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I wasn't sure where to put this, so the powers that be can move it if they see fit. I put it here for anyone who is just starting out and wondering what it really takes to become part of that elite club of profitable traders. I lurk on several trading forums. I join a few and make a few posts. One thing that I rarely see is the painful path one took to becoming successful. So for all you beginners here is what becoming successful took. For my fellow brethren that are already in the club have a good laugh. The markets had always lured me as a kid. I would read the paper and make predictions. Sometimes they were right; sometimes not. Then one day I got that famous commodity-trading flyer, sent my money off and took the plunge. My first stab at trading was commodities and I started with $5k in 1991. I was using the strategy as outlined by the guru. The account was gone within a few months. Well that didn’t work. I thought, people do this everyday and make money why not me. So off to the library. I read every book the Memphis library had on trading and investing. I paper traded the strategies I found while I built my bankroll back up. I learned exits, set-ups, position, expectancy, market psychology, and portfolio management. I soon realized that I was reading the same thing over and over no matter which book I checked out. Time to build my strategy. I am ready to do this. I bought a new computer, Metastock Pro 6.0, and opened an account with $30k. Its 1995, and this is my shot. By 1997 I was toast again. The family life went to hell in a hand basket, and I thought I could trade through the difficult times. The result was an account with a balance of $2500. Back to the drawing board. Took care of the personal stuff. Lived like a monk raising capital. Worked nights and watched the market during the day. Took a second job on the weekends to raise more money. Then one day out of the blue, the little red and green candles started to make sense. I saw patterns develop over and over in the same spots. I placed a trade and made a profit. But I had done this before. I removed the MACD from my charts. Placed another trade and made a profit. Maybe I am on to something. Removed the channel indicator that I stumbled across. I could still see the action and new what the MACD was doing and where the action was in the channel without them even being on the chart. I even stopped drawing trend lines. It was just me and the screen. I planned every trade. I knew exactly when, where, and why I entered and exited. I was patient. I became a predator. Lurking and waiting. I took every shot the market gave me. If it started to go wrong, I got out quick and waited. If the market did not give me an opening, oh well. There is always tomorrow. By the fall of 1999, I was consistently profitable and have been ever since. For those that are waiting for the sales pitch, there isn’t one. For those that are waiting for me to expose some great secret, well there isn’t one of those either. What I will give you are a few simple pointers that I learned the hard way. And the sad part is, most will stilll learn these the hardway. 1)Take everything you read with a grain of salt. That includes this post. 2)Never pay for a system. It is just not that easy. 3)If something comes up in your life that is distracting, stop trading. 4)Plan every aspect of your trade down to the smallest detail, and plan for every possible outcome. 5)Develop your own strategy. Don’t let someone tell you that you can’t trade a simple moving average if you truly believe you can. 6)Test the strategy in the market that you will be trading. If you like the results, trade it in another totally unrelated market and see if it still holds up. 7)Paper trading is ok, but there is nothing that truly tests the strategy like hard earned cash. 8)You will have to make sacrifices in order to make it. I still do. In the middle of my learning period I was working 18 hours a day during the week and 12 on the weekend. 9)You are responsible for everything when it comes to trading. That includes stop running, bad fills, limit moves, your PC crashing. I mean everything. See #4 10)And last but probably most important, don’t be afraid of failure. Just do like Edison and go, “Well that didn’t work”. Good trading to you all.

Donald, here is the pdf version of the book, if you are interested. While a bit "salesman-like" in its approach (all of what he claims cannot possibly be true or it would be the Holy Grail), it was packed full with pictures, commentary and helpful information. Enjoy. Profitable_Candlestick_Trading-HERE.pdf

I'm not one to make a habit of bumping old threads, but based on earlier discussion, this is clearly the best place to post a link to the original Wyckoff course: The Richard D Wyckoff Method of Trading and Investing in Stocks: A Course of Instruction in Stock Market Science and Technique. Wyckoff - Course.pdf

Here is something that should get pretty lively.. Since everyone keeps telling you that screen time is important, there has to be something to it. But nobody is telling you what you should be looking for. What is it going to teach you? There has to be something that those who do this for a living see that you don’t. Well there is. And just like the magician that exposed the secrets to magic tricks on national TV, I am going to tell you what we see. But before I do remember one thing. Take everything you read in a forum or book, or hear from a guru or in a seminar with a grain of salt. Question everything. Only when you prove it to yourself, does it become the rule. What I am about to share can be found on thousands of sites and in countless books. If you have done any research at all, you have come across Dr. Elder’s triple screen, or some permutation of it. You understand the principles behind using multiple frames of reference. What has most likely not been explained to you is why it works or how to apply it correctly. In most cases you are only given a single example. Single example you say? Yes, when most first stumble across using multiple time frames, they follow the rules of: Use the upper time frame to identify the trend, the middle time frame for the set-up, and the lowest time frame to enter. If by chance you are not familiar with the triple screen just goggle “triple screen +elder”. Trading instruments exhibt three different types of market action in any given frame of reference. You use multiple frames of reference (i.e. Time or ticks) to identify the current market environment. These markets are: Trending, Trading, and Volatile. Why screen time is so important is that all instruments do not exhibit the characteristics of Trending in the upper time frame, Trading in the middle, and Volatile in the lower at all times. They can be in any one of the following combinations at any given time: Trending/Trading/Volatile Trending/Volatile/Trading Trading/Volatile/Trending Trading/Trending/Volatile Volatile/Trending/Trading Volatile/Trading/Trending Or any one of 84 possible market combinations if you consider Volatile/Volatile/Volatile. Like the major pairs in Forex, the combinations I listed are what I consider the major market combinations. The elusive secret that you are looking for, and what screen time teaches you, is to identify which market combination you are in and then how to trade what you see. Or better yet, when to stay on the sidelines. Each combination requires a different strategy, and some may not be tradeable at all. If you are trading across a broad range of instruments, you only need to master one. The fewer instruments you trade, the more market combinations you may have to learn. But you have to learn them one at a time and only add the next one once the first is mastered. But you ask what about Trending/Trending/Trading? Or how about Volatile/Volatile/Volatile? Or if I use Weekly/Daily/Hourly I get Trending/Trading/Volatile but if I use Daily/Hourly/Min I get Trading/Volatile/Trending. One step at a time grasshopper. One step at a time. As I mentioned there are 84 possible combinations. Multiply this across thousands of instruments and countless frames of reference, and I hope you get the picture. You do not have to learn them all. You only have to learn the few that fit you, your chosen instrument and frames of reference. Find the market combinations that are most prevalent and learn to trade only those. This is why it takes screen time to learn to do this, and why each trader is different. It is also why three traders in the same instrument will be doing something different. Trader A will scalp, trader B will be a buyer, and trader C will be seller, and they all make money. They are using different frames of reference and therefore see a different market

To become a full time traders, it will take years. Full time trader is smiliar to becoming a lawyer, Doctors, etc. The problem is many people believe day trading es is "get rich quick." If it takes 5 yrs to become a doctor, it will take 5 yrs to become a full time trader. I have no clue why people believe they can become a full time trader less than 1 yr. If that is true, why does it take a long time to become a doctor, lawyer, etc. According to the Gov report, 97% of the people lose trading in the futures market. One of the reason they lose is, they failed to understand trading futures involves substantial risk and only risk capital should be used. All brokerages and few trading school websites have those risk disclaimer. But for some reason, most people FAILED or ignore the risk disclaimer. For those who are a successful full time traders took them yrs to get there. Plus, they fully understood that trading es is NOT A GET RICH QUICK and trading futures involves SUBSTANTIAL RISK!!!!!! hope this help

