MightyMouse

Eagles fans need love.

Personally, I have committed to flawlessly trading my plan. Since the end of October, there is 1 instance of a trade that I would not have done if given a second chance; otherwise, every single other trade, winner or loser, I would do again if it presented itself. To deal with the emotions, I made myself aware of what my mind was going to begin to make me think under different circumstances. For example, if after i entered a trade, and price moved in my favor but didn't reach my target and began to come back to my entry, I used to panic. At first that panic would happen and I would be afraid that my trade, which was winning, was going to turn into a loser. I would generally get out of the trade right then. I learned that that behavior was just my mind trying to protect me from potential pain and that the danger that my mind was trying to protect me from existed only in my mind. So instead of reacting to the emotion by clicking the mouse taking myself out of the trade or moving my stop to BE, I released the need to react by taking deep breaths, walking around my office, etc. At this point I am nearly numb to my old typical reactions. It's probably similar to the way a kids gets used to sleeping in his room with the potential of a monster being in his closet.

I'm not quite sure why or how the need for trader discipline is debatable. Even if you have never traded, intuitively, you should know that being disciplined is going to make a huge difference. Somehow, somewhere in your life, you must have experienced or learned that the difference between successful execution of a plan and failed execution of a plan is the ability to execute the plan. No matter what you claim to be your "edge", you can only have one real edge and that is your ability take larger profits than you do losses and that takes an incredible amount of discipline/mental stability. Any other perceived "edge", will be quickly whisked away by the market when you start trading it.

Blowfish, What i mean by statistically significant is probably something different than what this jerry individual considers statistically significant. if you roll the dice, before you roll, there are exactly 36 possible outcomes. So if you are trying to roll dice for money, there is only 1 of 36 numbers you can roll. It's never the case that you think it's 36 but it's really 37, 40 or 400 or 5. So, in dice, you are able to use statistics to determine whether or not the payoff for winning is enough to overcome the odds you have take. Clearly, a casino makes sure that the payoff is in their favor. In trading, it is never the case that there are a fixed set of outcomes in the future. In the market statistics is a good way to measure the past, but that's about it.

Mac, I am assuming you are new to this. If your goal is to make money trading, your time will be best spent getting your head in the right place when you're in a live trade rather than slaving over trying to find the perfect indicator or method of trading. MP is as good as any other method of looking at the market. It will give you a disadvantage if you use it and don't trust it. So, if you don't trust it, stay away from it.

Well, there aren't any tools that offer long term statistical significance other than trading with inside information. The fact that something worked over the las 3 months or 3 years or 3 decades has no bearing on how it will work tomorrow. You do lose some info when the profile is collapsed against the price axis, but most MP packages allow you to expand the profile and you can view the bars again and still see the VA and POC.Try it, you might like it.

MP is a tool. There is nothing mystical or statistically significant about it. You can gain much of the same info from a bar chart. Don't expect any trading tool to solve your problems. Peace

That's probably as close to the real story as we'll ever get.

I am not 100% sure, and i don't feel like verifying it, but I think R. Dennis also lost a lot of money trading the same system when he decided to come out of retirement. Something to the tune of 8 figures. But, I could be totally wrong.

Wow, She is doing great! She's showing up a lot of the old folks on this thread. Bravo!

In 1988 I was a broke stockbroker and bought 30 expiring month SGP 45 calls for $.25 cents. I didn't have the 800 bucks to pay for the options so I borrowed the money from my father, figuring that I could take a cash advance on my CC to pay him back if it didn't work out. The next day the options opened higher and hit $2.75 and I balied. I subsequently ran ran that account with up to $30,000 net of withdrawals over the next 18 months trading options. Over that period of time, I was rarely wrong. If I did get the direction wrong initially, I would double up and get out at BE or if I was fortunate, at a profit. The monday before the wednesday/thursday that Sadam Hussaen went into Kuwait, I took a large position in Fannie mae sept 40 calls. FNM seemed to be oscilating between like 38 and 44. I had made great money on it before and this was going to be easy. If you recall the time, no one thought that lunatic would actually go into kuwait. Well, he did, and I took a nice hit on the initial position. I added, and added and took a beating. My 30K vaporized to less than 3000 by the end of Sept. 1990. I proceeded to lose the rest over the next couple of weeks attempting a hail mary pass. Lots and lots of lessons learned. Good times

Don't go through a broker. Get a NYC newspaper classified section. There are plenty of rentals that will only require x months of security deposit. Brokers get hired to screen. You can find reasonable rents up on the upper west side. I lved there for a spell. It's great when you master the subway system.

What exactly are you calling intuition? Do you wake up in the morning and think, "there is no way this market is going up?" Or, do you look at your charts, hear the news, and get a feel that there is no way the market can go up? IMO, one is intuition, the other is not.

You would have been doubly screwed if the system started to work the way it was supposed to work.

Tams, Silly response. Was referring to continuing this thread, not trading. If you care to let others make a claim and let it go unsubstantiated, go for it. I don't mean to threaten your fantasy with a dose of reality. Enjoy!

