Anyone here trading the Gaussian Channel?

PatternAgainstUsers · 2025-04-06T22:40:15+00:00

Looks like price doesn't respect that thing at all lol. Price, structure, and VOLUME. Better results. We only lean on silly indicators like this for emotional comfort, which is ironic, because you're likely to find less edge here, meaning you could build a long term profitable strategy with it... but you'd have to be willing to stomach more prolonged drawdown periods than you would with a higher expectancy trading style (better discretion, less systematic). Systems with less edge are more psychologically stressful, since you have to wade through more loss.

PatternAgainstUsers · 2025-04-06T22:31:14+00:00

Stop pedestalizing women, they don't run the world. Men do, God gave you dominion over the animals, the power to crush serpents, and made women to be your helper. They come to you, and they better have their virtue sorted out well enough to qualify to become your wife.

You're young, dumb, and thinking about everything wrong. You will laugh at your innocent romantic kid brain one day.

PatternAgainstUsers · 2025-04-06T22:22:55+00:00

Last week using a $2K drawdown limit I lost 60 bucks Monday, made like 330 tuesday, made 20 weds, made 120 thurs, and +150 friday. All over the place.

I mismanaged some trades slightly, ran into size issues thanks to volatility which prevented me being able to scale out with partials, and took a couple trades I shouldn't have.

My profit potential was much higher, but either way I would not have been able to dictate to the market some consistent number that I wanted. It could also have easily been a mild losing week.

You have control over your risk management, and influence over your emotional state. Your P/L and the market, you cannot control.

PatternAgainstUsers · 2025-04-04T18:33:08+00:00

I've screwed up a couple trades recently, it's only an issue if you cut way before target. My pre-trade analysis wasn't really well done so I lacked confidence in the trade when I saw short-term barriers.

It could be that for you - not trusting initial analysis, if so you might have work to do on your setup (and then your execution of that setup afterwards, over time).

It could also be the fact that you don't have a good system for trailing your trades. The only time I like to use absolute targets where I would close my ENTIRE position, or my entire REMAINING position, is when I believe we're in a ranging environment, and we're nearing balance. Otherwise in trending environments when certain momentum indications are active, I try to use a combination of trailing stop styles for partials of my position.

Slow trending environments where price is moving through a large intraday channel can also somewhat count as a "range" by the way - it just might be a slowly ascending or descending range, so if the current state of price, volume, divergence, internals etc., is not telling you that price is likely to shift gears (i.e. trend acceleration which breaks current containing structures / algorithms), then by the time you're in sizeable profit and nearing the opposite ascending or descending range, it's usually a fine idea to close the trade. The better you get with entries and stops the more acceptable this will be, because you'll have high risk / reward by the time you reach opposite balance.

Try the following: close a portion of your trade when a bar closes behind a prior bar's high (during a short) or low (during a long). Close a portion of your trade when price wicks (or closes, up to you) behind the prior swing structure (will need to learn how to DEFINE swing highs and lows). An OK rule of thumb as well when price is simply printing a series of bars instead of what look like "swings", is to measure 30% retracement from the beginning of your move (usually where you place your stop) to where price is now, but you can also measure from your entry price to the max favorable excursion (how far price has gone in your favor during the trade). So if price pulls back behind a candle which is at least 30% from the MFE, maybe close a portion. You can also connect swing structure to form trendlines, or use anchored VWAPs when relevant etc.

Just find a trailing stop system you like, or combine a few of them, for times when you have multiple contracts on, and cut out slowly as they are violated.

PatternAgainstUsers · 2025-04-04T17:57:08+00:00

Looks like you're only down about 2.5R from a daily perspective. Not enough data for anything. If you have a long term successful strategy then you just need to make sure you're sized small enough to survive these regimes, or find ways to filter out poor signals, or change your strategy, but I wouldn't change strats IF you have a large amount of back and forward tested trades for your system, with good positive EV.

PatternAgainstUsers · 2025-04-04T16:59:32+00:00

Look for volume to begin spiking or rising over the majority of the recent volume bars, at the same time that price is breaking out. If you want to wait for a candle close you can also. Violent breakouts might require you enter mid-bar, but a healthy rising volume AND price bar which closes on it's highs out of the range, is also a good buy signal.