Put simply, support is the price at which those who have enough money to make a difference are willing to show their support by retarding, halting, and reversing the decline by buying. Resistance is the price at which those who have enough money to make a difference attempt to retard, halt, and reverse a rise by selling. Whether one calls this money professional or big or smart or institutional or crooked or manipulative or (fill in the blank) is irrelevant. If repeated attempts to sell below this support level are met by buying which is sufficient to turn price back, these little reversals will eventually form a line, or zone. Ditto with resistance. A swing high or low represents a point at which traders are no longer able to find trades. Whether that point represents important support or resistance will be seen the next time traders push price in that direction. But everyone knows this point, even if they aren't following a chart. It exists independently of the trader and his lines and charts and indicators and displays. It is the point beyond which price could not go. Hence its importance, both to those who want to see price move higher and those who don't. The first two posts to this thread address these matters, as do others here and there. However, finding S&R in real charts in real time takes more than just a couple of posts. But one must understand the nature of support -- and resistance -- itself before he begins to look for it. Otherwise, he will find what he thinks are S&R in some very peculiar places. Before coming to any conclusions about what “works” or “doesn’t work”, and thus does or does not provide an edge, one ought to keep in mind that a given event -- such as price seemingly finding support or resistance at a trendline (or moving average, candlestick, Pivot Point, Fib level or whatever) -- may be only incidental to what is truly providing that support or resistance. A fundamental misunderstanding of how "indicators" are calculated and what they're supposed to do can lead to all sorts of off-task behavior. We think we see the indicators indicating something, or not, and believe we have made an important discovery. We then devote our efforts to improving the hit rate and the probability of whatever it is we think the indicator is indicating when our efforts ought to be focused on determining whether or not the indicator is actually indicating what we think it's indicating. In most if not all cases, it isn't. Consider the virgin being tossed into the volcano: sometimes it results in a great crop, sometimes it doesn't. Maybe tossing her in earlier or later will change the probability of a healthy crop. Maybe two virgins are better than one. Maybe six. Maybe tall virgins are more effective than short ones. And surely age is important. But does the robustness of the crop really have anything to do with tossing the virgin into the volcano in the first place? The money under the pillow is not evidence of the existence of the tooth fairy, and spring will arrive regardless of whether the virgin is tossed into the volcano or not. (Db)

Many who trade the breakthrough strategy would better understand is break real or false. If you see in advance false break, you can’t open a position, or play in the opposite direction. The volume can show how the breakthrough may be present. The point is very simple. Extra volumes at the level of the break significantly increase the likelihood of truthful breakthrough. Consider these examples:

Here are some trading courses that I know they have experienced trader as a teacher: - Stock Trading & Investing for Beginners by Udemy - Consistent Profits from Stocks With AI Assistance In Just 10 Minutes a Day! by Snap Academy - Trend Following For Stocks by Decodingmarkets Give me advice which one is the best to join?

Years ago I did a course dictated by Fernando Martínez Gómez Tejedor who helped me professionally, quantitative strategies, the information is of great relevance and although I do not have it complete I promise to get it to share it. For now I will upload a part and then I will provide you with the information of the complete course, it is in Spanish, you can translate it: Mega Dropbox

I really don't know why people cannot understand that trading is not difficult. Yes you heard me right - NOT DIFFICULT. Everyone makes it looks so hard. Yes i agree that if you want to know all the ins and outs of technical indicators, macro and micro indicators, and all the stuff they teach in the MBA courses in Universities, then it will take many years. But to simply trade a system and make a living is very simple and can take a few minutes to several hours to learn. Depends on you as an individual. The catch is people do not have the proper mindset to treat trading as a business or a job. They do not treat it accordingly. They go in with fear that they gather from the public. I thought it was so hard in the beginning, but finally i came to realize that i have to leave all the gossips and negative baggage out the door. And i have been successful since. I do not have an MBA degree, i am only a Nurse. I trade 4 hours in the morning because i am selective of my trades. You can trade for 30 minutes or less - depends on how much you want to make and what your system tells you. My trade last between several seconds to several minutes. And i only take selected trades. I did not develop a system of my own, i acquired one and follow the rules as instructed. And i am comfortable making a real living without having a boss on by back. If you can follow instructions such as, A + B = C, buy or sell, without any emotional attachment, then you are on you way to success. Please do not ask me for strategies or systems as i don't think this site will allow it. And i will not post account or anything else to brag. My success is kept quiet until now because i am tired of watching people talking and writing things that are discouraging to others. And believe me, i have met and seen many small traders making a good living with day trading the e-minis. You have to choose an instrument that you like, find a strategy that works for you and trade it. Do not let people tell you otherwise. Any job will be hard. Think of it. If you do not apply yourself and have fear in front of you always, then no job will be successful. That's all for now.

NO ..............................................................

Actions for the 31st. Volume seemed to be all over the place along with the PA.

Hi, I am Nameeta Patel. I have just started trading and I hope to learn and share about it in this forum.

I invested a lot of time looking for profitable traders before getting into the niche. Something around 2-3 weeks of 12+ hours a day just to find somebody whose words I can believe enough to make any conclusions. I must say that I found profitable and believeable traders in both markets, but stock trading had much more of them. I found just 2 full-time Forex traders whose words I can believe. They don't sell any services or products, they just live from trading of their own accounts. Both of them are tired of trading. As for the stock market, there are a lot of people sharing their results publically. I found enough to make my own conclusions. There are also a lot of people who finally moved from future to stocks. It's just more profitable at the end. While Forex may seem more profitable at the very beginning becauase it's so volatile, the truth is directly opposite. Forex isn't "volatile", stocks are much more volatile by their nature. Forex gives you an illusion of volatility due to insane leverage. Taking into account average daily range of 0.1%-0.5%, you are trading purely noise. Being a software developer, I created an internal statistical analysis system to build price movement distributions. They are so close to white noise distribution you will be surprised. As for stocks, movements have clear signals in them. Yes, there is still a lot of noise when you are day trading, but just look at higher timeframes too see the difference. I would personally prefer stocks, I plan to convert my first product to stock trading simulator in the future. Forex is a good way to learn initial trading experience as long as you trade penny accounts, but I would stay away from it if I decide to get back to trading again.

I guess Arun ran. lol

Hi, welcome to the forum! I can recommend you the Introduction Topic Have fun and hope we can be at your help!

Losing because your analysis was wrong. Losing because your impatience, greed or fear stepped in. Those are the losses you can get rid off, by training self-discipline.

$TEVA (TEVA) stock nice opening breakout, from Stocks To Watch,analysis http://chart.st/TEVA

You can't reinvest everything you make. Eventually, you will need to take money out of your trading accounts and pay bills, take your family on vacation, etc. But how often and how much should you transfer from your trading accounts to your personal accounts? Should you take out a fixed amount each month or a percentage of your earnings? What if your accounts are currently sitting lower than your opening balance? Should you wait until you move above that point before you reward yourself with a salary?

