Discretionary Trading: Why do some traders think that means trading “freestyle”?!

Subjectivity is the bane and blessing of discretionary traders and unless you are using a system to trade you are, to some varying degree, a discretionary trader.

But let me add, at some point even the most dedicated systems trader had to have and explore discretionary ideas that eventally became systematized.

freestyle-mx

These ideas had guidelines and rules and it’s these rules and discipline that discretionary traders can learn from as they build their methodology. And yes, a discretionary trader should have a methodology; it’s the difference between having a system and being systematized. I prefer the former, which is to say that I have a system or methodology but I do not mechanize it or systematize it, rather I will execute it at my discretion when I want to* and on which pairs I want to**.

I do not want to deviate from that system – that is not what discretionary trading means.

 

* Using historical price movement ranges to identify the ideal trading environment and also understand the potential volatility.

** Using a watchlist comprised of predominantly symbols that have trending daily time frames or what I call “Directional Bias”