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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

Hard to believe its been almost 11 years since we had a great year in this thread. I think of you guys still. I wish we could have a reunion week here for any of you who are still trading ... or even if you're not. Maybe the first or second week of June 2020. If interested, drop a note here and perhaps an email address if you don't plan on checking back. No more forex for me - just stocks, ES, and NQ. As always, Best Wishes, Thales

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)

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

I really dont understand why people are still searching for reliable signal provider, as we all know they all are scam. None can give you 100% true result for few bucks.

Hi, all I am Samuel new to the forum and very much in love with the forum Hoping to make some new friends here. Thank you.

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.

I agree. Share prices change because of supple and demand. If more people want to buy a stock (demand) than sell it (supply), then the price moves up. Conversely, if more people wanted to sell a stock than buy it, there would be greater supply than demand, and the price would fall.

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

3 samples from record: AXP First acquired 1 or 2 years ago, for about $ 77.74. A Warren Buffet favorite, with good financials. Sold June 29 2018 after putting a sellstop order on it, an idea from day trading, and Wyckoff, which I learned about on this forum. Profit $ 1822.97, cost of $ 6770.5 or 26.92% CNK- a questionable acquisition, made after selling WFM, just prior to the Amazon announcement ( doink!), which announcement jacked the price to $ 42. Profits were to be had, but, riding the escalator, as it were, I simply watched it go up and down. " But theatre attendance is increasing!" Good luck with that one. https://www.the-numbers.com/market/ XHE healthcare etf, health equipment, I don't know when I originally purchased this, but mI just sold it, again after hitting a sells top, for a $ 3,149.45 profit, or 50.32% All non taxable since this is an IRA account. I am now siting in 90% cash waiting out d.t. Rump hysterics and phony trade wars; using simulators to see how it might go with " active " trading", where I wake up enough to smell the roses when a stock gets to a high point. While I feel fortunate to have a gain, it took a long time and a lot of heartache, watching values tumble and dip, especially UNP and AXP. I left a lot of profit on the table. I am reading Wyckoff now, and dB, trying to learn and follow these ideas. Brian

Learn to identify momentum and scalp. If you need leverage, trade futures or options.

Hi traders, how are you? I am just joined here. The community looks beautiful, easy and good structure.

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

Stopped for the full -1R. God Bless.. WP

I don't know, but you just joined 2 hours ago. Kind of hard to believe you after that.

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

Hello everyone! I am very new to this forum. I find this forum really interesting because of the community here is really active and they respond to the thread accordingly. I am really excited to share you guys my thoughts, knowledge, and experience in trading. Happy trading everyone!

Thanks for the text. We would appreciate a post. Here’s a sample (of size, not quality ). By the time you are ‘mature’ (maturity can come at any age) enough to trade, you have typically completed standardized ‘education’ and should drop the model asap. In other words, conventional education model will not be effective for learning in trading and seeking a general education in trading, whether curriculum based or not, is a waste of time and of whatever costs are incurred. Instead, anyone ready for trading should also be ready for SELF education. Basically , to really thrive as a trader, I blve you move beyond the currently failing ‘educational’ paradigm founded on the premise that humans can only make sense of the world via communication with each other. On the objective knowledge front that means seeking out only the specific information about instruments, data, exchanges, transactions, orders, etc etc you personally need to fill gaps in your understanding. The beginning trader typically only has about 3 really (seemingly) ‘stupid‘ questions. Ask them. Get it over with. The rest of things are easy to access and learn. You don’t need no fkn ‘education’ in it. On the ‘sychological’ front, that means studying the opportunities and limitations of your own neurological and temperamental tendencies, your sympathetic and parasympathetic balance and tendencies, your own limbic system, and the degrees to which you are susceptible to each trading ‘bias’ (see Daniel Kahneman, etc.)..., your desires and what you do with them, etc. etc. It takes deep self-study. Reading about, taking courses, or even getting degrees in psychology won’t help you a fkn bit. On the methods front, that means getting in the cockpit and getting real experience with real money so you will actually learn what methods best suit your true nature. Do that before any outside training. Once you have almost mastered your method then you will also know what exactly what you need to work on. Get sufficient experience in your own best method(s), then seek an expert in that method for further increases in leverage. With trading educators there is no transference of ability or capacity. As I’ve said many times now, a teacher can never really teach you his method because there is simply too much differences between your perceptual maps and cognitive processes and his. He will be unconsciously competent at things that he will never be able to ‘share’ with you, etc etc. Wycoff could not teach you wycoff, etc. Their students can certainly not teach you wycoff, elliot, whoever. etc. Trust serendipity / synchronicity -"when the student is ready, the teacher will appear". ‘Education’ becomes a useless relic. The ‘voice of trading’ IS trading education that says you need to move more and more into just running scripts instead of ‘playing’ at trading ‘creatively’ . If you think you’re the special exception that can pull off changing yourself to match up with a ‘system’, which likely you do if you’re reading this, go for it - odds be damned. Fail forward as fast as you can. Maybe then you’ll realize you need to get beyond ‘education’. Maybe it will dawn on you that the ‘voice of trading’ has vast areas that nothing is allowed to be spoken about. But, YOU need not to wait until old ‘voice of trading’ deteriorates completely and new media, etc. emerges. Sorry I don’t have time to be queer this up or make it gender indeterminate for our precious ‘student’ snowflakes... or to be very respectful. Bluntly - if you have to be ‘educated’, you’re not ready to trade.