Black=white Peoples Party= There's a few million reasons why I'm not into collectivism You see, this is why Farage is such a giant in politics. What he instigated with Brexit is difficult to measure at this point in time. It may be the beginning of the end of the one way street that is the tyranny of politics. History says the victory will be fleeting. There are certain things that you can count on continuing throughout your life time. THE BASIC RULES OF POLITICS 1- The truth is irrelevant. Therefore liars do well in politics. 2- The goal is to maintain power regardless of the human/monetary cost. Therefore socipaths do well in politics. 3- The working practices of power are to carry out the agenda at the expense of the people. Therefore pedophiles and anyone open to blackmail do well. 4- The only way to remove a political party is to replace it with another one. History has shown that this is an utterly futile process. There literally is no difference between one pedo or sociopath or KLEPTOMANIAC to another. 5- The only way to keep the people in this pointless voting charade is to allow a few human beings into the mix occasionally - just enough to give people hope that things might change. However, this is risky as we have seen with Farage. (I'm tempted to mention Trump but only because of how shocked the system was to see him win, not because he will change anything more than Obama did) 6- There is a way to defeat this endless negative cycle but most people believe somebody else will come along and do the job for them. When humanity realizes that real change begins with the individual, things wiill change. (Hence why collectivism is the go to system for all parties regardless of what they call themselves). However. the longer we leave it the more difficult the task will be -The prison is becoming ever more sophisticated at an alarming rate. 7- The trend can continue for longer than you can stay alive. There are only 2 choices at this point in time. 1- Help to change things, regardless of the personal cost. Thanks for your sevice Nigel. 2- Learn to love your slavery.

... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBmp8OOJ8sE Everything to the right on your chart is free information

JFD Brokers is the one i`m using and it's fulfilling all of the requirements above. EUR/USD - 0.3 pips average spread FCA, BaFin, ACPR Registered and CySec regulated Leverage - up to x400 (default x50) Customized MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader5 platforms with lots of trading products (MT4 -> 500+; MT5 -> 1000+) A lot of free charting and one-click trading tools package. Fast customer support Misc - negative balance protection, post trade execution reports, zero margin for hedged possitions, weekly recaps, market analyses, strategic reports and technical analyses

JohnyIve, Please design and write us "some tips, or links for beginners". Thanks

I have put this thread together because I wanted a place which had all the links for J.Perl's TRADING WITH MARKET STATISTICS threads for easier access. Trading With Market Statistics I. Volume Histogram Trading With Market Statistics.II The Volume Weighted Average Price (VWAP) Trading with Market Statistics III. Basics of VWAP Trading Trading with Market Statistics. IV Standard Deviation Trading with Market Statistics V. Other Entry Points Trading with Market Statistics VI. Scaling In and Risk Tolerance Trading with Market Statistics VII. Breakout Trades at the PVP Trading with Market Statistics VIII. Counter Trend Trades in Symmetric Distributions Trading with Market Statistics IX. Scalping Trading with Market Statistics X. Position Trading Trading with Market Statistics XI. HUP

Every stock market investor wants to make a good profit from stock market but the journey to stock market most often starts with No Rules.

These three videos remain very popular ones from Jeff Quinto on CME site and many have requested me to re-post the expired links in the first thread of this Post Please check below the new links for the Videos The Main Page at CME where the Booklet & Videos are Jeff Quinto's Theory of Futures Trading - CME Group Three Futures Day Trading Tutorial Videos by Jeff Quinto & CMEGroup Essential straight talk by an Veteran Trader & Mentor Developing Your Trading Strategy Theory of futures trading and provide a guide that will help you get started. Developing Your Trading Strategy - CME Group Building Your Trading Plan Insight into the way professional traders set realistic goals and track performance. Building Your Trading Plan - CME Group The Importance of Simulated Trading Simulated trading can be the key to your trading success. The Importance Of Simulated Trading - CME Group Thanks for all the appreciation and keeping this Thread Alive Enjoy Minoo

In preparing to become a trader I would compare the early days to a man attempting to perfect the butterfly stroke but then giving a good rendition of a man flailing about in the water as he's being dragged under by a big shark. Pathetic really. But I think the big clue that I would find myself in this scenario is my experience on the simulator with 10k. ‘This Is pointless..’ I thought, just trade like you intend to trade for real. That lasted about 2 weeks. I had a much better idea. Let's see how fast I can turn this into 1 million. So... after half a dozen attempts I got it up to about 900k before saying, OK, let's stop screwing around, this is pointless.. ..Or was it? One thing it taught me was that if you had sufficient funds (preferably someone else's) and you traded with real balls, full on, all the time, you can in theory make a lot of money really fast (if it was real money) And you can do that with very little real trading knowledge- that's one key point. (Trading experience and knowledge takes a lot longer to accumulate than the ability to make big returns in this (unrealistic for most guys) paradigm). The key point though is that this is the mental aspect that’s at play here. When using real money the tendency might be to want to trade defensively rather than aggressively.-I don’t mean aggressively as in recklessly- but ‘real money’ should not be the main focus should it? The market and the correct strategy should be the focus. Putting this into a real world trading context it could be argued that; Defensive – at the right time is an appropriate strategy for today/this week Defensive- at the wrong time leads to under-performance. For example, pyramiding into a position could be an appropriate strategy, which would better illustrate what I mean by ‘aggressive’ Bottom line on this particular point. The market rewards your correct decisions. So if your decision is to be cautious because you’re a beginner and not because it’s the right thing to do right now, then that will contribute to under-performance. Losing money is not the only issue for any trader, under-performing is an issue that doesn’t seem to get discussed on forums very much. So, in your next trade are you playing defensively for the right reason or are you trading ‘scared money’ due to inexperience/lack of funds? ‘risk control..risk control’ Now, I know that while reading this, your mind is screaming risk control,, risk control. Consider this, risk control doesn’t go out the window at any time, but there’s always a danger that when one is overly focused on one aspect of the trading plan another aspect is being neglected. Under-performance is like an empty hotel room. I can potentially fill the vacancy tomorrow, but the lost opportunity is the issue. You may think that pyramiding is difficult for a day trader.. Pyramiding is not the issue, attempting to do the right thing at the right time is the issue. Maximising the opportunities the market offers is the issue. As I said earlier, I was focused on turning negatives into positives. Screwing around on a simulator was not a wasted exercise since it lead to useful lessons and conclusions. Making the best use of those lessons took a long time though. But that’s pretty much true for most people. Your experience in terms of lessons and conclusions will vary from mine. I would just suggest that you may find useful lessons in places you’re not expecting to find them. I’m willing to bet that, right now, there’s something staring you right in the face that is a big clue to who you are as a trader. So from the first post- 1-You Don't Know Anything You probably know things right now that are more useful to you than you realise or appreciate.. In the next post I'll talk about how this was a problem for me and how I solved it.

