dwt

Care to expand a bit upon "my system"? Thanks. dwt

A couple quick questions, then: I assume you mean 12/3, not Tuesday, 12/4 By "Monday" do you mean 5:00 PM ET Sunday evening? or 12:01 ET Monday morning? Thanks in advance. dwt

No worries. I'll stick with what I have. Thanks. dwt

I managed to get the account set up and enter the contest before spotting Obsidian's suggestion at post #348. Does anyone know a way to go back now and set up that MT4 sub-account without getting kicked out of the contest? Also, there was a debate last month over whether to allow 20% or 30% drawdown. How was this resolved? Is it drawdown from initial equity, or DD from peak? (or some other measure?) Is breaking DD the only way you can be bounced from the contest Thanks in advance. dwt

OK, I'm in (if you'll have me). How 'bout restating the rules, just for the record? Thanks. dwt

While it's admittedly a different form of contest, and on a different (if not competing) site, you might also consider surfing over to 100 Fold Challenge -> Interested? TEST yourself @ Forex Factory and having a look at the 100 fold challenge. I note that they provide a mechanism there for having your trades monitored and their results compared to those of others. Just a thought... Regards. dwt

I don't know if you've yet read Brent Penfold's "Universal Principles of Successful Trading". If not I recommend it. His law of "maximum adversity" sounds particularly like your last statement. dwt

Thanks, Ingot for opening an interesting thread. With a few specific exceptions, most of what we're all telling one another here comes down to one word (IMHO) -- FOCUS We all began knowing little and realizing how little we knew we all ranged all over the map, from long to short term, indicators to none, this guru and that -- or ebook -- or DVD -- or webinar, ad nauseum. Perhaps Henry David Thoreau said it best. "A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to leave alone." I'd bet that none of us began to succeed until he discarded most of that baggage, and just focused on a couple symbols, one or two indicators, only a couple timeframes, etc. I'm working hard to do less this year: be better rested, watch fewer charts for less time. Remind myself that I'm paid for performance, not by the hour. FOCUS, then let go. Regards. dwt

Greetings: If you right click in the T&S window and select Properties, you can set the "Block Alert trade size" parameter to any value you choose. Note that there's also a "Size filter" param that let's you ignore any trade smaller than whatever value you set. Regards. dwt

Your "don't want to paper trade" comment seems curious. If nothing else you DO want to paper trade to learn the ins and outs of whatever platform you choose. That said, stock day trading is clearly out, and you're on the ragged edge trading futures, just based upon the % of your account risked on each 1 lot trade with a reasonable stop. FX, OTOH, offers you trading in much smaller increments. With a micro account you could trade as little as $1k US at a time. I'd suggest you have a look at the FXCM proprietary platform and FXDD for MT4. Both appear to be solid firms, both offer micro accounts, both have excellent (though quite different) trading education programs, and either would welcome a $5k account, as it's 20x the minimum balance. Good luck! dwt

Count me interested. A FX dealer gave me $50 US to open an account, so I have $0 invested. Let's see now: @ 5% return / day my $50 would grow to $1M in only 203 days. Guess I better get busy. dwt

Attila, What a find! Thanks for citing this. I'm going to try to read a couple of these a day until I catch up. Regards. dwt

Not to highjack your thread, but after trying several brokers' platforms, I've yet to stumble upon any that combine robust operation and useful features. The only platform that both works consistently AND provides lots of useful features AND good charting (IMHO) is NinjaTrader -- and no, I'm not a shill for them. But they're just a platform, relying on someone else's data feed, spreads, and back office. Anyone out there have a combination of broker / platform that works reliably (as in, doesn't crash if internet is disconnected briefly) and can put on a trade with pre-programmed lot size, and with OCO stop and profit target in under 4 mouse clicks and no typing? Thanks in advance. dwt

And just to add insult to injury, it's always sooooooo bloody obvious in retrospect, isn't it?

I just ran across a promotion from CMS Forex: Open an account (with none of your own money) and they'll deposit $50US in it. Thales, I think you have a great thing going here (and I'll enter soon), but wouldn't it be the coolest to imagine a contest where everyone starts with literally nothing and races to some real goal? Regards. dwt PS. I'm in no way affiliated with CMS...