a single 100 car turn with a limit order in the ES does virtually nothing... try it multiple 100 car trades within a second or two sometimes 'causes' a tiny micro stir ... but never to the point of "consequently eating into his own profits" ... and if is trading at that size, you would always be thinking 'avg position' anyways ie rarely clicking it all in at a single price level

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

First of all I am not an amateur, having obtained an education in this area... The idea that people "engage" in self destructive behaviors is (as with most things that people post here) is misleading....generally people simple LET events overtake them, OR they are unwilling to accept responsibility for behaviors that produce a negative result, because they are too lazy (pure and simple)..to do the hard work of correcting themselves... The fact is that life in general is a struggle, and those of us who have made it to adulthood figure it out at the appropriate time (late teens, early 20's) and adopt an adult appropriate view of the world. The rest fall along a continuum where they may or may not possess a realistic adult view of the world, AND as a result of that immature world view, they believe (wholeheartedly) that the world "owes them" certain things.....then "when not if" the world doesn't cooperate" its NOT their fault....ITS EVERYONE ELSE..... Although its not politically correct, I believe these folks should get a brisk kick in the ass (or perhaps join the military and have someone else apply a "brisk kick in the ass" to them) until they "get it".... The subject is near and dear to my heart because sites like this one attract adult children like magnets (all asking the same questions over and over)...."why do so many traders (fill in the space) blah blah blah... And for the person who suggests that "all animals" do this....ah no....you see in the animal kingdom, "engaging" in self destructive behavior results in their DESTRUCTION.....there is an Darwinian process that prevents that kind of behavior from continuing along a genetic line.

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

Here it is: The Richard D. Wykcoff Method of Trading in Stocks: Division 2: A Course of Instruction in Tape Reading and Active Trading Tape Reading and Active Trading.pdf

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.

Traders lose primarily because the primitive part of the brain is wired to avoid loss and the primitive brain makes all the decisions. Once we incur a loss trading, we try to recoup the loss. This usually means riding the loss down to greater losses until the pain gets too great. Then we bail at a huge loss, with a lot of emotional pain. This loss is burned in our memory and subconsciously we we start trying to get the money we lost back. Let's be clear. This is occurring subconsciously. You are not aware it is happening. That is why you repeat the same behaviors, and lose over and over again even thought your higher brain know it is wrong. By the way, the higher brain will think of sort of excuses to justify the primitive brains actions. None of which are true. How do you counter this strong, unconscious force? First you need a plan. The first part of the the plan is cash management. You need goals based on the type of trading you are doing. You need strict loss stops above all, how much money you are willing to lose for the type of trading your are doing and if you hit it, you are DONE! The same go for profits. Once you reach you profit goal, never, never lose it. You can keep riding the the profit train in the market let's you but if it reverses and returns to your min profit level, you are OUT! Once you have experience in the market, you can alter the latter part by taking partial profits and increasing your position size for really obscene profits but never, never violate your daily loss rule. Never. Keep a log and study it. You will find the best ratio of win to lost based on your trading style. Why is the stop amount so important other than the obvious? Because starting out, you are likely going have more losing trades than winners. But you can still make money: Say you set a stop at $100 and it cost $2.00per buy and sell and the slippage is $.01/share and you profit goal is 4 times your loss amt. This means you could lose 3 times for every win. A 75% loss rate in trades. After 3 losses, you will have lost $312 + the slippage. That amount is based on the number of shares. Let's say it is 300 shares. so the slippage is $3. So your total loss is $315. The next trade in profitable, so you gain $396. You have profit of $81. If you do this every day, your profit is $405/wk. Couldn't live on this amount in America, but by increasing the amount, you can get to the point you could. But the best way is getting a win / loss ratio greater than one. Then you really make money. The only way to do this is accumulating trading time. If you could get to 3 wins for every loss, then your gain per day is 873 or $4365/wk. You could live on that! Note: this would be a very good winning ratio and depends on the stocks you trade and the type of trader you are. The fist part of your plan is cash management. The next is a plan of when to buy, when to sell, when to take profit, when to increase your position size. Is there one better than another? Yes, depending on the type of trader you are and the market. Also different plans are needed in different market phases. But every plan fails if you don't relentlessly stick to it. Never vary, never vary, never vary. You can alter your plan when you are not trading, but while you are trading, sick to it. Is there a fool proof trading method? No. If there was, that method would soon get all the profit in the market and everyone would use it, resulting in it's failure as the rules would now have changed. Anyway, if you had a system, would you let anyone know about it? Not likely! At best, you could come up with something that work for the market conditions at that moment but would fail when the conditions change. "The market is always the same, the market is aways changing." There are plenty of adaptive black box systems that supposedly are using fuzzy logic and neural programming. From what I know, their ratio is 35% winners, 65% losers. And they make money hand over fist because they have strict rules and they never vary from them.

