1. I agree with pthomas215 11:35 post regarding trading probabilities.
2. Regarding your question:
"Does anyone have a scan that they follow religiously and continue to make a profit? I'm not talking about using a scan to narrow down a list of stocks, then just looking at a bunch of other things, then going with what you feel is a good pick. I mean, run this scan, buy whatever is returned, sell on the sell signal, done."
I'm going to play a little devil's advocate.
Let's assume you asked that question at the beginning of 2013 and someone responded with a profitable scan that turned out to mimic one of those awesome successful SS strategies you found using SS from 2013 to 2016.
You could have had success for 4 years of trades and then lo and behold it would have a bad year in 2017.
a. Would that make it a failure?
Not necessarily, because a big part of trading is managing exits and keeping losses smaller than gains even if there are many small losses that pile up at times.
b. When you say profit, do you mean every trade, or most of the trades, or cumulatively such as for an entire year of trading?
A lot of traders only rely on their technical analysis signals during trending markets and sit on the sidelines otherwise.
c. Another important item to consider is how much drawdown can one handle economically in the trading account and psychologically.
Drawdown has forced many traders out of an overall profitable trading system, usually right before an abnormal string of highly positive trades....
EMWALKER, correct, i dont just look at macd for entry. i use a combination of technicals. OBV, Aroon and MACD have to look a certain way for entry. sometimes I just use an hourly chart.
Basically what it comes down to is, I have a system, it is 50% accurate. Average gain for winning trades is 12%, average loss for losing trades is 4%. I think that's pretty good as long as you don't mind the low accuracy. I'm having trouble pulling the trigger and actually trading it, because how do I know it will continue to work? It worked during my brief back test period that I did manually on SF, but there is no way to know if it will work moving forward, unless the market is exactly like it was during the back test period, which it never will be.
So how can you have faith in a TA based system? Do you just trust that it worked in the past so it will work in the future?
four 5,087 posts msg #142192 - Ignore four modified
emwalker: 50% is basically a coin flip.Unless you have superior money management skills,you're not putting the odds in your favor.Always remember,regardless of what system you use,you're the one who ultimately determines your profitability.As you've seen over and over "past performance is not guarantee of future results".There are absolutely no guarantees.Best,Miketranz...
emwalker: Maybe you should consider posting your filter. One of the SF veterans might be able to offer some tweaks to increase the win % and/or profitability. Also, they might be able to refer you to a similar existing SF filter that has been back tested for 3-4 years or longer. Before 2017 you could back test on SF and back tests of several years were common. Good Trading. Ron
ron, I'm not really look for help with a filter, I'm just simply asking:
1. Has anyone written a scan/developed a strategy with defined rules that they follow and make money. Meaning, "I will only buy if this indicator says this, and that indicator does that, then sell when this indicator does something else". Or is SF only good for narrowing down your list of potential buys, then you just evaluate each stock individually. You might buy one stock for one reason, and another stock for another reason.
2. How do you know if a strategy is a good strategy, if its pointless to backtest since that is just seeing how it fit that curve. There is no way to know if it will work in the future. Do you just say, "hey this makes sense, I'll trade it and see how it goes".
emwalker:You're asking for the holy grail.Everyone on here's seeking the same thing.Let me know when you find it.In the mean time,just start trading a few set up's with small position size.See what works for you,then keep trading it over and over again.There's a multitude of set up's,methods,filters.Good luck,Miketranz...
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