Trading Buddy

[Trading Buddy]

Hi,

 

I'm very curious about what do you mean by "ignoring your stops". You saying you sometimes trade without a stop when you should be trading with a stop or saying you have been removing stops?

 

Also, a trading buddy for discipline reasons is a very bad idea and usually doesn't work unless you resolve the reason why you're not discipline. For example, most discipline problems is related to something that doesn't involve trading.

 

Instead, you should detail your entire personal schedule that occurs prior to trading, during trading and after trading that includes location of trading, details of the trading environment, capitalization, trading instruments, decision making process et cetera.

 

Sort'uv like an in-depth diary of everything you do in the day that's none trading related and related to your trading from the moment you get up out of bed to the moment you go to bed. Have it all written down.

 

Next, to find someone, first only mention your city location, type of trading you do, examples of recent trades and what you offer in exchange. My point is that if you want to fix your discipline problems...it can only be done in person because nobody can enforce you to follow your trading plan via online especially when they have no clues to what's causing your discipline problems.

 

By the way, I've been through what you're going through and eventually I had 3 trading buddies. We rented an office space (big warehouse apartment) and setup shop. I day traded, another guy swing traded and the other did a little of everything. We only took trades from the warehouse office...not from home nor from work. We quickly learned that our trading problems had nothing to do with trading...it was the baggage we brought from our personal life into our trading...stuff that the other trading buddies was able to see...stuff you wouldn't be able to see if we were online trading pals. I did this office trading for several years until I was able to learn more about myself as my personal life clashed with my trading. Took several years to resolve and when I did...my trading made big leaps in profit levels.

 

Traderslaboratory should have an section called "Hook Up" so that traders can find others in or nearby to their city to arrange meetings. This allows for you to meet others going through similar problems, others that have resolved similar problems along with finding trading pals. Yet, when I had that office warehouse space...I met my trading pals through a TradeStation user group meeting (at that time it was called Omega Research). Thus, there's many ways to meet trading pals, you could meet others using the same charting program, same broker, local investment/trading clubs, trade shows in nearby cities et cetera.

 

Great idea....!!!! Is the moderator listening:-)

[Spread Betting a Scam]

I've spread bet profitably (albeit in a small account) for over 6 months now with IG Index. I choose them because they are a FTSE 250 company so "should" be fairly safe and respectable. Their spreads are very similar to most US FX broker who are market markers, 2pips on eurusd and 3 pips on gbp-usd.

 

So for scalping I think they are a bad choice but for swing trading they are fine. The other point is that the UK government classes SB as gambling so your profits are Tax free but you can't offset your losses against your tax liability.

 

I'm only guessing here, but I think why they may have a poor reputation is that because you can open an account with a very small deposit. This leads to newbies practicing little or no money management and after a few trades the initial funding is lost. If you had to open an account with say £5000 min you would be inclined to take it more seriously. This is why though I can agree and understand the oft quoted "do not trade with money you can't afford to lose" when its applied to very small accounts this can lead to risk taking, as if you do lose, its no big deal.

 

Someone else has mentioned prospreads as they hedge all your positions but you need to at this stage trade in standard lots, but no bad thing perhaps in the long run. They have DOM and add a small markup spread to the actual market spread instead of charging a commission.

 

Personally I have just recently moved away from spread betting and opened a ECN account with MB Trading in the US as I felt uneasy with the market making aspect of SB. But horses for courses and all that;-)

[Is Spot and Futures FX Prices the Same]

Hi ScottB, Thanks for all the broker info. I have been trading for a few years but using FX spot and spread betting. I'm just beginning to emerge after a long learning phase to being consistently profitable, albeit with a small fraction of my available trading capital. I see no point in adding funds until I can justify this by my results. Thankfully this is beginning to happen, but I'm a conservative trader and will manage my risk closely (i.e Max 1% of capital per trade).

 

I use price action with no indicators and look for S&R and supply demand imbalances. But a major part is trying to find other traders in areas of stress or greed (i. e. trapped traders) and gain by their stops being triggered and joining that order flow. All of this has been developed from the ingredients of James16 (paid for forum) + Sam Seiden's Supply / Demand imbalance teachings and most of all (by far) Lance Beggs at Your Trading Coach Lance has been very very helpful and his new ebook is the best I've read.

