This post was inspired by another blog entry. Specifically, the line that caught my attention the most in that post was:

"It is not possible to reduce trading decisions to a simple set of rules or patterns to be applied blindly."

I couldn’t agree more with that statement. It's such an important concept and yet it eludes most traders. Of course, we need rules for risk management, such rules are necessary to stay in the game long enough. We may also need rules for self-management. But rules applied to market behavior, I would say even applying rules to set-ups mechanistically, defeats an important objective for a discretionary trader - to get as close to the market as possible so one can read it. Being a discretionary trader means you have to make decisions, use your judgment.

Although I don’t use oscillators and such in my own trading, and I’m sure this post will be interpreted as bashing indicators, that’s not my objective. My objective is to force you to consider why you rely on them.