In an effort to educate and stimulate some discussion, I'm going to try to put together a few steps for candlestick trading success! Step 1: Identify the candlestick 'patterns' or 'formations' There are a variety of websites and books out there talking about candlestick patterns or formations. Some sites out there with some free stuff that can at least get you started in pattern recognition. Stockcharts.com in particular has a nice section on candlesticks (click hyperlinks): Main Page Intro To Candlesticks List of Common Patterns That's a few free links from stockcharts.com. Those are pretty good for being free. Keep in mind that is not meant to be a substitute for books, videos and live seminars. As mentioned previously, I like the work of Steve Nison. So the very, very first step is to be able to look at a candle(s) and identify if there's a potential candle pattern or formation there. That's step 1. I know that seems easy, but it can take some practice, esp in real-time and esp in day-trading. I would suggest looking at some DAILY charts and just start flipping through charts of stocks to see what you can recognize. Don't worry about stock charts if you just trade futures, you just want to train your eyes to see patterns and formations. And speaking of day-trading, there is one important consideration when using candlestick analysis in a day-trading environment - YOU MUST REMAIN FLEXIBLE IN YOUR DEFINITIONS OF CANDLESTICKS IN REAL-TIME, DAY-TRADING. The lower the chart timeframe, the more flexible you must be. And what I mean is that if you are only looking for picture perfect hammers, you might be waiting a while for a signal. As we get more charts posted, this will make more sense. And from candlestick recognition, there are a couple schools of thought of how trade them: 1) Trade any of the patterns if your parameters are met. 2) Trade certain patterns based on your preference and testing. This is going to be an integral part of your trading plan and there's no right answer here. It really is dependent on how you build your trading plan and what your testing has shown. I'm not going to do the work for you, so don't bother asking.

Here is the scoop on the ES. SEPT 6 2013 was the last trading session it was a BUY day in taylors cycle. You can short a buy day on a high made first like within first couple of hours of the open. You generally cover it the same day. If price drops fast (within the first 2 to 3 max hours of the open you would cover the short and look to go long if the low is trading near the low numbers. You then hold the long overnight or sell it on same day if the rally is hard and fast. But you can hold it overnight. The next tradingsession - sept 9 is a SELL day. On a sell day you sell any longs held overnight from the previous session (in this case sept 6th) and you can go long on any price below the low of the 6th if made within first two hours of the open. You then sell the long on the same day on any decent rally back towards the low of the 6th. So, to help us understand what would have happened on the 6th or how taylor would have traded the 6th. I know this is hindsight but to set the context i am going back to Friday 6th and pretend i was Taylor. My taylor numbers for 6th derived after the close of the 5th. Are thus: (note i arrive my taylor numbers different than he does..i will not divulge this info...but you could use his numbers i suppose: Possible high for 6th 1660 to 1665 Possible low 1643 to 1651 Now since the 6th is a buy day i know i can , according to Taylor's rules do either of the following: 1) short a high made first (first means within 2 hours max 3 hours of the open) 2) go long on a low made first 3) short, then cover, then long near taylors low numbers if both made within the first 2 to max 3 hours. I can then sell the long same day on any fast rally or hold for selling on the next day. 4) long, then sell long near taylor high numbers, then short near high numbers (if all wthin first two to three hours), and cover same day (do not carry short over to next day) So, how would taylor have trade last friday 6th? Please note i am using only RTH (regular trading hours O,H,L,C and ignoring night session..aftermarket prices) Ok the market opened on the 6th at 1659.25 (RTH). This is very close to the Taylor high numbers above. So, as Taylor what would i be anticipating? I would be looking to short (Rule #1 above). What would be my entry? Well, i would watch market .do a little tape reading to see if the market tops out within the high numbers above. When i see it stall i pounce and short. In this case it traded quickly up to 1661. I could short at 1661 or wait for the close of the bar (bar 8:35). That bar closed at at 1657 and was a bear bar with big tail on top indicating weakness. Taylor of course didn't have candlesticks so he probally would have shorted around 1659 to 1660. Lets say for some reason Taylor shorted at the close of bar 8:35 (1657). He would ride the rather fast decline down. He would be looking for the decline to stall around his low numbers. He would however watch the tape and if it went through his projected lows he would hold until the price quit declining. In this case it stopped declining on bar 9:00 at 1638.75. The next bar was a reversal bar indicating time to get out. So, at the latest taylor would be out on by the high of the reversal bar (1645) for a 12 point gain within the first hour of the open. Now before anyone protests; we know taylor did not look at 5 minute charts nor did he have candlesticks. Here, i am showing how i adapted taylors method to todays markets. Taylor used daily charts and timed his entries and exits with his numbers and fined tuned them with live tape reading. In todays markets i tape read off 5 minute charts with what i call "tape reading bar by bar". Somebody is probally having convulsions about now and saying that is not the tape. The tape is order flow..Dom..and Time and sales! Well, that is partially true but that sort of tape reading is mostly good for extreme scalping of 1 to 4 ticks. Taylor wasn't interested in that. He was after the big move of the day. I dont have the time to get into my style of tape reading but suffice it to say for now that a five minute chart s a pictorial view of the tape (order flow...dom...T&S ...transactions added together). Hence i coined the term (at least i have never heard it coined this before) "tape reading bar by bar". Now, back to the price action of sept 6. It is 9:05 CST and i taylor have made 12 points in the ES (of course we also know the ES didn't exist back then but play along with me here). Now according to my taylor rules for a BUY day (rule three) i can also go long because 2 hours have not yet gone by. So, i covered my short and immediatley take a long position for the tape says this is a reversal point (bar 9:05) so, i am now long at one tick above the high of the 9:05 bar (1645.25). I am looking for a rally and have nearly the complete trading session to get it as the market has only been open 35 minutes. Things are looking good. I look to exit on any good rally that heads back up towards my high numbers. My exit is flexible. I am even allowed to hold overnight and exit on monday sept 8 if i wish. However, if the rally is hard and fast then generally it is better to exit the same day. In this case it rallied back up fast and hard and then started going sideways. I decide to exit on bar 10:40 at 1658.75 as looks like we are range bound and i have a good profit already. So, i am out for another profit of 13.5 points. That makes 25.5 points for the day and it is 10:40. Time to go fishing....a little late maybe but the boat ride will be good. Ok ...so now we have seen how taylor would have traded fridays sept 6 price action. Now what about the next session sept 9 which is still future? I'll deal with that in another post before the market opens on sept 9, 2013 I am attaching a chart of sept 6th to help you visually see the above. This is for information only and not for real trading.. You could lose your money! Patuca

My biggest loss was time. Time spent looking at the wrong things, time spent trading without a plan or without real understanding of what was important, time wasted on indicators, etc. then time unlearning all the nonsense I had picked up. The money comes back with interest, but you can't ever get that time back.

