The expectancy gap and performance leaks

When trading, you are free to construct your own methodology and set of rules to use - what markets to trade, triggers for entries and exits, how much equity to risk etc. That's the easy part.
 
For the majority of us, the difficult bit is ensuring you keep operating within that framework.

Building your own approach to the markets and the decisions and actions you take are entirely within your own control. But you have no control over what the markets do. Ideally, you want to react to the market's price movements, and trade within the confines of your carefully constructed framework.

How do you define a trend?

The past has happened. The future doesn't exist.

Therefore, we can only react and respond to what is happening in the moment of now.

So, for traders the question is, what is price doing now?

The tricky bit is how you define "what is price doing now".

It is what it is

This is just a brief post, after seeing some comments on social media referring to the price action in the general markets (particularly in the US) today. 

I've seen some refer to it as 'ugly', while others are saying they have never come across price action like this, before looking to blame others for making price action react in a way which didn't conform with how they thought it 'should' have moved. 

Well, in answer to those:

Another example of a nasty price gap

If you subscribe to the Mark Douglas theory that in the markets anything can happen, at any time, then you will know and accept the potential effect that sudden or unexpected announcements can have on price of a stock or instrument.

Seemingly you can be comfortably sitting in profit on a trade, even with your trailing stop above your entry price, only for a price gap to occur against you, resulting from the reaction to such an announcement.

It is for this reason why I never take into account open profits for position sizing purposes. A profit or loss on a position is not known until the trade is closed. Open profits can disappear - seemingly overnight with little or no warning, and your trailing stop may be rendered worthless.

Some of my beliefs about backtesting

When it comes to trading, I like to think differently. I'm not afraid of being a bit of a heretic when it comes to thinking about the markets. While I adopt and use 'classical' trend following and breakout principles, I also like to think for myself, outside the box.

As an example, lots of traders swear by running backtests and tuning their trading models based on the results of their testing and analysis. Certainly, in some cases with getting to grips with a basic concept, backtesting can be of some use.

Trading and the butterfly effect

Have you ever considered how you could come across two or more setups that are seemingly identical, and yet one moves in one particular direction, and another moves in a totally haphazard manner, and possibly start to move in completely the opposite direction?

Mark Douglas gave the best answer to this question in Trading in the Zone. Basically his explanation was as follows:

Trading in the Zone - and some recent setups

While away for a recent holiday my reading material consisted of two classics by Mark Douglas - The Disciplined Trader and Trading in the Zone. For many Trading in the Zone this is the book that brought trading psychology to the masses.

Trend following and Trading in the Zone

Trading in the Zone, by Mark Douglas, is one of the best books out there on trading psychology, and one I would highly recommend new or inexperienced traders should read.

Reading it confirms that trading psychology is just as important (if not more important) than having a following a particular trading system or method. He states that it is the ability to follow your system that separates successful traders from the rest.