How many Psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?................... One. But the light bulb has to really want to change.

davey, It is very important that you focus on building your account before even considering taking any money out. Trading full time on a $10,000 account just wont cut it. You can start with a small account but you need to leave the profits alone. Pulling money out right away will just lead to you spinning your wheels. How much money you pull out and when you do it depends on your lifestyle. Keep in mind there are fees when you pull the money out so you don't really want to be doing this too often. I have found it best to start with a budget for yourself. This way once you have built your account size up to make a living off you can pull the minimum amount out monthly/quarterly to cover expenses. The budget will also help you guage when it's possible to trade full time for a living. You should make sure you can make money for an extended period of time before you consider going at this for a living. Making money for 2 months in a row will not guarantee future success. You could run into weeks or even months where you don't make any money. Hopefully you are using a system that doesn't let this happen very often but it is possible. You have to make sure you are able to ride these times out. traderwill gave you some great advice. Having a successful system in place is very important. I would also recommend getting that budget in place so you know what you need to make in oder to cover expenses. From there you will be able to schedule your withdrawals.

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).

Regarding MT4---I am not aware that volume information reported in MT4 is truly accurate or valid. I know for currencies that the volume in MT4 is only the volume reported by each individual broker, thus it is not really an accurate representation of what is really happening. There are many forum posts that talk about this issue of forex and volume... Since this indicator needs an accurate volume picture, I'm not sure that porting this to MT4 is the best idea unless you know that the volume in the MT4 feed is truly accurate... Best, David

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.

In 2002, Paul Desmond won the 2002 Charles H. Dow Award for his work in identifying market bottoms and new bull markets. Since this work nicely supports Wyckoff's hypotheses regarding selling climaxes, technical rallies, and "secondary reactions", or tests, I've posted Desmond's study below in pdf form. I've also excerpted several points which are particularly pertinent to Wyckoff's aforementioned hypotheses and which will act as an introduction to the study. Please note that all bolding is mine. To spot an important market bottom, almost as it is happening, requires a close examination of the forces of supply and demand – the buying and selling that takes place during the decline to the market low - as well as during the subsequent reversal point. Important market bottoms are preceded by, and result from, important market declines. And, important market declines are, for the most part, a study in the extremes of human emotion. The intensity of their emotions can be statistically measured through their purchases and sales. [P]anic selling must be measured in terms of intensity, rather than just activity. It is essential to recognize that days of panic selling [in which Downside Volume equaled 90.0% or more of the total of Upside Volume plus Downside Volume, and Points Lost equaled 90.0% or more of the total of Points Gained plus Points Lost] cannot, by themselves, produce a market reversal, any more than simply lowering the sale price on a house will suddenly produce an enthusiastic buyer. As the Law of Supply and Demand would emphasize, it takes strong Demand, not just a reduction in Supply, to cause prices to rise substantially....These two events – panic selling (one or more 90% Downside Days) and panic buying (a 90% Upside Day...) – produce very powerful probabilities that a major trend reversal has begun…. Not all of these combination patterns – 90% Down and 90% Up – have occurred at major market bottoms. But, by observing the occurrence of 90% Days, investors have (1) been able to avoid buying too soon in a rapidly declining market, and (2) been able to identify many major turning points in their very early stages – usually far faster than with other forms of fundamental or technical trend analysis. Impressive, big-volume “snap-back” [technical] rallies lasting from two to seven days commonly follow quickly after 90% Downside Days, and can be very advantageous for nimble traders. But, as a general rule, longerterm investors should not be in a hurry to buy back into a market containing multiple 90% Downside Days, and should probably view snapback rallies as opportunities to move to a more defensive position. The following is of course a chart of the Nasdaq over the past few months up through yesterday and is intended as an example. The calculations are not guaranteed to be accurate. Anyone caring to verify them and point out any errors is welcome to do so. Readers are encouraged to read the study in its entirety. 2002DowAward.pdf

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

It really depends on the persons passion for the markets. One year is definitely not the norm. Your friend has done an amazing job in just one year. It took me 2 years of intense studying and trading to get to where I am. I was quite a journey. I would say on average it takes 2-3 years before one can start trading for a living. This is just my opinion, I am sure some may find me a slow learner.