to trade another day. Doesn't matter if its mental or hard. Google any of the key words above will get you more info than you can digest. Specifically in regard to your post, try 'opening range breakout' cheers!