DislikedThis is herd mentality to the core, which is ingrained in our primitive brain just like the fear of losing is. This side of human psychology is well-studied and proven. And the people who are consistent in their trading have found a way, consciously or unconsciously, to deviate from this quite natural behavior. I have done my hours on the charts. Patterns, waves, indicators, experts, etc. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Now I am only trading a very simple system. You could learn it to a dog. 2 very simple rules without any feeling or thinking,...Ignored
Regarding simple mechanical strategies. I am personally yet to be won over by any I came across. Seen a few in action, and although the trader assures me of it's track record over the duration, from my point of view, I am watching a totally hair brained trade in play which I could never bring myself to take. There will be periods where the market will reward simple mechanical strategies, but even longer periods where it won't. I literally stormed the first phase of my FTMO evaluation trading high S&D zone retraces into Dow Trend Theory Breaks. Was looking back at old charts the other day, and these setups just kept firing. No thought necessary, just trade the signals......but then, they stopped working, and I have found them wholly unreliable ever since. Fortunately, I am not a mechanically minded trader.
I would go as far as saying 'all Setups are bunk', at least in the long run. It's the trader's ability to recognise (or not) when the market might be conducive to a certain configuration playing out, or not. Most of the time this will simply be down to the trader's ability to pick the right zone to enter a trade and I would say that any trader who thinks he can beat the markets over the long run, with a simple 1+2=3 strategy, that could be taught in 5 minutes, if only they could get their mindset sorted out, cos it's 90% psychology, innit! is likely due for some hard lessons.