Steve Palmquist.Author of ‘The Timely Trades Letter’. ‘How to Take Money from the Markets’, and Money-Making Candlestick Patterns.
The market has three basic modes. It can be going up, down, or sideways. Over time the markets movement is made up of combinations of these three different behaviors. None of these behaviors lasts for long, the market is always switching between them. This is one of the keys to trading. Traders need to recognize that the market moves between these three modes and have the ability to recognize then the change has arrived and be able to switch to trading tools suitable for the new environment. This is a process I call Market Adaptive Trading. The market will not adapt to us. It does not care what we want or think. Therefor we must adapt to it.
If I know how a trading system, or trading tool as I refer to them, performs in each of the three different market conditions; then I can watch the market to determine what type of condition we are currently experiencing and then use the tools that have shown good results in that type of market condition. This is the process of Market Adaptive Trading. It takes some practice to quickly recognize the current market conditions, but this is a lot easier that trying to predict where the market is going.
No one has consistently predicted where the market is going over the long run. Remember all those empty suits on the TV news shows telling us everything was fine just before the 2008 crash. They did the same thing before the 2000 crash. Not even (or perhaps especially) the experts can successfully predict market direction consistently. However you can learn to look at a chart and tell if the market is going up, down, or sideways. And that is actionable information, as opposed to someone’s guess of where the market is going to be in three months or a year.
The successful trader has a tool box with a variety of trading tools for use in different market conditions. The trader, like the carpenter, must go beyond just acquiring the tools. Traders must understand which tool to use for a specific task, and have a clear understanding of how the tool works, and what can and cannot be done with it. I have extensively tested several trading systems, the results of this testing on specific trading trading tools are outlined in ‘How to Take Money from the Markets’, and Money-Making Candlestick Patterns. The testing process helps us understand how stocks usually behave after forming a specific pattern such as being outside the Bollinger Bands, showing strong distribution or accumulation, or pulling back or retracing during a trend. Understanding what a stock is most likely to do forms the beginning of a trading strategy. Trading without this information is taking unknown risks.
The market has three basic modes. It can be going up, down, or sideways. Over time the markets movement is made up of combinations of these three different behaviors. None of these behaviors lasts for long, the market is always switching between them. This is one of the keys to trading. Traders need to recognize that the market moves between these three modes and have the ability to recognize then the change has arrived and be able to switch to trading tools suitable for the new environment. This is a process I call Market Adaptive Trading. The market will not adapt to us. It does not care what we want or think. Therefor we must adapt to it.
If I know how a trading system, or trading tool as I refer to them, performs in each of the three different market conditions; then I can watch the market to determine what type of condition we are currently experiencing and then use the tools that have shown good results in that type of market condition. This is the process of Market Adaptive Trading. It takes some practice to quickly recognize the current market conditions, but this is a lot easier that trying to predict where the market is going.
No one has consistently predicted where the market is going over the long run. Remember all those empty suits on the TV news shows telling us everything was fine just before the 2008 crash. They did the same thing before the 2000 crash. Not even (or perhaps especially) the experts can successfully predict market direction consistently. However you can learn to look at a chart and tell if the market is going up, down, or sideways. And that is actionable information, as opposed to someone’s guess of where the market is going to be in three months or a year.
The successful trader has a tool box with a variety of trading tools for use in different market conditions. The trader, like the carpenter, must go beyond just acquiring the tools. Traders must understand which tool to use for a specific task, and have a clear understanding of how the tool works, and what can and cannot be done with it. I have extensively tested several trading systems, the results of this testing on specific trading trading tools are outlined in ‘How to Take Money from the Markets’, and Money-Making Candlestick Patterns. The testing process helps us understand how stocks usually behave after forming a specific pattern such as being outside the Bollinger Bands, showing strong distribution or accumulation, or pulling back or retracing during a trend. Understanding what a stock is most likely to do forms the beginning of a trading strategy. Trading without this information is taking unknown risks.
