How vital is the timeframe that you pick for your charts?

[james_gsx]

John Carter swing trades, and he has a pretty fat portfolio. But by swing trading he's able to look at several markets including forex, so when the main indexes are out of whack he can just go trade the USD and Euro - or wheat, whatever. I'm not promoting his website, this is just what I've gathered from watching him. The real question comes in what size of an account do you need to do longer swing trades? Certainly a smaller $20,000 account and one bad day you're out. But the reward side of that can be huge. For example one contract of CL and you hold it for a few dollars and you've pretty much made your month. And a $2 in CL is not hard to accomplish with the latest bull trend.

What about instead of the actual futures contracts themselves, what if you could swing trade the options?

[Nick1984]

I've noticed that on his site he's been talking more and more about hedging his grains and metals with options on futures because leaving an open position of a commodity futures overnight is highly risky. Just as easily as you can make your month with a great move in the AGS a nasty gap open against you one day can equally make a bad month!

Personally I'd say that to effectively swing trade you wouldn't want to have less than $50k in an account and at that level you'd still swing trade only 1 contract or maybe 2.

[brownsfan019]

	Quote:	james_gsx
	What about instead of the actual futures contracts themselves, what if you could swing trade the options?

James,
In terms of swing trading, there are many possibilities - the ETF's, options and futures. I've traded stocks/etf's and options before and while that is an option, the best bang for your buck is on the futures no doubt. Of course, like you said, that's a catch 22 as well.

[cooter]

	Quote:	brownsfan019
	It's quite a realization however to sit here and think - I could be making more, by trading less. And by less, I literally mean doing some work from about 4:30pm - 6:30pm (if that long), plan the trades out, place the orders and let it be. It's almost like trying to kick an addiction really. I've never really been addicted to something to the point of not being able to walk away, but this could be my crutch. To go from taking over 100 trades PER DAY at one point, to a few trades per week would be a massive adjustment. And one that would require some serious work on my end. I honestly do not know what I would even do with my time during the day! I'd have to get a job or something just to have something to do! Maybe I can go to work for the Browns or something... do something that I would love doing.

I'm sure your current brokers would just love you for doing that. That means you'd have to consider trading new markets just to keep up your daily R/T volumes for your discount.

Then again, since you're a former stockbroker, why not just get your Series 3 (if you haven't already) and go work in, say, Columbus for OEC? That'll keep you busy during the day for sure....

[brownsfan019]

	Quote:	cooter
	I'm sure your current brokers would just love you for doing that. That means you'd have to consider trading new markets just to keep up your daily R/T volumes for your discount. Then again, since you're a former stockbroker, why not just get your Series 3 (if you haven't already) and go work in, say, Columbus for OEC? That'll keep you busy during the day for sure....

I'm not worried about the commission discounts. If they need adjusted, they need adjusted. Of course, I'll prolong that as long as possible.

Not moving to Columbus though, that's for sure. Not about to leave everything in Cleveland just to work somewhere that is to help kill the time.

[enlightedtrader]

We make choices in life. There is no exception in trading. Every trader will have to make an important choice(decision):

Will I be a specialist or generalist as a trader?

Everyone has his/her own choice. I've been flipping between specialist and generalist for quite a while. Now it is clear to me to be a specialist is the right way. To be a specialist means we must be real experts trading a particular method in a particular market. Only when we become real specialists, then should we consider expand our trading to become generalists.

The key to excel in trading is to have edge. It is difficulty to have edge since trading is a very competitive game. To be focused makes it earlier to have edge and trade with edge.

BTW, take a look at John Carter. Needless to say, John Carter is a veteran trader with a lot of experiences and knowledge. However, if you read his book Mastering the Trader, you will find he is far from a master trader. Frankly speaking, I don't even consider he is a good trader. The reason is simple, the majority of his trading set-up have little edge. I guess this may be attributed to the fact that he is involved in too much trading styles in too many markets. He trades everything in every style. Unfortunately, he is an expert in none of them.

This is my 2 cents.

[james_gsx]

	Quote:	enlightedtrader
	BTW, take a look at John Carter. Needless to say, John Carter is a veteran trader with a lot of experiences and knowledge. However, if you read his book Mastering the Trader, you will find he is far from a master trader. Frankly speaking, I don't even consider he is a good trader. The reason is simple, the majority of his trading set-up have little edge. I guess this may be attributed to the fact that he is involved in too much trading styles in too many markets. He trades everything in every style. Unfortunately, he is an expert in none of them.

It's a beginners book and I don't think you should judge his trading skills off that book (I'm not sure if you are). But his ideas are simple, and thats what sells. Pivot and gap plays are prefect examples, they are simple to understand - how you trade them may not be. He could write out his exact strategy and you may never make a dime off of it. Does that make him a bad trader? Or does that mean you just can't trade his strategy like he can?

[neustaju]

	Quote:	brownsfan019
	enlightened - I will not argue the point that the ES is the best day-trading vehicle, as I agree! BUT, if one can take advantage of many markets vs. being forced into one, I am giving a hard look at what is best in the long run. What I mean is, when the ES is in a junk day (however you define it) the ZN could be providing excellent opportunities. But if you are only looking at the ES, you'll never even notice the ZN trades. Anyways, I think it's a valid point that all traders at some point need to consider. Is it better to look for opportunities over many markets, which will probably require a higher timeframe, or focus on a small number, as little as one knowing that some days that one will just not be providing much?

Opportunities over Many markets I agree. Join with me to as we create an algorthim designed to factor in SUB-INDEX Leading buy/sell signals NEW THREAD Titled "Do Sub-Indexes hold the key to the door all traders are looking to open?"

[BlowFish]

	Quote:	james_gsx
	It's a beginners book and I don't think you should judge his trading skills off that book (I'm not sure if you are). But his ideas are simple, and thats what sells. Pivot and gap plays are prefect examples, they are simple to understand - how you trade them may not be. He could write out his exact strategy and you may never make a dime off of it. Does that make him a bad trader? Or does that mean you just can't trade his strategy like he can?

Just means that he has not actually presented how you trade the strategy adequately. I kind of enjoyed the book from the 'inside the head of a trader' point of view but not a great beginners book. Funnily enough I originally bought it to see what he had to say about pivots but came to the conclusion that all the 'setup' stuff was filler, there's much better on these forums for example. At the end of the day setups are probably the least important part of the trading equation however many educators do great damage to learning traders by emphasising them. (Not saying JC did this particularly).

Cheers

[james_gsx]

I agree Blowfish. JC did a great job introducing me to futures and while I like a lot of his systems I don't use them. I used them when I first started out but with more screen time I was able to come up with my own. I do like the way he presents market internals and how he uses them. I think a lot of people buy his book explaining it to be complex, but like you said it has to do with the mind of the trader. I believe that's his edge in trading, he can have a simple setup but with the right attitude he'll make more money than someone with a complex system running high with emotion.