 

Anyhow, I've been reading Tom Williams "Master of the Markets" ( 3 times) and feel the addition of volume could be a help, but I'll add it slowly as I get familiar to the different nuances. The Wyckoff forum has been a great help as well. This is where the Futures FX come into play with its volume.

 

I had a quick glance at Velocity Futures and it looks good. Do you or did you use their X_Trader V 7 platform? I wonder how it compares to Ninjatrader? I had heard positive feedback from OpenCry as well. More to ponder:)

[Is Spot and Futures FX Prices the Same]

silverpuma,

 

The 6E (EC on TradeStation) or any CME futures contract has the exact same spread regardless of the broker. With the FX cash (which MB Trading also has), ECN spreads are determined by the participants and with a FX cash account with a non-ECN broker, are set by the broker.

 

 

Thanks ScottB for this help. So in the CME FX Futures my only decision is choosing the broker with the mix of financial stability, tight commission charges, fast and reliable execution and a good trading platform.

 

Any suugesstions?

 

My initial thoughts are an IB account using Ninjatrader as my charting package, but I'm a complete newbie to the Futures side of things . Looking forward to hearing your and others suggestions..................its all appreciated......

[Is Spot and Futures FX Prices the Same]

Hi all, I need some help. I bit of a basic question but one I've been pondering for a day or two.

 

Realising that the spread fluctuates constantly I have the following question.

 

I have a small account with MB Trading and since they are a ECN broker I get the market spread and pay $5.90 comms on each full std lot round trip. For example today the eur/usd was around 0.8 - 1.2 pips of a spread. But say I had a Interactive Broker account and was trading the FX futures from CME again on the eur/usd (I think its called 6E but that not important for now) would the spread be exactly the same on the 6E fluctuating in step with MB Tradings spread.

 

Maybe an easier way to say what I mean, does all spot forex ECN broker always give the same spread as a FX Futures broker are they standardised? Or to say it another way, will all good ECN brokers that work with commissions have the same fluctuating spread and all Futures FX brokers going through CME give the same fluctuating spread. o if had a IB FX futures account and a MB Trading account running simultaneously they would show the same fluctuating spread virtually all the time/

 

Better stop now as I'm starting to confuse myself;)

 

I think I made this sound more comlicated than it probably is......!!!!! :crap: Thanks in advance for any help........

[Newbie to VSA Which Market is Best to Begin With?]

Thanks VolumeJedi, Sorry for the slow reply but I must have missed clicking on the instant reply to my forum question, hence only seeing your reply tonight.

 

I must check out the volume on Forex.

 

Once again thanks, its apprecited!!

[Newbie to VSA Which Market is Best to Begin With?]

Hi all, Great website and after many months of reading, learning, pondering and searching I think I have found a home:-) I'll not go into details here, I leave that for the "introduce yourself" section, suffice to say I've read Mastering the Markets Twice by Tom William's, his other book The Undeclared Secrets.... and enough articles from this site to use 3 full injet cartridges

 

I'm still and will always be still learning but I need some guidance on this aspect. To begin testing out my new way of trading and thinking using volume/VSA what markets are best that reflect or seem to work best with VSA?

 

I had though about major US stocks that would constantly be attracting the Smart Monies attention. What do you think and have you any stocks I should consider?

 

Does the futures market work well with VSA i.e; e-mini's?

 

I had discounted Forex as not being sold through exchanges I thought there was no way of getting usable volume on m,y chart for VSA analysis. But I see lots of the examples used in the VSA Summary Part 1 uses Forex as the instrument. How do I get volume for Forex and is it accurate for using VSA? Which data feeds do I need for the Forex volume and do I need any code for my Tradestaion platform that would help me use VSA on Forex or any other market?

 

I know there is a lot of questions here so please be patient with this slow learner!! Mmmmmh, I think its all your fault anyway giving me sooooo much great info that I'm overflowing with questions...ha ha....

 

Any advice or help would be really appreciated.

 

Take care,

 

George