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robertm

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Posts posted by robertm

  1. Posted

    Just curious how many of you trade or don't trade FOMC day. I personally avoid it and take the day off. Seems like the only good times (ie normal price action times) to trade are the first half hour and the last 45 minutes and I'd just rather not mess with it.

     

    What about you guys?

     

    FX markets still move nicely during Euro session, I take the US session off though, it's my night out every 6 weeks :-D

  3. Posted

    It's not fraud to short something that is wildly and foolishly overvalued - no matter how big you are. It shows that someone there was thinking.

     

    I would like a way to short the Aussie housing market. It and NZ are about the only two left fully puffed from pre-crisis borrowing binges. Next year when the Govt Buying bounces have run out and the Chinese sit on their mineral stockpiles for the negotiations things are going to be pretty interesting down here. A leveraged short on housing would be a much more interesting bet than one on the Melbourne Cup :)

     

    There are 18M homes in the US sitting empty though, compared to a shortage still in Aus. Also you'd imagine a population of 22M is easier to expand than one that is dealing with over 10M illegals already running around the countryside.

     

    Aus is bloody expensive now though, seems very overpriced of late & everybody seems to be enjoying the "good life" (Thankyou Asia/India :) )

  4. Posted

    Do forums make everybody act like someone with Asperger's syndrome?

     

    People with Asperger syndrome can find it harder to read the signals that most of us take for granted. This means they find it more difficult to communicate and interact with others which can lead to high levels of anxiety and confusion.

     

    Good point. I tend to go for over use of emoticons, as depending on the frame of mind of the reader in that moment it's easy to pick a viewpoint and miss the intended point entirely. :)

  6. Posted

    During "normal" conditions you can usually find a tick range that will be very similar to a timed chart (ie, match 5M), giving you the same flow of the market, but smoothing out the surges in price action to make them tradable.

     

    (that's not really a reply just an observation, sharing is caring :-) )

  7. Posted

    I want to thank you very much for letting me and others know I have "some defect of character." I must say, I really appreciate that. Thank you so much!

     

    In fact, I think so highly of this kindness you have offered, that I have put it under my name up above. I am so proud I can hardly sit still!!

     

    I found the perfect emoticon for where this thread ended up

     

    :offtopic:

     

    :rofl:

  8. Posted

     

    Sim trading doesn't teach you how to control the emotional side of trading.

     

    If you do it right, it will. Why would pro athletes practice in sim every day? No cheering crowds of fans or opponents. No athlete would be daft to step onto the playing fields without beaucoup sim. It is good this mindset doesn't qualify airline pilots!

     

    If you are causual and undisciplined in your approach to sim, you won't learn the emotional side. If you are causal and undisciplined in your appraoch to live trading, you won't ever learn the emotional side, either.

     

    Pro Athletes are a rare few with a natural talent and usually require a Coach/Mentor to keep them operating within defined rules. It's a little different to wandering down to the park and kicking a ball around each day dreaming you are <insert your national sport superstar here>. No matter how much practice some people do, they are just not cut out to be a Pro Athlete, and until they step up to play the game in the thick of the action they will never know if they can handle the stresses it implies.

     

    If Sim trading helps people learn the rules of the game that's fine, but if they think they can step out of a simulator and into a real F1 car and not crash and burn, well..........

     

    As for airline pilots, if they start relying on forums and books to learn how to fly we are all in trouble :rofl:, the fact they sit beside a Mentor and are told to watch & learn probably helps just a bit.....

     

    (yes I stuffed up that quote code but it's close enough)

  10. Posted

    If you're just picking out support and resistance wouldn't it be better to use time charts rather than tick or volume charts? Why:

    - if the time is approx same as v or t then same swings show up

    - time is invariant if you use channels or trendlines

    - you can read volume at the swings for any advantage that might give you

     

    Agreed.

     

    From a macro point of view timed charts also allow you to run a volatility filter over the market (such as ATR) which will not react as it should on tick/range bars as it is a forcing the market into a defined window.

     

    At the end of the day record what you see & it will give you the answer. Was the trade with the x Minute trend? Was it with the Daily trend? And also how you determine what is trend (above/below MA, S/R line, time frame etc)

  11. Posted

    I see where you are going w/ that. If you just want to open a $500 account and see what happens, have at it.

     

    But long term, I would stick w/ futures. To start, they are regulated and there's no bucketshops. To me, if your broker not only makes a commission (it's called a spread in the fx world even though they advertise as commission free) but also can work trades against you all the while he gets to tell you what the prices are... seems like a losing battle to me.

     

    I'm a futures guy through and through b/c of the transparency and regulation. I don't have to wonder if OEC is taking the opposite side of my trade to make even more money off me. They make their commission and that's it.

