Yep, throwing darts can work as well as any entry system, the secret being in one's risk controls; sell the losers and hold the winners.

I enjoy this board as I have uncovered some real pros here. I thank those here that are open to helping others by posting their signals and systems for consideration.

For those just starting, I can assure you that my selection and entry disciplines are no better or worse than most, including the large well-staffed investment managers. However, even though my past experiences are a help to me, I still wrestle daily with my daemons-emotions.

Short story for fun if you have time and coffee at hand: After hedging/trading in futures/options for 16-yrs. as a broker based risk manager for corporations, I entered the US Trading Championship with a small account (not notional) and thought that I was hot-stuff when producing 70% net at a 2:1 reward risk ratio (35% max draw) to receive honorable mention. The contest did not rank risk-adjusted returns so many just tried to shoot the lights out, won and later blew up, I'm sure.

Later in 1992 or so, I was fortunate to be accepted by Van Tharp (Market Wizards) to join other traders in a 2-week institutionalized environment to learn what hurdles to trading success each of us had. I was the 13th person in a group target of 12, but I was so intense and so screwed up that Van apparently felt sorry for me.

Each candidate had to have a successful trading system, proven by real cash results- no hypothetical back-tests allowed-, which we had to disclose to the others for critique; most embarrassing.

We underwent training one day by Tom Basso (Mr. Serenity-New Market Wizards, I believe). Tom brought out a great point. Using post random numbers to designate wining from losing trades and the percentage won or loss, we were given situations and told to execute a position, its size, and percentage of assets and stop loss if one was used.

The results were interesting:
1) the 13 member group had a tight grouping on its reward-risk plots (return to max decline) as well as its trade distribution frequency and percentage won or lost)
2) Our groupings differed from those participating in such tests at typical investor seminars.

Our mantra became: “It really doesn’t matter” because it is not your system, nor entry point, nor exit point, it’s your risk controls (both trade size as percentage of assets, and your position as well as portfolio stops) that matter. 13 vastly different trading systems and yet we were tightly grouped. Not one of us could effectively trade the other’s system, because we could not internalize it! Hell, I cannot even discipline myself to trade my own system, let alone another’s.

Bottom line: I struggle often with my demons: what made me win or lose in life’s situations in the past reinforces my trading beliefs. That is not always a good thing as I tend to be extremely aggressive, especially when vindicated by market action. Thus, I always want to add positions after seeing market confirmation, but I always seem to do it too strongly.

That said, I am interested in learning, always learning, and new ideas & signals are greatly appreciated, especially since I cannot devote a lot of time to discovery.

I really enjoy some on this board, so thanks for your input; I’ll see if it can help me and I will try to reciprocate. However, I will always try to internalize the signal to ensure that it matches my psychology and personality.