Lots of time, the market just moves around in a small range with no real conviction in either direction. Monday's often start out like that (for many reasons) but the job of the trader is to figure out which mood and which market is leading the overall markets.

The job is NOT to always be in a trade. DO NOT believe anyone who says you can't make money if you are not in the market - in fact you can ... by waiting, saving your cash capital and preparing your psychological capital to take a big position when the market (all the people who are trading) starts to behave in a way you recognize.

You realize that right? Every pattern you trade is simply trading a pattern of crowd behavior that you have seen before. It IS NOT trading numbers, probabilities or some esoteric wave things. It is and always will be trading off of and against other's people's perceptions and decisions.

This makes the price action a language - a method of communicating meaning. Numbers are not necessarily quantities in the market! Oh yes, at the end of the day, we keep score with a number but during the day, they are momentum or lack thereof, they are indecision or conviction on a greater number of market participants parts... their behavior is just like words... your behavior needs to be interpreting the new language as if you were just learning it - not looking for some natural mathematical or physical law that has yet to be discovered.

Understanding the difference is what makes great traders... nothing more, nothing less.

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