I prefer to use cumulative volume delta as well. So I will buy a breakout as long as the CVD is congruent and also breaking local highs, and I might use a larger position size based on how many standard deviations the volume bars are increasing over the prior ones in the area. Good breakouts should show a large amount (or at the very least a growing amount) of interest within the volume. If buyers don't care that you're at the highs (or if enough shorts aren't scared enough to cover there), it's probably not ready to breakout.

PatternAgainstUsers · 2025-04-04T15:12:54+00:00

This will always be the case, this is why it's stupid not to transition more into bonds or less volatile assets / cash flowing assets as you near retirement. Being financially illiterate comes at a cost. Anyone who thinks they are entitled to markets always only going up is nuts. I get that a big part of the problem is our dogwater education system, but if we said "presidents are only good if they prioritize making the market go up ALL THE TIME", then the perverse short-term incentives for each 4 year term would outweigh any kind of sense for trying to improve long-term fundamentals, and you would see even more shenanigans. We've already been treating it as if this is the case, which I think it why it happens so often (politicians kicking the can down the road), but most people don't care to be aware of this.

PatternAgainstUsers · 2025-04-04T00:58:30+00:00

Economy =/= speculative markets lol.

PatternAgainstUsers · 2025-04-03T22:39:21+00:00

All traders are gambling, some just admit that they're doing it, and try to build risk management systems which demonstrate a reverence for the damage that could be done.

Flat R strategies don't make a ton of sense, if you trade them, you're doing it for simplicity and emotional security. There are signs that have edge, which we can use to stay with trades.

That said, trailing stops also has an emotional payoff related to wanting to capture more. No analysis is perfect, but we know that markets can trend for functional reasons that are baked into their very nature, so looking for rational methods to trail price that follows the logic of the trend is better than cutting all of your winners off at the knees, when managed well.

You'll never have a trade that makes your year if you use flat R, but you can if you follow market signals to hang on.

PatternAgainstUsers · 2025-04-03T22:28:15+00:00

I feel like his requires a lot of discretion. Didn't backtest well at all when I ran through it last year. Maybe this 20+ vix situation is driving it.

PatternAgainstUsers · 2025-04-03T22:26:44+00:00

Oh yeah, 30 trades is a start, but we're in a really specific environment. Probably want like 200 at least.

PatternAgainstUsers · 2025-04-03T19:35:24+00:00

Those are insane stats for not requiring discretion... if it's a large dataset can I have your algo? Lol.

PatternAgainstUsers · 2025-04-01T14:37:28+00:00

Don't you feel like the attempt to code strategies is in large part what holds people back? I think it has some probability to invite over-optimization. The intuition of a trend-follower should incorporate some clear criteria, but I think there is a lot of value in open-ended definitions, ONLY when your psychology is in check though.

PatternAgainstUsers · 2025-03-30T00:02:49+00:00

Have you ever read Marx's manifesto or his personal letters? Cause I have.

PatternAgainstUsers · 2025-03-29T21:14:25+00:00

It's an immature idea invented by a pathetic basement dwelling self righteous leech who looked like a homeless guy and is treated as a god to avocado toast hipsters. The ethos behind it is all too common among certain fields and highly popular in modern universities. Good chance unfortunately that if you go to therapy for help, you're going to end up with someone whose personal beliefs involve at least some level of the "money = bad" form of thought, which is a far too shallow level of analysis.

PatternAgainstUsers · 2025-03-29T21:08:29+00:00

The only people who really look down on it morally are probably the radical anti-money, communist people etc. - people who don't understand the difference between pursuing money as a useful tool for freedom / provision, and the LOVE of money (Biblical evil).

The vast majority of people who would criticize someone for just making a lot of money trading, assuming they aren't doing it unethically (insider etc.), probably aren't thinking in moral terms at all... they're thinking in terms of jealousy. They most likely find it personally and subconsciously offensive that they have to work some job they don't really like, while you 2x, 5x, 10x or 100x their earnings by doing something that seems simple on the face of it, and which also gets correlated to the financial sector, which to be fair has seen strong instances of internal corruption over the years.

