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Hi Tommaso,
Welcome to the Forum! Re. your questions:
> From one side I see your constant efforts and researching for
> indicators, systems etc.
> From the other side I know there are some softwares widely acclaimed as
> very effective (GET, ELWave etc).
1. Widely acclaimed as OK is *not* the same as being OK. I myself for
example think Elliot Wave Analysis is just hocus pocus and a lot of hot air,
so I'd never use ELWave (a program isn't it?). Besides, you have to pick a
trading style *you personally* are comfortable with, eg. trend-following,
pro-cyclical, anti-cyclical etc.
2. All programs have ready to use built-in indicators, usually
run-of-the-mill ones like SMAs etc. These are proving less & less effective
because...
3. We operate in so called "Efficient Markets"; which I rather call
"Information Saturated Markets". In practice this means that soon after
somebody has developed a really good trading system, everybody starts using
it, which in turn means that it will not work anymore. As a point in case
you could have a look at the time honoured 200-day MA: The number of bear- &
bull-traps in conjunction with it has grown enormously since people use PC's
to analyse equities. To put it differently: In the market-place, when you
start behaving along established lines there's sure to be some guy who'll
skin you alive.
4. Applying indicators or trading systems as cooking recipes, i.e. without
understanding them, is sudden death. However, you've come to the right place
to remedy that ;-)
5. A word of caution: Paper trading is OK to test the waters but actual
trading generates *much smaller* gains - or it generates losses as I found
out the hard way when started trading in the real world. Nonetheless I would
certainly advise you to 'get your feet wet' and start trading or investing
sooner rather than later.
6. Just remember this:
A. Don't play with money you cannot afford to lose,
B. Develop a risk management scheme before you start,
C. Always, always, always sell when a stop-loss is hit (psychologically
selling is disproportionally harder than buying),
D. Don't forget that playing the market(s) should be/can be/is a lot of
fun (there no sweeter balm to the soul than a steadily growing account ;-)
It is a personal credo of mine that work, any work, is only worth doing if
it's fun.
Hope this helps & that I've not turned too fatherly (patronizing). Happy
Trading,
Jan Willem Roberts
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