This is a question I find is increasingly important to me in my continuous process of learning this subject. In fact there are two, what is real and what is common?
Its like this. You read everything, look at a million systems, read books, try things. Its a total mess. However you start to pick out singular bits and pieces that you can definitely say are real.
For instance, I eventually came to the conclusion that support and resistance was real. Sound ridiculous I know, you’d say “of course its real!” – yes its true, but it depends on how you are determining what is support and resistance, because there are a million ways.
However after much experimentation and thought, I finally arrived at my way of determining these levels and I know its real. It works. It is one tool that I am totally sure of and I do not have to really spend time on that subject anymore. Its in the bag. I will probably use this method for the rest of my life.
There are others also, but this is how (I think) you begin to construct your trading method and style. Also, you may read about a hundred other peoples systems and then recognise that they have one core common theme. It may be (for instance) pull backs to an EMA. Despite the infinite variations, all of these systems you can group together and call them EMA pullback systems. You can then determine that there is something in it, but what? It then becomes a process of experimentation with the idea until you arrive at the method that works for you in this regard.
So out of the mess, you pick out core ideas to test and examine. Due to my increasing interest in news trading I have been reading as much as I can from other traders about this on the forums, books and ebooks etc. Even though they bitch and argue and debate, you can see one or two core similarities that are probably the key to what ever successful results they have, and its these that you want to zero in on.