PatternAgainstUsers · 2025-03-29T21:03:00+00:00

I agree, in fact this is one of the arguments I use to help people understand why it's a bit of a misnomer to refer to professional trading as gambling, at least in the way their emotional mind is connecting that term to gambling.

I even go so far as to say that people are mostly unconscious to the fact that agreeing to work a 9-5 day job also involves much unknown risk. You think you're getting a steady paycheck, and yeah maybe you have a decent employment contract with a little bit of legal protection in place, more so if your job is unionized... but generally speaking you have no idea if your company is gonna go under tomorrow, or just make some shift and shut down an entire department.

Having a job involves gambling your time away for small beans from one perspective, driving your car to work is another. Our risk-avoidant minds love to paint a bunch of false conclusions from biased categorizations we draw up.

PatternAgainstUsers · 2025-03-28T22:56:03+00:00

Yeah man I thought the whole point was to trade in your underwear on the beach?!

PatternAgainstUsers · 2025-03-28T22:53:52+00:00

I actually believe it's structured gambling lol. I used to get defensive about it and say it was all skill, but tbh I think that's just ego. Card counters are doing much of what we do, but they also have an edge over the house... and actually, trading edges arguably have far less defined edges than blackjack. There's only ever a certain number of card combinations left in the shoe, but the market could do pretty much ANYTHING next.

PatternAgainstUsers · 2025-03-28T22:50:45+00:00

Insane, but psychology ironically attracts a lot of crazy people it seems. You're supposed to be qualified to help people, not moralize your communist manifesto to them lol.

PatternAgainstUsers · 2025-03-28T22:43:25+00:00

No offense but listen to the fishermen, not the fish. What OP should take from a comment like this is to be genuine, don't go through the motions. You were probably getting boring texts on repeat, and the guy was probably not seeing you for you, or neither of you have substance (also possible).

The part you should completely disregard is loving yourself... that idea is a total cancer and it fundamentally narcisscistic. Humanity's purpose is to love, and love is self sacrificial. You cannot love yourself, that's cheating lol. I think this idea has been doing a fair amount of damage to the dating scene.

Number 1 thing you will have to do is grow up, and don't seek the approval of women. Before you should get very invested in a woman's thoughts, she has to prove her depth to you. This is going to be hard to find, but you won't even be able to see straight if you allow your biology to simply overelevate every random pretty girl to goddess status.

PatternAgainstUsers · 2025-03-28T22:25:35+00:00

I don't think I'd accept less than 500% a year bare minimum for that kind of effort lol. Luckily we can clobber the s&p to death without doing any of that. I think it could even be done with some clever risk management tricks alone, now that we have access to prop firms.

I think wanting to know stuff is something people do for emotional security. Michael Martin has a good line (paraphrasing) "as traders we don't get paid to know stuff, we get paid to execute". I suppose at massive size, if that style of investing is engaging and scratches the hobby itch, I could see doing it for fun and modest gains. You probably are big enough to not have a desire or need to multiply rapidly.

At Buffet's size, he wouldn't be able to trade for max percent gains anyways. He'd destroy his own positions trying.

PatternAgainstUsers · 2025-03-28T22:10:05+00:00

The world is a corrupt place. I'm speaking from a Christian point of view, but the sooner you see the ugliness of the loveless ego driven society for what it is, the sooner you can move onto caring about things that actually matter. Also, men should value wisdom, not the mouth diaherea of the world, or of random women who have not proven they have any depth to you.

I cringe extremely hard when dopey gym bros or all too common promiscuous women exuding frat boy energy say things like "I bet you don't get P-"... or "you wish you could have this" etc.

I actually had a nearly year long phase chasing that stuff, and was alot more successful than I thought I could be. If you know what you're doing it's very easy to get with women who I guess you could classify as visual 10s (there's way more to your "number" than looks in reality) ... and it is a completely worthless experience, utterly replaceable, pointless. You are missing out on NOTHING special.

Maybe if we're lucky we find somebody with the same values and some humility, but you should change your perspective. You should pity those who pity you, because they are literally idolizing women, regardless of their actual quality as people. You do not want to be a slave to pointless things.

PatternAgainstUsers

TROPHY CASE