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Words to Live By? (Part 5)

In this series, I am breaking down a snippet of supposed “trader wisdom.”

In picking up where I left off in part 4, the trader continues:

“I sit here in front of the screens all the time watching the 5-minute bars on all the futures…”

He’s got multiple screens going, 5-minute charts, futures… like WOW!  He certainly sounds to know what he’s talking about.  The newer I am to trading and/or the less experienced I am with taking losses, the more apt I will be to believe him.

Heck, he might even be this trading G-d who I randomly found via Google search:

There are his multiple screens to watch all those intraday futures charts so he must be making millions of dollars.

“…and I’ve gotten very comfortable now with my trades because I kinda know… I get decent entry points…”

The Holy Grail has a very slippery slope and can be described in many ways.  One piece of trader wisdom I do believe is that the Holy Grail does not exist.  Logic therefore dictates that anything describing the Holy Grail does not exist either.  Making millions of dollars easily and quickly through trading:  Holy Grail and nonexistent.  What about getting “decent entry points?”  If the entry point is decent because it is followed by a successful trade then yes, this could be the Holy Grail.  By claiming decent entry points the trader implies that on average his trades are profitable.  Consistent, positive returns are what any trader seeks in order to be successful, after all.

I will continue to scrutinize said “trader wisdom” in the next post.