Where have they all gone

The Lobby
26

Hi @steve369, I have not read that one. Out of respect for the quality of your postings generally and your depth of trading experience, I will read it. Not that I feel any personal need of any explanation why traders fail. :slight_smile:

But the fact that so many still consistently fail, in spite of the ever-growing volumes of advice, strategies and even the prevalence of automated systems, is a really curious phenomena that so far has never been convincingly explained.

I remember back in the day (OMG, that was actually decades ago! :grimacing:), I read many times the “Art of War” by Sun-Tzu and that was actually quite formative in developing both my approach to trading and my chart set-up at that time - and those principles are still present today.

Maybe this book that you are recommending will throw some light on the pyschological aspects of trading failure. I like the concept of detachment and I have often felt that one factor leading to failure is too close and too frequent monitoring of price movements. I sometimes think retail traders are like driving at full speed in a great rush to get somewhere in a thick fog where they can only see 2 metres ahead - a crash is inevitable at some point and they just never arrive there…

I know stock investments are a different thing but, anyway, we do not see the normal “guy on the street” checking his stock prices every five minutes, while waiting for a bus, when waking up in the middle of night, after their dinner, during the adverts on TV, and first thing when waking up in bed - yet, they mostly make money over the years and their pension schemes never fail to pay out on time…

So something causes 70-80% of retail traders to fail - and that figure is so constant!! This is just so intriguing - and terribly sad considering how many put their savings into this big hope for a life-changing experience.

Thanks for the recommendation. If I find it offers an insight into this issue maybe I’ll come back to BP and mention it! :slight_smile:

With best wishes.

PS. Thought I’d add one other Asian wisdom that describes a lot of modern attitudes in our fast-food, off-the-shelf, world:

Nasrudin stood up in the marketplace and started to address the throng.

O my people! Do all of you really want knowledge without difficulty, truth without falsehood, great attainment without effort, progress without sacrifice?

Very soon a very large crowd gathered, everyone shouting, “Yes, yes”

Excellent! said the mullah. I only wanted to know. You may rely upon me to tell you about it if I ever discover any such a thing…

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27

You will find that most failures will not have a method, process or strategy, and if they do they won’t follow it.

And once they do, they have their emotions to deal with.

Not an easy path to success.

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28

some of them got passes to the room at the end

dark1

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29

I know at least one who did.

30

I was just looking at some old SR concepts, M1, W1, D1 then drill down to H4 and H1. Price likes to bounce off those zones. Enter in the bias direction on pullbacks.
Watching some of Rred and Hord’s old videos. I guess it would get easy with enough practice and chart time.

31

Hey @TalonD Unfortunately, this site is a shadow of what it once was… I got here in 2017 and I believe even this was late in the evening as much of the most valuable OG’s had already left…

Those in here that are serious about succeeding in this game should carefully sift through the 16-candles-in-the-58-edsel thread… Absolute treasure trove of quality concepts and information.

Can be hard to understand for the newbie trader, but stick at it and much will be revealed.

Linked Above… Enjoy!

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Those who join Babypips are mostly beginners looking for knowledge and experienced traders to connect with. It is possible that those traders might be doing well in trading and have enough knowledge so they don’t need this site anymore.

33

I’m still here. Just that no one’s been posting much that is interesting. Now that I’ve got a fairly stable income, I plan to go back to stock trading, with a rock solid strategy, unlike the past when I kept losing because of impatience, poor strategy and indiscipline and had to reload the account with little money after each loss without a stable source of income.

34

Hi Trends, I’ll check out that thread, it’s one I haven’t read yet. I think the old technical templates thread were good ones too.
I remember long time ago taking a look at the ducks thread and seem to recall it lacking in context. It’s good to apply some SR concepts. After all you don’t want to follow a bunch of ducks into a highway and get run over by a car.

35

Wouldn’t it be interesting to have a Welcome Back! thread for old-time participants to tell us what they’ve been up to and what they’ve learned? I’m going to start one. Trouble is, they have to be still on this site to see it, but I can see if I can drum any of them out of the woodwork!!!

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36

So I just started a new thread in Lobby called “Welcome Back Old-Timers!!”

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Welcome Back Old-Timers!

38

it is mate, but unfortunately when image upload tinypics closed it’s doors the vast majority of the technical graphs disappeared.

the message posts are still in situ which discuss the template, background observations, triggers & exits etc, but frustratingly the accompanying charting profiles are no longer visible.

the thread that TWB mentions above is a continuation/update of the templates information TalonD

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39

some of the common reactive areas to observe are prior month, week & day highs & lows…if they also happen to dovetail with 00 numbers, you definitely need to sit up & pay attention.

collective groups of stop orders, including option triggers, park on & around those regularly active levels which generate decent follow through & reverse bounce action.

playing a directional momentum strategy based around that type of background set up will yield some pretty impressive returns, affording very acceptable risk outlay.

the thread TWB highlights, focuses exclusively on those key factors, sprinkled with one or two additional observational tools & explains how & why they work so consistently…the guys on the technical templates threads used them as the foundation for their profiles too

they were working as efficiently & effectively back in 2007 (when the templates threads first appeared on here) as they are today & will continue to do so because they’re based on herd psychology, which of course when you drill down into the mechanics of how a lot of the automated bots are programmed, you’ll observe why the moves into & away from these common levels attract such powerful participation.

don’t work hard, work smart.

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40

Aye it worked well for many years, long before Andy brought it here, but the Captain has abandoned the concept back a couple of years - the market has changed with the advent of algos.

Welcome back TD :slight_smile:

41

I see from reading that Edsel thread that they have dropped SR concepts but I still find them to have value along with the afore mentioned concepts. Yes it’s a shame the pictures are gone. I’m very much a visual thinker, Temple Grandin style. I’m going to go check out the welcome back thread.

42

When the previous posters refer to Ducks and Captains… (See Link Below)

Link to a condensed YouTube demonstration here…

Another of the more comprehensive threads to ever grace Babypips…

43

good video, I did a search and there are lots of 3 ducks videos on youtube.

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44

Been here for a few years and pop in now and then!

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45

I’ve been looking at day, week, month highs and lows and market structure. I had a few good trades today just following H4s down on EU in the major direction. It’s interesting to get back in the charts after a long hiatus. If momentum is down take the short and get the win.