     

    Regardless of which instrument is "best", spot FX or Futures, the simplicity and low risk of a Spot account is a good place to start. If a strategy doesn't work on spot FX moving to trading FX Futures or FX Options probably isn't going to fix it in most cases.

     

    Just avoid all the crappy little FX start up brokers offering you bonuses & go with one of the bigger players. Why so many FX brokers need to exist in what is mostly a virtual trading world is quite beyond me (well it's not, it's because it's an easy way to make a buck for them). Like all industries there will be a huge consolidation at some point in the future.

  12. Posted

    Exactly, that's why I still haven't pulled the trigger.

     

    I've been suffering chronic DCs in the fast few days using their demo account. It's been fine for the past several months at my apartment though. Maybe it's my home connection? I don't know. I remember it used to be like this (but not as bad) a year ago at my home connection as well.

     

    However I have noticed that Infinity's datafeed has never frozen for me, so I might go with them instead. BUT their commissions are about 3 times as expensive :(

     

    I'm also looking at AMP and Mirus but I don't really like NT for some reason. Maybe because I've had so much trouble trying to get demo accounts running on it.

     

    Cheap commissions don't mean much if you can't execute your system correctly :-), you'll lose far more than what you are saving on the round turns. :missy:

  13. Posted

    I've read (OK listed, audio books rock but don't come with charts so aren't much good for trading texts) Gladwell's Tipping Point, yet to get to his others, I like his stuff though.

     

    I run across the occasional Steenbarger article/webcast, definitely on the ball. I'll hunt around for more info on the Maps, just interested to see how he structured it. I love mind maps, I use Mindjet every day.

     

    I hear you & concur on Sim, it's good for working out the ins and outs of a new platform or instrument, but for collecting results it's pretty useless. Risk just enough to care about the result and you get instant hip pocket feedback.

  15. Posted

    Hmm, Entertainingly after having lurked this place and others silently for quite some time. Here is where the urge to post something arises.

     

    Maybe it will take root in ears that hear.

     

    There's supposedly a statistic that 95% of traders lose money. Wouldn't it be sane to apply that same factor to what you hear coming out of all sources (books, mentors, youtube showmen, forum posters loved by many, etc..) who are eager to 'help' you? Meaning 95% of them either sincerely don't know their head from their hind quarters (yet teaching authoritatively) or are intentionally being deceptive con men for whatever their reasons.

     

    Spot on. The best trading mentors I know do the least seminars (such as one or two a year) and are almost impossible to find beyond word of mouth & referrals. There is a reason for this - they don't need to teach to make a $$ because they actually know how to trade. If they have the knack for educating and offer their services then grab them when you get the chance.

     

    You need to get your teeth into the ideas first though, so read a few books, some forum posts, play around with a demo account then a very low risk live account. After that you will have an idea what you want out of trading, how to spot the scams, and who is worth paying attention to & pursuing as a mentor :-)

     

    And never ever believe a single "result" you see posted promoting somebodies trading education prowess, speak to their students, and make sure they have at least 3 years experience under that mentor, everybody loves to record "testimonials" when the market is running hot ("I made 100,000 on my first ever options trade, XYZ is a genius educator", mmmmmmmm, sure he is).

     

    :2c:

  16. Posted

    Hi Larry,

     

    I'm in one of the new condo's off P Ramlee, nice and convenient, albeit a little noisy at times (I just have to open a window and it's like having my own private DJ Thurs-Sat). Over a year in KL now, it's my little slice of trading heaven (now that the internet is getting better).

     

    We usually pick a cafe or something here in the Triangle as it's easy for people to get to, or when there are expo's/seminars we all head along for a giggle and to talk shop with other traders.

     

    Message me your e-mail if you like and I'll let you know when we get together next :-), if it's OK with the Mods I'll post the event here each time as well perhaps??

     

    Rob.

  17. Posted

    Hi all,

     

    Inspired by the Singapore thread I'm putting a call out to any other KL based traders. A group of us catch up to talk crap about trading from time to time, usually on a weekend in the KLCC area. It's totally informal and a great way to share gossip and toss around ideas.

     

    If anybody is interested reply here or PM me!!

     

    Rob M. :)

  19. Posted

    Relax, Tams - do you know Ed to say that?

     

    Tams was just making sure he made his 3.54 posts per day quota :rofl:

     

    Seriously though, chill dude, 99% of all trading materials on the web are scams, we just have to be educated enough to pick out the good bits and put it in our plan, just because they interpret something one way doesn't mean we can't do it a better way ;)

  20. Posted

    Almost every day the extreme you would most like to trade is established during overnight trading.

     

    Last night at 0400 PST there was strong coordinated selling across all three US Equity Futures as you can see in the chart below.

