What type of method/strategy do you employ for personal trading?

Hey, this post is written towards those who trade successfully (not luckily) on a personal account. I've been trading equities for about 6 months and have been relatively successful despite what I'm suggesting, but can't help feel that trading on fundamentals just feels like stockpicking and drawing the lottery. Would you mind discussing the type of strategy that you employ (not specifically, but a general direction). From what I've heard, most professional traders don't employ Technical Analysis anymore (even though 95% of books on trading still talk about this), but trading on fundamentals seems to be luck of the draw trading equity and even less useful for something like futures. Other methods include building quant models and trading arbitrage, however, as a retail investor, there's no way you have the resources to do backtesting, simulations, etc. So what do you recommend or if you can give me an idea.

7 Comments
 

Why do you think Fundamental Analysis is luck of the draw?

Or to state this in another way -- what makes you think that fundamental analysis is any more of a lottery than technical analysis or any other model?

-------- Right now this is a job. If I advance any higher in this company, then this would be my career. And um... Well, if this were my career, I'd have to throw myself in front of a train.
 
initial_dbecause you as a retail investor seldom have access to all the information

Are you assuming non-retail investors ever have access to all the information? Why are you assuming that having access to all the information is even necessary? or feasible?

-------- Right now this is a job. If I advance any higher in this company, then this would be my career. And um... Well, if this were my career, I'd have to throw myself in front of a train.
 

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