The answer to the title question is an unequivocal “Yes.” It could be the widening of your eyes in amazement as the ES trades in a 20 to 30-point range both to the downside and upside in 30 to 75-minute increments for a good five hours straight. Using the right tools (signal generator and a good auto trader) gives you a strong probability of pulling many, many ticks as the hoards of dollars get tossed about. Wow is actually the word most often heard when this type of volatility is at your finger tips to take advantage of.
Then why is it that so many of us “gnats” are getting caught up in an old habit of “anticipate.” That level of frustration you feel is when you realize it has happened again. There was that moment of hesitation or disbelief in the signal change. That nagging voice of doubt saying you are buying/selling too soon or too late. When this happens I don’t know about you but I always feel like Wile. E. Coyote trying to stop himself before heading over the cliff.
I suggested yesterday that as “gnats” we need to participate and not anticipate. To do the latter first literally never gets the sequence of events rolling. The cause of not participating is similar but most often generated by different emotional memories within each of us.
Trading without emotions is of course, dependent on getting to the root, making some adjustments, and moving forward towards participating with comfort and ease. Remember your competition, for the most part, doesn’t have emotions – at least on a participating basis. There are hundreds if not thousands of algorithms calculating in just about all markets and firing off thousands of orders to buy and sell thousands of different forex, treasuries, equities, commodities, precious metals in cash, options, futures and other forms of derivatives. The nominal value boggles the mind but it is safe to say that talented firms and traders have the ability to step in and facilitate buyers and sellers in exchanging their dollars and keep a tidy sum for themselves in the process.
The ongoing discussion remains to give up the old habits of having to know the who, what, where, when and why of every move before you’ll commit to participating. Doing this allows doubt and fear into the equation and trying to work back to “participate” gets delayed even more. There’s always trying to cover your procrastination by attempting to “play it safe” and put a bid or offer in the market that just “doesn’t” get filled – oh well! Breaking a habit takes 28 days or so they say. If we consider how many days, weeks and years we have given up to our “bad habits”, taking 28 days to break them doesn’t seem like such a huge price to pay.
Dictionary.com defines “probability/statistics” as:
Probability / Statistics.
- the relative possibility that an event will occur, as expressed by the ratio of the number of actual occurrences to the total number of possible occurrences.
- the relative frequency with which an event occurs or is likely to occur.
It then becomes logical to conclude that when we anticipate more than participate we dramatically reduce the probability of success and that can be statistically shown. Learning to move beyond our “bad habits” can be acheived. The conversation is ongoing.
Check out the ES chart which covers trading from 6:30 AM to 8:00 AM PST
