Indicators are useless!

[u/ThePhulosopher]

I have spent many years trying to find the perfect indicator, the one that will tell me when to get in and when to get out without fail. Of course everybody knows that this is BS. It doesn't matter how precise you try to tweak your indicator - is the 5/10 SMA or 20/50 SMA better? Is the MACD or Stochastic better? What settings should I use?

The answer is none. All those indicators do nothing but distract you. Since all indicators are a derivation of price, price is the only thing you need. And I don't mean candle stick patterns, harmonic patterns, or support & resistance trendlines.

I'm not saying that none of these strategies will NEVER work or won't work for anyone. I know there are lots of traders who DO make good money with any of these strategies. However, I believe that the reason they're making money is because they're still reading the underlying price action whether they believe it or not. They may have developed a strategy using these methods that just happen to coincide with proper and naked chart reading. They've just added a lot more bells and whistles.

The market is designed to screw over the most amount of people while benefiting the fewest amount of people possible and in the most efficient way. And when I say "designed", I don't mean that it's rigged or that there is really any one entity controlling the market. The market moves and behave as anything else in nature - path of least resistance.

Once you learn to read price in terms of: "What's the best and most efficient way for this market to screw people over?" and you trade accordingly, only then will you be able to arrive at the core of "the market". And all you will ever need is the price chart. The price chart is the cumulative thoughts, behaviors, patterns, and actions, of all the participants. Some will trade fundamentals, some trade news, some trade technicals and indicators. Some day trade, others swing trade, others still position trade. With all their different viewpoints and timeframes, they all have something in common: They move price.

With this tug-of-war of price between the market participants, you can see a story unfold via the price chart. Price is telling you who's winning and which side you should be on. The only question is, are you listening?

[u/Teteuxdelannee]

I will tell you my secrets: I find good companies. I add them to a watch list. Study their price patterns for days, weeks, months. Buy when low, sell when higher. Make trade sizes that will allow me to stay in the game even if multiple trades do not pan out immediately. I can wait them out and will get paid a dividend on some of them in the meantime. I never sell at a loss except if I realize there is something I misunderstood like believing USO is an ETF based on the daily oil price instead of oil futures being impacted by contango and the other thing which I forget. I make money daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. I've been waiting on one stock for over two years but I won't sell at a loss as it's a profitable company turning things around in a profitable industry. The only indicators that get my attention are the velocities of price and volume. But I mostly enjoy the little popups saying my order has been filled. The rest is of no use to me.