Spydertrader, Can you post or demonstrate from a historical perspective, the trades that the individual took over the 5 day period while you sat next to him to make $22,000 trading in the low volatility market trading this system? I assure you that I am not suggesting that you pulled that dollar amount out of thin air; instead, I simply would like to see how an individual could earn an amount that we would all love to be able to earn trading futures on a short term basis. It is your system, so I thought that you might post those trades to give those following the thread the encouragement to continue. Also, what was the contract size that the trader was trading? Thanks in advance, MM

Bunny, we are not supposed to post comments that are derogatory in nature. Please respect the wishes of the thread moderator. I will begin posting my trades next week. Doubtful anyone will learn from them. MM

Thales Stretching? If it looks like a duck, call it a duck. You made $90? I have no good reason to say you didn't. I have every reason to believe that you still get stopped out of long or short positions because as long as you are trading live, it doesn't matter what way you think or what size stop you take, you are not immune to losses. You can call it anything you want, but when you are stopped out, you are being taken advantage. The "predation" works in other ways. The market will present you will all the right information to take a position in the wrong direction. The only thing that makes sense is to get into the market in the wrong direction. When the market has captured enough of you taking positions in the wrong direction, it will quickly take your money from your pocket in the same way that a pimp shakes down one of his girls. Large traders who want to get in long routinely sell thousands of contracts to lure the market lower so they can go long at lower prices. This process makes the market look weak to those on the periphery. You can suggest that the above doesn’t happen to you anymore either if you like, but it happens to all of us. Think about a recent trade you took short in ES in September. I happened to be long for the very reason you were short. I was sure it was a bear trap and it was. I am not suggesting that I am smarter than you or that I am always on the right side of a trade or that I am always on the opposite side of your losing trades. That is far from the truth. Excuses aside, you were lured into thinking that the 1023 area was a good place to short. Once again, it happens to all of us. No one is immune. You were a victim of predation. If you are a small fish in the pond, you had better understand what “they” are doing. Thales, sorry, but, you stating that you used to think my way is downright condescending. MM

Thales, Wherever there is a herd of anything there are predators. Predation seems to have a negative connotation, but it is quite natural. In fact, we are all predators. Think about it. When you have a hamburger, a cow was slaughtered. Did that cow wander onto your hamburger or was it grazing somewhere and lured to an area to be massacred so that it could be sold at a grocery store? Do you eat only fish? Again, the fish did not wander onto your plate. It was lured into a net or onto a hook first. I am sure that no one wants to think of themselves as a predator, and most probably don’t actually engage in the act, but if you are paying someone to do it, you are guilty by association and predation is a part of your life. I guess one can feign innocence and say “gosh I didn’t know that a cow was going to be killed.” When the market moves as a whole as you described, it is at the same time moving in a million different directions at the same time it is moving as a whole. Is this true? Yes. It explains why neither you nor I have been long since 670 in ES. It also explains why neither you nor I shorted oil in the 140’s for a $100 gain. It explains a lot of things. Right now the market is trending in a direction, correct? Are you in it? The million directions that the market takes are traders being lured away from the trend by predators on a hook, in a net, or with oxygen being blasted into their brain. I am not suggesting in any way that predators determine or set the trend; they do not set the trend unless they accidentally begin the stampede. They only care to take advantage of the weak. Have you ever taken a position, say short, that was in the right direction and you got stopped out and it continued in the right direction? You can reason that your timing was off or whatever, but it was traders quicker than you, perceiving the fact that weak traders may have entered the market and these traders enter in the opposite direction to you and begin to probe for demand (buy stops) They get long and need buyers to sell their positions to, so they buy and offer out higher at the same time. If they find the buy stops it may continue to where your stop is if it is in the way. I am not implying that the predators know where your stop is or that they care. If your stop is to close to where they begin their predation, you can get hit. If it is not, then you will survive. Most people pick obvious places to put stops. S/R, trend lines, etc. and everyone knows where they are. This is a deliberate action to take weak traders out of their positions. Are they always successful? Does a lion always catch a gazelle? When they probe for buy stops and find that there aren’t enough, the reverse quickly and take a loss or probe for sell stops to tale their short positions from them at a gain if they identify that in their probe upward, other buyers may have entered and their sell stops must be nearby. I can give dozens of other examples, but I don’t think it’s necessary and I am certainly not trying to change your mind. This is what I categorically consider predation in the markets we trade. It happens every day if not every minute. They do not control the market by any means. They only pray on weak longs or shorts. And, a good surfer always checks the waters for sharks first. MM

Thales, I am curious, in your view, how do you explain a short squeeze or any other common forced liquidation traders take advantage of in the market? Do you believe these events happen? Isn't a trader taking advantage of another trader who is backed into a corner predatory? Or do you acknowledge that these events do exist and simply choose to not call it predatory and summarily refer to it as something else and if so, what do you refer to it as? Please note that I am not attacking your view, your ability to trade, or anything of a personal nature and I would greatly appreciate it if you refrained from the same if you choose to respond. MM

In ES? If you made anything today they made you earn it.

Silly rabbit. The comment about marriage was meant to be a joke about myself. There are plenty of traders who believe that traders are predatory. There are plenty who don't. If you read carefully, you will see that we are not supposed to post anything like this anymore.

Mike, You can profile currencies. It's the best way to get an idea of where the volume was traded in the currency. Can you make money with it on currencies? Nothing makes money for you.

You are correct. One certainly needs discipline, proper emotional release, (because one cannot control their emotions), patience, and confidence to succeed at the form of trading they do and each is personal. I think markets are predatory. I actually think trading is most like poker which I also think is predatory. In fact I think marriage can be predatory. See the pattern developing? But, you can think of it as a rose garden, playground, beach, etc. as long as it makes sense to you. It's just perspective.

I make a statemnt that it is dangerous for new traders to trade 6 markets. That was the point. I still stand by it. Which was a community spirited statement. How you get from that to me being bitter about not making money trading is some irrational leap. Your point, then has nothing to do with anything.