Lessons

The most important thing about exchanges (platforms and providers)

• liquidity (daily volumes). non-liquid markets will have huge slippage
• commission (it has to be the lowest). this is how much you just give away
• stop-loses must actually work (lots of platforms cheat, like FTX did)
• the ability to sell short (absolutely crucial). this makes the market liquid
• the ability to trade with high leverage (use other people’s money)

Leverage is absolutely necessary because one cannot risk one’s own money, and they will liquidate you in order to prevent any loss of borrowed liquidity anyway.

Stop-loses help minimize (but never eliminate) the risk of sudden liquidation.

Risk-management is about continuously minimizing potential loses using simple techniques, like trailing stop-loses. All the advanced formulas in PhD level textbooks is an utter make-believe bullshit.

At least some automation is required. One cannot trade by hand, being subject to emotional swings, anxiety, fear and panic attacks.

Begin with a written plan - an informal “program” (which timeline, precise entry and exit rules) and then try to automate it with some scripting (lots of Python libraries out there).

Emotional trading by hand is the surest and quickest way to lose it all. No, you won’t be that Muhammad Ali or Mike Tyson. You will whine and cry and lose all your account in no time.

Actually, the retail platforms has been designed and optimized in such a way that you make lots of stupid mistakes, small and big, each one of which puts fees, commission and slippage money from your account to theirs. Confusing settings, “slow” menus, “Please try again”, and what not.

It is not like you are that Rocky Balboa who could sustain lots of hard blows. This is an utterly wrong analogy. Just like with Rocky, receiving too may “blows” signals that you are an incompetent, unskilled bum.

This is also not about “proving” it or “to show them”. This will result in loses one cannot afford. Just like in a traffic on a bike, you just do the right thing, without trying any crazy shit.

Do not even think about “improvising” (you are not Coltrane) and acting on a “insight” (on a whim). One has to be a Man with a Plan.

Plan is not enough. Execution is where the actual difference emerges.

It is, by definition, irrational to trade 1-min chart. All the patterns there are valid and “real”, but they are insignificant. It is considered to be a pseudo-random noice.

The only reason to trade 1-min chart is a training practice, but one has to accept inevitable but hopefullly affordable and risk-managed loses.

Even looking at entry points on 1-min is a flawed tactic - you will be stopped out (or even liquidated) most of the time. When to entry is a subtle art (it is always determined by the current market forces).

Each market at a current phase has only one adequate strategy, which, at least in theory, matches what is actually going on here and now. Some markets are just manipulated/pump and dump/ vehicle for market makers (Chainlink), some are driven by current meme-narratives (interest rates, “pivot” and other bullshit). Some are just blatant, obvious scams, which have to be shorted at the top and fogtot.