Classical Retail Trading Vs Smart Money Concepts Battle for Superiority (Finale)
Which Concept Works
I have a confession!
The purpose of my starting this discussion ever wasn’t to pick sides but to highlight the unreasonableness of the differences this school of thought has.
In the genesis of my discussion, you will notice that I gave numerous examples of veterans both in the classical retail school of thought and also smart money school of thought. And there is no doubt that if their concepts do not work, they won’t have such a large following.
So rather than try to pick sides for ego, why not just pick a concept dissect it, and see whether it works for you?
Can the Two Work for You?
Whether the two concepts can work for you is entirely dependent on your personality type
After all, whether smart money or classical retail trading, they are all just concepts made by men who took their time to identify repeating patterns in the market. Therefore, it is left to you to do the same thing these men have done which is to dig your hands in the dirt and start collecting data based on what you see. Then only will you discover what works for you, maybe you could even find something entirely new in the marketplace and that will be your concept, made out of the data you have collected.
Exciting, isn’t it? I know a lot of men who have created something new just by looking at the chart, studying, and grinding. I even know some men who through diligent studying have been able to blend retail concepts and smart money and it has worked for them just fine.
So, the question of the two concepts working is entirely dependent on your perspective which will shape your reality, thus the answer.
What Must Traders Do to Be on The Right Side of the Battle
The Shiny Object Syndrome
Traders, to be on the right side of the battle you need the following things
- Experience
- Pick a struggle
Experience
In other to even realize the sides of this war, you need to have gone through a great deal of chart time and market research for yourself to see what works for you and what doesn’t.
If you notice I say, “what works for you”, stressing the “you” because there is no battle with anyone aside from Yourself here and traders who still try to make a point for why a style of trading is better than the other haven’t won the battle with themselves yet.
The only way you can be on the right side of the battle is through experience and realizing that trading really is a game of the mind and certain concepts work for certain individuals differently, based on the time they have on their hands, their personality type, and their reality. It will never be the same for two individuals, and experience will make you know this.
Pick a struggle
Once you have gained ample experience in the world of trading, picking a struggle will come naturally to you, as you would have properly run through un-countable numbers of material and video courses only to find out that there is no holy grail rather than sticking to something that works and running with that.
Pick a struggle sounds kind of counter intuitive but I do not mean struggle as in you will still struggle after gaining experience. I mean struggle in the sense that you will pick your focus and stay true to it come rain come shine, even in times when your system is not doing so well, you have no choice but to stick with it. Trading is a marriage, “For better for worse”. so, you know you are not to jump ship in search of the next shiny object when things are not working well with your present system.
My Two Cents
I have talked about a lot of things in the course of this discussion but even if you don’t take anything out of this, I want you to understand these few important points.
- There is no system out there that does not have bad days or Equity drawdowns.
- There is no 100% strike rate (Holy Grail) so why then do we search tirelessly?
- Experience is the only holy grail in trading (Do your 10k hours).
- All systems have their edge and suit different personalities.
- You’re unique and you can bring up something never seen before on the chart and one day you can have your community that trades like you do.
I hope you enjoyed this lovely article and appreciate the time and effort I put into the research to give you understanding.
Thank You!
