You need a rules

No problem, Leon. Glad to know that I have helped at least give you some ideas.

As for your question, you are asking if you sat me down in front of some naked charts and said "trade away Chris" if I would be able to be consistently profitable. Haha - while I would love to think so it is highly doubtful. And not because I wouldn't have winning trades; I'm sure that I would have many, and probably even some decent streaks. However, I would likely fail in the longer-term for several reasons:

1. I would be lacking the precision that I find necessary in my trading to properly exploit an edge. Looking at a naked chart would force my process to become discretionary, which would distort the integrity of my exits and position risk adjustment, etc.

2. I would almost certainly lose faith in my 'strategy' when I went into drawdown, since I would have no statistical drawdown expectations to help ground my battered confidence.

3. I would undoubtedly get caught up in the emotion of trading again, which is never something that has made me successful. Overconfidence or fear would inevitably erode my capital.

I do want to make it clear, though, that my only input is price. I don't use volume or any sort of fundamental analysis. I don't want to give you the idea that my screen is cluttered with a million lines and indicators; at the same time, I follow carefully constructed rules that cover every potential occurrence. I never even contemplate whether or not to enter a position: it is a given based on my rules, as is every single action that I could possibly take with that position as a reaction to the market.

To put it simply, there is no thinking involved in any of my trading decisions; in fact, I wouldn't even really call them decisions, since they were decided along time ago. Now they are simply givens. All of the thinking (discretion) went into creating the strategy, following it is simply about discipline. Discipline only ever wavers during drawdowns, and even then it is kept in check by more rules. Rules, rules, rules - they are what keep me confident enough to follow a strategy consistently; sane enough to live everyday without a frenetic fixation on the market; and humble enough to know that the outcome of any single trade - or series of trades - is completely out of my control. After all, I'm just following orders. Just make sure that those orders are grounded on a tenable foundation - that you actually have a solid edge at the core of the entire process.

Good luck,

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