What is important to you? Where do you need your help?
Yesterday, I started to review the data from 2016 ForexLive survey. You can find that post here if you missed it.
Today, I will proceed with other questions.
QUESTION: Which trading discipline do you rely on more in your trading?
The choices were Technical Analysis, Fundamental Analysis, or Split between the two.
On a one vs. the other, there are more pure traders who rely on technicals vs fundamentals. Only 8.66% said they are pure fundamental traders, while 38.54% were pure technical traders. The largest bucket, however, belongs to traders who are hybrids. They use gas sometimes (i.e. fundamentals) and battery/electric (i.e. technicals) other times.
For me personally, if there is trade, there is a technical reason, but a fundamental bias can influence which technical side is the focus.
Feel free to share your thoughts of course.
In the next question, the trading idea got more specific.
QUESTION: Are you a systematic trader (i.e., use expert advisors, 3rd party black box, computer driven/rules based) or a discretionary/method trader (i.e., you press buy/sell or manually enter orders)?
The large percentage of respondents (92.21%) said that they push the button. There are only 7.79% who let the computer/black box do the trading for them. With all the talk of "algo tradng" - a hip way of saying it is a black box/systematic way of trading, perhaps I thought the number might be a little higher. I am not an advocate of black box trading, but I do advocate a method to the madness that should be disciplined. My feeling is that those that have a pure systematic way of trading, tinker with the system/don't trust the system and therefore defeat the purpose of "taking emotion out of trading" and/or "let the machine do it all 24 hours a day/5 days a week".
Those that systematically trade, feel free to comment.