Next big thing?..........Looks like the same old thing to me.Here's the recipe. 1) Get yourself a PR story that sounds too good to be true that the system is based on. In this case it is a maths genius (apparently,who,besides them say he's a genius?). Other famous PR stories are eg :a code based on a bunch of numbers mentioned in the bible (The Daniel Code).And: A genius who found the hidden order within markets,sold it to Welles Wilder,who called it The Delta Phenomenon. Or,if you are Steve Copan you call it The Market Matrix and pretend you're a recluse who only writes books,Cd's and once in a blue moon,seminars for a lot of money-because... you're a recluse. 2 )Do not tell anybody how the indicator works or what it's really based on (except it can only be based on past prices,therefore it lags and is not predictive) 3) Make a video showing the mysterious indicator "working" at the bottom of the cherry picked example chart. 4) Leave no doubt in the mug punter's mind that trading skills of any kind are not required just follow the "signals". 5) SIgn up to a trading forum,and in your first post tell us how you're thinking about signing up for this service and what do people think? 6) Get another spammer with 5 posts or less to say he's making money and it's the "next big thing" 7) If anyone bad mouths your operation or asks too many questions throw them out of your trading room. 8) When a trade set up is winning claim you are already in it. 9) When a trade set up isn't working claim you didn't get in it for reasons ABC. 10) If anyone calls you out on that throw them out of the room,but keep taking their credit card payments until they finally manage to cancel them-keep all the money and point them to the small print in the contract. 11) When business is slow,and after being thrown off various forums for soliciting,and after working with some of the biggest frauds,conmen and snake oil salesman in the "business",sign up for traders Laboratory and pretend your here to make friends and help struggling traders.When the long term residents call you out on your bullshit,turn pretty shitty pretty quick and cry like a baby that everyone's picking on you for no good reason.Threaten to leave -repeatedly without actually leaving.Carry on as if nothing is wrong and nothing happened until everyone is so sick of you the management is forced to act.(finally) Then,finally leave.Then come back almost immediately before finally understanding fully and intimately the phrase "go fkcu yourself" Then sometime later crawl back to give your expert opinion on the best way to run false accounts and statements while failing to see how transparent and ludicrous you look. 12) When things completely fall apart,leave the sinking ship owing 1000's to your customers and act like nothing happened. Hi Oliver,how's "business" these days? 13) Rinse and repeat until someone finally sticks your ass in jail (low probability) But hey,it's different this time isn't it?

Just follow the blog and go into the archives...all tops and bottoms will be there before it all occurs. All this just explains is when a change of direction is going to happen and if its a top or bottom. It won't tell how high or how low in advance, because I have not broken into price vibration rate yet. I have conquer time and space thus far, but if I am going to break into the later than I have really prepare myself. Some times it is looking at meaning into one self and asking questions, but I come to these things because of my Spirit and Soul allows me. You have to be deeply honest and express things to self to make this kind of knowledge come to you. I do not boast neither do I care except to be just what I am. I don't know why God made me to be able I am just able. Just except the fact of truth in anything, but know what is good and best or great for all. All is One

YOU are not adding to the discussion, and I do not appreciate that. You sound like a desperate vendor, bitter about the success of your competitors. If you want any respect around here (even as a vendor), you should start your own thread and start to share something of substance. You post leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

I have a suggestion. When someone first registers at Traders Laboratory, automatically send them some tips, or links for beginners. They may not be a beginner, but it won't hurt.

Hi guys, Can anyone help me out by porting the following code originally made to ThinkorSwim to NinjaTrader? Here it is: declare lower; input length = 20; def closeLog = Log(close[1] / close[2]); def SDev = stdev(closeLog, length)* Sqrt(length / (length – 1)); def m= SDev * close[1]; plot spike = (close[0] – close[1]) / m; spike.setPaintingStrategy(PaintingStrategy.HISTOGRAM); spike.AssignValueColor(if close > close[1] then Color.UPTICK else if close < close[1] then Color.DOWNTICK else GetColor(1)); Thanks a lot!

The problem is Tradewinds, when people start out they really are not in the position to make a sensible judgement on whether or not their strategy is effective and viable. You'll get a younger guy maybe being a bit rash or perhaps an older person who's been successful in other pursuits come in thinking they will figure it out. Well that just isn't the way it is generally. Good point about the commitments and responsibilities btw.

Here is an excellent Indicator for MACD fans. At first I was under the impression that it is a proprietary indicator, but it is listed in this MT4 Indicators site, which is publicly available: http://www.search4metatrader.com/index.php You will have to register, but they are not asking for anything except your email address. This indicator, which I have attached is available under "M" of course, and you will locate it on page 4 of the "M" directory. By the way - I have found that the best setting for it are: 4 - 21 - 1 - 5 The default settings are 10 - 20 - 1 - 7, but these can be up to 5 candles/bars late in getting you into a move. A bonus of using the MT4 site, is that the top downloads for the month/week/ever are listed on the front page, and I am sure you will find something there - even hard-to-find indies. There are truly thousands of MT4 Indicators listed on this site, which does look like an official MT4 site. Bookmark it for the future. Cheers Macd with EMA BDv8_12_31.mq4

Daveyjones, this is a great topic. If you've been trading for a while you know that there's a lot of hype about the fortunes you can make by trading for a living. The reality is that like every job or business it is a process of gradual growth. And if you know people who've started their own business, you'll know that they lived like paupers for years, building their business to the point where they could reap the rewards by paying themselves a decent salary. It's the same with trading for living. If you have a profitable system, you first need to build your trading account so that you can increase the number of shares, contracts or lots that you trade. You also need to have an idea of how much you need or want to withdraw from your account on a monthly or quarterly basis, that becomes essentially the salary you want to receive. Once you trade enough shares, contracts or lots so that your account grows on average more per month or quarter than what you want to pay yourself as a salary, then you can start pulling money out of it. But not before. You want to be in the position that even after your periodic withdrawals the trading account continues to grow, albeit more slowly. Depending on the initial size of your trading account, and on the profitability of your system, you may have to build your account for one or two years before you can start pulling money out of it. It can be done, but not as fast as some would have you believe. Of course the larger your starting account and the smaller your salary requirements, the faster the process.

Check out Dukascopy (Forex trading, ECN Broker, Managed accounts, Swiss FX trading platform). They are ECN forex broker located in Swiss. Their spread is very tight, and recently they lowered their min. lot size to 1,000 (micro lot).