     

    The second chart bleow shows an overlay of the nite session in red and the day session in blue. Notice how on most days the most desirable trade location for the session is shown in red which means it happened BEFORE the open of the day session.

     

    You can split some days into two different sessions. If you get a strong move in the pre-market (European session), you often just get sideways action in the cash session, and visa versa. If you only trade the cash sessions it's worth noting this as if you're already at the highs based on average daily range, there probably isn't much more to come unless a reversal occurs.

     

    Using the European/night/pre-market session to get set and letting the momentum of the day session sweep through your profit targets is another option, but again the range needs to be considered if you are wanting to be out later that same day, and news announcements often get in the way whipping price around too much, so pick your days carefully :), and do plenty of backtesting!

  22. Posted

    Hello,

     

    Does anyone trade forex options ? If so can you suggest a good broker ?

     

    Also does anyone know if European style expiry options are avaiable anywhere on FX spot. Thank you in advance for any guidance

     

    Is there are reason you want to trade them over spot instead of the CME FX futures?

     

    http://www.vfmarkets.com/pdfs/euro_fx_options_br.pdf (I've never heard of this broker it's just a google hit, CME brokers would offer them).

  23. Posted

    So you are saying that someone should rather trade the US futures during night time in the US instead of the asian markets during their regular trading hours? So all the people creating all that volume on the asian markets during Asian regular trading hours should stop wasting their time and start trading the dead nightly US markets with its thin volume during that time?

     

    As I said, that is my dead time for trading (US night), no volume or moves you can really play until Europe opens (about 10:30 Pacific time, as this thread is discussing).

     

    There will always be a market to trade, that doesn't mean it's the best place to be risking your capital. "high frequency" traders in Asia are trading FX or Indices in the Europe/US timeframe for the most part. I'm fortunate that I can travel/trade anywhere in the world, and I've done it on all the big continents now, what sessions you trade is a function of who you are.

     

    I moved to Miami to focus on S&P's, but then had to get up at 2am to catch the European session, and I'm NOT a morning person, thus i moved to a timezone in Asia that suited my preference to roll out of bed at midday & catch the end of the Asian market, the European session, the start of the US session & the close of most Commods. Climate wise it's also perfect as i love the heat and don't notice the humidity (I'm in the constant summer part of Asia). A morning person would hate this though as they would miss whatever it is people do when I am fast asleep. I've been through the whole adapting short term trading around a work schedule etc, it sucks.

     

    Certainly there are active markets though, I trade several Asian markets, just not with high frequency short term systems as they are not as well suited to this as other markets. You can adapt a system over just about any instrument if you study it long enough to find your edge. The bigger issue is if that is the best use of your risk capital for the time/effort you put in and the returns it can generate.

     

    Frequency alone does not = profitability :2c: :missy:

  24. Posted

    Traders International

    Can anybody tell me about these people.

    Has anybody used them to learn ?

     

    I did the T.I. course/room years ago, along with many other courses, and have been involved in several other trading rooms and know many other traders that have gone down this same path.

     

    The biggest issue with trading "signal" rooms or somebody teaching you a specific system is it probably wont suite your trading psyche or style. Thus the claims of their "returns" are not worth considering, what you are looking for is the parts of what they teach which you can adapt to form your own system (as franandtaylor stated). I did adapt some of their ideas into tradable systems.

     

    As others stated their is nothing brilliant about thir system, it is very basic, and not worth the money they charge in my opinion. Their moderators change from time to time (or time of day) as well, so again one or another may not suite your trading style. I also wouldn't consider it a mentorship style course, it's not very personal as they are pumping through large numbers of people on a regular basis (the McDonalds of trading education, but with a four star price).

     

    There are far better courses out there for less money offering far more information than a focused single instrument solution (although they are on the FX train as well now, I haven't looked into this though).

     

    One of the biggest issues with trading is finding a mentor that you can relate to, and without having to pay huge ongoing fees for the privilege. :missy:

  25. Posted

    I think you are diverging into an area that nobody has treaded on before...

    it is very fascinating reading your discoveries.

    please tell us more.

     

    XAO today was a good example, 2% move reacting to US the previous night, but during the actual Asian session there wasn't much of that 2% you could get your hands on by the time you allow for setup, and a target or trailing stop. Of course there are always days outside of this but it's such a boring time of the day to sit in front of a screen. The US market rarely looks like this, far more volatile intraday allowing for the possibility to trade it.

     

    There's plenty of money to be made trading end of day strategies anyway, which is how I built my account to allow for more active trading free of a full time job (FX & Futures weren't so popular back then). Intraday is just far more engaging & entertaining :roll eyes:

    XAO.png.1fdf70f453104a2ac9004c5b0caed4e5.png

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