I agree. I've been trading TTT for fair amount of time. I have always found that most folks who fail to understand Taylor fail largely because they are fixated on the cycle, rather than on how Taylor uses where price is in relation to Support and Resistance. For example, I have rarely, if ever, read anyone here mention the "objective Point," a concept Taylor uses without which you will not succeed with Taylor's method, at least not as Taylor himself understood his own teachings. It is precisely this failure to appreciate Taylor's understanding of trading price action that leads folks to assume that the cycle needs repeatedly to be "re-set" or "adjusted" as George Angell famously (or infamously) suggested is necessary. If one were instead to view the cycle not as a set of strict trading rules, but rather as Taylor intended it, i.e. as a critical apparatus through which to view and interpret price action around significant support and resistance levels, i.e. Taylor's objective points, then one would also no doubt understand that for Taylor it is not nearly so simple as buying on Buy Day, selling on Selling Day, and shorting on Short Sale Day. Indeed, a close reading of Taylor will reveal that Taylor clearly (insofar as he can be accused of clarity at all) taught that the trader will at times buy on a Short Sale day and Sell Short on a Buy Day, but unlike George Angell and more than a few forum posters, both here at TL and elsewhere, those circumstances do not override the trading cycle. For example, let me quote Taylor concerning just such circumstances: 1) "In the case of a Higher Buying Day Low, the stock or future shows support causing a rally and a strong close on the Short Sale Day - the decline from this rally, next day, on the Buying Day, fails to sell down to the previous low - the Short Sale Day Low - this rally on the Short Sale day is an indication of a Higher Buy Day Bottom" and 2) "A Short Sale put out at the High of a Buying Day made FIRSTon the penetration of the Short Sale Day High, should be covered on the reaction ... for short selling on the Buying Day High made FIRST is generally a weak short sale." To really benefit from Taylor's method, one needs to see that the cycle, in and of itself, is useless without an accute awareness of price - especially where price is in relation to the open, and more importantly, where price is in relation to immediately prior highs and prior lows and previous closes. After all, what does Taylor keep in his book but a record of PRICE high, PRICE low, and the closing PRICE, and whether PRICE made its high or low first. The primary data from which all else in his Book (meaning the hand written Book he kept for trading and not the book he published about his method) consists of (Surprise! Surpise!) volume, opening price, high price, low price, and closing price. As is the case with all indicators, methods, systems, etc. anything that may be useful to making trading decisions will be derived from price. The true value and genius of Taylor's method, properly applied, is that it focuses the trader on specific price levels and price action, i.e. how price behaves around those levels, and how to anticipate in which direction the path of least resistance lay. As an aside, when Ed Dobson chose to publish Taylor's method, he did no one anywhere any favors by not only publishing Angell's and Raschke's interpretations of the method in the same volume, but then he went farther by suggesting in the publisher's forward that readers skip reading Taylor first, if not altogether, and simply read Angell's and Raschke's essays! What a mistake! This is, no doubt, one reason why most traders who approach Taylor become enamored of the trading cycle, and ignore price action, support and resistance, completly ignoring Taylor's objective points, as Angell in particular focuses squarely on the trading cycle in his essay on Taylor's method. Of course, another reason so many focus on the cycle and not the whole of Taylor's discussion on trading price action is that traders always want the easy money. How nice would it be if it really were so simple as buying on a buy day, holding overnight and selling soon after the open on the selling day for a nice profit, and then go short on the short sale day, cover at the close, again for a nice profit, and then start it all over again the next day by again going long on the subsequent buy day! If only trading were that easy! Angell was the one who first suggested that cycles need to be shifted from time to time. Let us all remember that Angell was selling a primitive computer software program using the Taylor method (dubbed LSS by Angell) and as Taylor's method is a discretionary method, Angell's project to automate trading signals from Taylor necessarily broke down. Angell could only make his program marginally salable by allowing the program to periodically re-set its cycle. The Book Method, you see, is meant for human intelligence, not artificial intelligence. As a further aside, anyone interested can quickly verify that Angell was fined by the CFTC/NFA (http://www.cftc.gov/opa/enf02/opa4628-02.htm) for his sale of and claims made on behalf of his LSS method and his computerized trading system. Why anyone would depend upon an essay that was originally intended as a piece of sales literature for what amounted to a faulty and fraudulent computer trading system scheme for his or her understanding of Taylor's (a real trader, by the way) method is beyond me. But those who insist that the cycle is anything other than a three day affair, or that it otherwise is in constant need of periodic adjustment is doing preciely that - interpreting Taylor's Trading Method through the lens of a fraud and a propagandist. In the end, it is always all about price. If its not about price, then it is about fear, greed, and EGO. Best Wishes, Thales

I would like to make some comments here concerning how Taylor would have seen the price action today by Richbois count being an SS day. Finally, what he most likely would have done. Today was a failure to penetrate early in the session. However there was an immediate decline so why not short this decline?? Taylor says you have to recognize such action and trade on it even though it is a difficult trade to make many times it is very profitable. The key is knowing when to put out the short sell. This requires some tape reading skills. But in this case one would NOT short on 2-5-09. Why? First, I take a few quotes out of his book concerning failures to penetrate the objective. "In the beginning it might be well to study these failures to penetrate and the results of them before buying or short selling but you have got to recognize this action and trade on it, for while it is a most difficult ‘play’, at the same time many of the most profitable moves take place from failures to penetrate at both tops and bottoms. The failures to penetrate Buying or Selling Objectives are not exceptions to our method of trading, for a little study of the past movements of stocks and commodity futures will reveal that this action takes place approximately 40% of the time on an average, at either of these points, therefore, this movement is a very definite part of the method as a whole." "When a stock makes a high FIRST on a Selling Day with a penetration of the Buying Day High, then reacts and is selling nearer the low of the day at the close, the indications are for a lower opening on the Short Sale Day. Should the lower opening occur, after the decline the stock or future will make an attempt to rally, in most cases, and this rally will penetrate the—High of Selling Day—if the immediate trend is higher, however, should the rally fail to reach this Objective and at the top of this rally the activity dies out and the trading narrows down to a few transactions at about the same price, then begins to ‘sell off’, we would ‘put out’ a short sale on this declining trend and J-U-S-T as it starts." Quotes from p 46 The Taylor Trading Technique. Now a quote about price action on an SS day "We try to make all short sales on the high made FIRST on penetrations of—Selling Day Highs—‘This is the most favorable action for your play’—we would not ‘put out’ a short sale where the stock or future opened down and declined future, without a rally, for this action would carry the implications that rally, should it start later in the session, may cause the closing price to be up near the high of the day and this would be making the high LAST on a Short Sale Day, indicating a 46 future rally, and an up-opening but where the stock opened at the same price as the previous close and declined early in the session and then rallied higher than the opening price or for a penetration of the Selling Day High—we would ‘put out’ a short sale just as this rally began to exhaust itself after the penetration. This action is not as favorable to our trade as the above." P 39 The Taylor Trading Technique. In summary, when there was no decline followed by a rally that failed to penetrate it is best to pass by the short. While one "could" have shorted and come out ok today in many cases one would get caught in the cross currents. Thus Taylor would have probably passed by shorting today right after the open. Now taking the count as Elovemer did it was a buy day. First, some Taylor quotes from his book The Taylor Trading Technique "The Short Sale Day Low is our point to watch and we watch for it to be reached or for the price to sell under this point, since this is where we buy our long stock." p28 Since today was a buy day by Elovemer count then yesterday 2-4-09 was an SS day. It is very important to watch the close oin the SS day to judge where you will probably be buying your long at on the next day. In this case the low close on the SS day 2-04-09 indicated a further decline on the next day 2-5. So one wouold be expecting to buy probably go long on a lower low than the previous days low made on 2-4. "Now, we go back to the close of the Short Sale Day and we find that it was a ‘flat’ closing, then from this indication we expect a lower opening on the Buying Day and so far this would cause the low to be made FIRST and is a stronger indication when made early in the session that a rally would start from this low and hold the gains for a strong closing" p28 "On a Buying Day when the stock rallies from the low and the gain in points is sufficiently large, we sell out on the same day."p27 "The Buying Day—for our long stock provided the decline ends at or near this low but we can with reasonable certainty figure whether this low will be our buying ‘spot’ or if we may not expect further concessions to buy on and we get this indication from the way the stock closes on the Short Sale Day. We get this indication by watching the close and whether prices are up or down, that is down from the high of day or up from the low of day, weak or strong. Remember, we are watching the prices on a Short Sale Day trying to anticipate the coming point at which we can buy or go ‘long’" p 27 What would Taylor have done on 2-5-09 if the count said it was a buying day? First, he would have taken note of the close on the previous day (ss day) and seeing it close weak he would have expected the decline to continue on down after the open on 2-5. Therefore, he would have waited and as the tape indicated the decline was stopping he would have went long. Within an hour or so of the opening he would have been long and probably flat by the close today 2-5 with a good gain.

Hello Since you don't mention a specific platform (Tradestation for instance) I assume what you really want is a mathematical formula for intraday vol? I am not familiar with Haggerty's method but can offer my own as follows; 1. Go to IVolatility.com and get the most recent IV (Implied Vol) for the instrument you trade. If for example it is the ES contract, then it is approximately 37%....convert to .37 2. To compute a one (1) standard deviation trading range (annualized) 1 x .37 x previous day's closing price (900 for the ES contract) = 333 pts above and below that close To obtain the intraday figure simply multiply by the square root of the number of days per year (365) shown below square root of 1 day/365 = .0523421 333 pts x .0523421 = 17.43 pts Indicates that the intraday 1 sd range for the ES contract should be 900 plus or minus 17.43 pts. or 882.50 - 917.50 Rinse & repeat to obtain 1.28, 1.5 and 2.0 standard deviations and you have "approximate" intraday ranges for the ES today (Jan 02, 2009) Here they are out to 1.5 +1.5 sd = 926.25 +1.28 sd = 922.50 +1 sd = 917.50 900 (previous day's close) -1.5 sd = 882.42 -1.28 sd = 877.60 -1.5 sd = 873.75 Remember that its an approximation and that it "suggests" that the price series is normally distributed (it isn't)..so there are quite a few limitations to it. I wouldn't use it but there it is.... Hope it helps Steve

In this post, I explained to the OP that following your system when things are not looking good is easier said than done sometimes and thought I'd explain further. Today (Dec 12) was one of those days where if I told you the end result of my P&L you might say, nice day. Ending P&L: $779.89/ct after commissions Not the greatest, but acceptable. Now, allow me to take you through how this day progressed and you can see why it's easier said than done to follow your system 100% and not lose faith. I am currently focusing on 3 markets to trade - ES, EC/6E and ZN. The main reason being that I am trying to be more particular in my setups and instead of forcing on the ES only, I find it easier to be patient using 3 markets. ES trades for Dec 12: +1.25, -2.25, -2, -2, -1.5, -1.75, -1.5, +5.75 = -4.00 on Day EC trades for Dec 12: -13, -12, +26, -9, -9, +6, +36 = +25 on Day ZN trades for Dec 12: +21, -4, +19, +10 = +46 on Day As you can see, not the easiest path to get from point A to point B. We know that the shortest distance between 2 points is a straight line and while it's much easier having a day where you start at 0.00 to +1,000 with no losses, that's not entirely realistic IMO. But if you were to look at starting at 0.00 and ending at $779.89, it'd be hard to argue that was a bad day. I posted this b/c in the other thread the OP is showing some solid faith in his system and following it. Once you know that your system makes money, then it's a little easier to do this. Of course you need to get there, but once there, you can do it. In the end this business is first about knowing that your system makes money over time and then doing it while minimizing emotional impact. I still get frustrated at times but days like today remind me of how important it is to keep doing it. I had no idea going into the day that the ES would be so rough today. I had no idea that the EC would make money, but only after a few losses. And I had no idea that the ZN would be like taking candy from a baby. And I have no idea what tomorrow will hold. I just have the faith that I can do the job and follow the plan. As soon as I stray from that, then I am subject to P&L fluctuations not planned for.

In the Hinges thread, I posted a live trade and elaborated on my exit methodology. To keep that topic on topic and to allow us to continue investigating exits and scale-outs, I thought it would be a good idea to start a new thread. I'll cover my personal exit methodology seen though Wyckoff ideas, as well as the logical rationale behind it. That said, I welcome all feedback and supporting/opposing opinions. My current trading methodology involves position adds and scale-outs. My reasoning has roots in wagering ideologies such as the Kelly criterion. The idea is simple: Bet more when you have greater odds. Relating to trading, you want the most exposure when your edge is greatest; similarly, you want less exposure when your edge is least (and ideally, no exposure when you have no edge). This makes logical sense, but many traders (myself included for a while) failed to see this. Trading is a game of making money, not proving yourself correct. I disagree with the "A good exit is another entry" camp, because I can't say that my edge is always the same. Yes, if you're able to nail moves completely, then keep your all-in / all-out approach. I personally can't, and don't currently know of any trader who can. Let's examine when a trading edge changes. Let's say you enter with a long setup (and many are discussed in this forum), and price moves in your direction but fails to break through a possible resistance area. Couldn't we argue that the new sellers, by confirming resistance, have taken (at least some of) your bullish edge away? This would be a good area to take some position off, because buying pressure is (momentarily) outmatched by selling pressure. I find volume especially important in these areas, because it can help you gauge the interest of the bulls and bears. Price stalled; did: a) sellers sweep in, or b) buyers simply take a break? If you see a rise of volume on the rejection, start looking for the door. What if price did not stall at possible resistance? Then I see no reason to lighten the position. The buyers have been winning, and sellers didn't step in as they did before. In fact, I have position adding setups based on moves like this. Remember, price moves in waves (not bars) and is fractal. The setup you took on a 1m chart could parlay into a 5m setup. Always pay attention to the market on a greater scale. My most reliable and accurate way to exit are climaxes. Here's how I define a climax: A rise in momentium (volatility), along with: A rise in volume Then, a contraction of momentum / volatility (or, a rejection of price) High volume does not mean there's a climax. In fact, some of the biggest moves are on high volume. It's the rejection / stall you're looking for. High volume gives you a head's up that there's a lot of interest. Once you spend screen time watching climaxes, you can catch them pretty quickly. Frequently, you'll see a quick decay of volume. This generally means that buying pressure has lessened, but sellers have not taken over. Many times, this is the making of a pullback before a continuation. If, however, you see volume gaining on the pullback, you might be looking at a reversal (or a pullback on a larger scale). It's not volume you're interested in directly, but volume's effect on price. You'll also see times when volume does not spike before the exhaustion, but price fails to break through a support/resistance level. Many times, price will try more than once, but new buyers/sellers are simply not interested. This is another good scale out opportunity, because the lack of buying pressure is important. Price could likely continue, but our edge not as much as it was when we had buying pressure on our side. So far, I've talked about exits that are pretty close to the extremes. Unfortunately, not ever price action move ends so cleanly with a climax or S/R confirmation. This is where stop management comes into play. To begin with, I use very small stops initially (so importantly, am willing to re-enter if my entry was not clean). Additionally, there's no reason to take a full stop if price is not confirming your entry premise. This is important. I am not saying to wait for the trade to be proven wrong. Rather, get out if you're not proven right. The Phantom of the Pits has some wise words on this topic. So, we're in a profitable trade, and need to manage stops. My first goal is to make the trade riskless (move the stop to break even). This has many psychological and $ implications. Yes, at times, you can get shaken out for break even, and zoom!.. price shoots off. You must be willing for this to happen, and often, re-enter quickly without chasing a trade. I make the trade riskless as soon as price confirms my entry premise. This often involves a x point move, or a breaking of previous S/R. From there, I manually trail stops as price keeps breaking past S/R levels, or establishes new ones. Example: a bull run, and then congestion. I will set stops under the congestion. The more contracts you trade, the more scale-outs you can have, making your trade longer and longer (if this is wanted). As a rule of thumb, the longer term the trade is, the less tight you need to keep your stops. On trend days, to catch the entire move, you will need to allow for pullbacks. In action, I'm frequently scaling out on pullbacks, and then adding to my position as the trend resumes. This is a work in progress, so please feel free to add to my thoughts. My other posts on exits: Live trade exit discussion, the benefits of scaling out. A couple of you have mentioned to me that you like examples (helps solidify the concept). Please understand that this is simply one example, and does not represent the concept in entirety.

Do you know why their is a 95% fail rate in this business? I do. And the reasons are simple: 1. New traders are lured by this idea that "this is an easy way to riches." The Market Makers have brilliant Marketing departments and they do a stellar job- believe me I have a B.S. in Marketing and over a decade in the field- I know good marketing. They shoot fish in a barrel. They tout short term trades. They WANT you to scalp for two reasons. One is the more trades you take, the more commissions they make. Secondly, Marketers are trained with psychology- they know what makes you tick- they know people and how they work. They know that even if the long term trend is bull, human nature to a "get rich quick" minded person will take tiny profits out of fear. 2. After they have baited you into doing something as silly as opening an account with $250 being as green as an Irish countryside- letting you overleverage the crap out of yourself- they part you of your $250 and hundreds of others. Knowing psychology again, they know that most people with be revengelful- they will fund the account with another $250 and take another crack at it- this time, they have you even MORE by the short and twisty's because you are pissed and want to get your first $250 back. They take you to the cleaners again! The cycle repeats over and over with millions of "get rich quick" greenhorns. 3. If after you have blown two accounts, and still want some more- you then set out on your search for the "Holy Grail." You start picking from the list of the 1000 indicators that your broker who just cleaned your clock TWICE gives you. "Must be a gift from the trading gods" you say- "all the answers are right here" you think- so you apply them, try them and eventually get parted from even more money. 4. If you are now beaten down for the third time- you can either A. Keep fighting the good fight and demo trade until you finally get it right or B. Give up on the markets all together. 5. If you choose A, you will study and learn what the markets are really all about, you will search not for "The Grail" but for the reasons the markets do what they do. You will search to find out how to read a chart instead of trying to take trades when one line crosses another or some Indicator tells you it is time to pull the trigger. You will take the hard road and work long hours to get to an edge. You will make money with your edge, and sometimes you will want to tweak the edge or realize that you can have multiple "edges" to draw money from the market. You will look at the market from a completely different perspective than you did when you started. You know that the market is not "out to get you." The market is there to do what it does- and either you are in harmony with the movements- or you are a dead man walking. The lesson: This is a hard road, this takes time, this takes patience to learn, this takes dicipline, it takes blood, sweat and tears. During your learning phase you will either crumble and give up, or you will have the heart to plow on ahead. 95%of people fail in this business because they don't have the balls to do what it takes to succeed. They don't have the gumption to fight through the learning stage to make it. PERIOD! Aaron

Interesting discussion this. I have seen and spent time with a very diverse group of traders. From very successful independent & prop traders, traders at firms, traders at banks, average traders, losing traders, losing traders who think they are good traders, etc. The three things that really stand out separating the traders comes down to: 1) Discipline 2) Conviction 3) Guts. In my experience, having an edge to pull an income from the markets is actually not that hard at all. I would go so far as to say it is easy. Some of the most consistent traders I know have particular setups, and they just don't really question it. They don't make a killing, they just grind it out, working their small edge. Mentality is too general a word. The more specific problem: The majority of people have no discipline. It takes a huge amount of discipline to know what your specific edge is, sit infront of a screen and only take those setups. To only trade your edge, entires & exits. I do NOT think the problem is exactly about having a profitable strategy. It's about having a profitable strategy, and trading that and only that. The average person simply can't sit infront of a screen all day, every day, to only take one very specific setup. Even if it were to make them more than their current income. If you can't follow an exercise plan, can't follow a diet, can't follow a study plan, etc - It is unlikely you will succeed at trading until you can address those issues. This is one of the key reasons why there is a correlation between successful athletes following on to become successful traders - it is the discipline aspect. Subsequently, it is also a key factor in why there is very little correlation between being successful in a white-collar job, to becoming a successful trader. Most 'real jobs' (as I call them :-) ) do not require and test your discipline on a daily basis.

Hi Speres; I assume that you are referring to my status quote, I just don't think there is anything else I can learn, I think I have reached the end of the road, and I have to say I am disappointed because life is most interesting when you are trying to overcome a hurdle, Tom Williams cannot teach me anything, he cannot find any faults in my analysis, can any of you out there teach me something about VSA technique I cannot see in a chart for myself? So now what? do I just turn that knowledge into a fortune? I don't need anyones else's money, I have more than enough for my needs and wants, so will I be miserable for the rest of my life? Gavin wants me to run the educational side of TradeGuider, I have agreed to work for them on a part time basis. Everyone in this room is talking about success, or trying to find it, but how many of you are thinking about the consequences of that success, and what will you find in yourself if you then arrive at that success? will you become bored of trading? will success make you slack in your discipline? For me there is no challenge in reading the market anymore, no struggle to make me feel excited, I have thought of finding someone who has decimated their account and replenishing it for them, but what would that achieve?, be warned that if you reach the top of your tree, what expectations will you have then? That is the reason for my status quote under my name. I am currently writing a book similar to Tom's, but explaining all the principles that Wyckoff wanted the public to understand, going into great detail, better than any book I have read, giving hundreds of charts in greater detail than my PDF postings last November, I am hoping that I can help someone with no experience to become someone who can support themselves financially on their own two feet, through the book and training videos, then I might not have a reason to exist after that. And Tom has been asking me to write a book for the last four years, so I caved in. Best wishes to you all. Sebastian

mrsushi, You are a good guy. And there are lots of truly great and generous people in the trading world. I have met and continue to meet tons of them. As per Hubert and John, they are great salesmen (or at least Hubert is). Nobody is perfect. We all manipulate the facts, at times. Sure, Hubert is looking a little sleazy these days. And some in this forum will call them greedy. But, the bottom line is, are they providing a valuable service? Are people's education in trading really deepening and their results improving. We all start from the simple. We just want some arrows to tell us when to get in and when to get out. In time, after painful losses, we learn (or never learn) that it isn't that simple. We (hopefully) learn that we need to understand how the market works and we need to learn to read that dynamic movement. John and Hubert's motivations and priorities are in question. They seem to add more and more to the mix so that they can make more money. Any of those indicators (tools) they are offering can be used to positive purpose. I use some of them. But, I never use them in the often cut and dried way that those guys teach. I use them as information only. But, adding so much also muddies the waters, and I think that teachers should make it their priority to clear the waters. To help their students get to a deeper place of understanding. It has taken me over two years of indicator search/hell to start to understand that they are best used as training wheels or, at best, guides. The story is truly in the price action and volume. So Hubert, as someone who is primarily a tape reader, knows this. Yet, he is constantly pushing all these training wheels. And offering simplistic techniques that work great sometimes but can never work consistently. Getting back to your actions of posting the free indicators on the TTM site, I commended you on your boldness. I didn't think I knew knew you well enough to point out, what may be considered by some, your stupidity. Because, over all, I admire your action. Of course, they would get rid of the post ASAP. And, your relations with them are now different. And, you may be blackballed. But, you performed a service. And, hopefully, some people there took notice. We're all learning together. And your contribution (even though J and H might not like it) helps the greater community. And, in the end, that's what matters most. Whew. Long-winded response, huh? Take care. Bryan