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SpearPointTrader
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Posts posted by SpearPointTrader
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One of their highlights is the auto trading. I'm currently checking this out. You just need to have a stable internet connection here though.
One of the benefits with a black box running the managed futures account for the broker, is that the client does not even need an internet connection. Their account is run by the box on the broker's side. It's completely hands free for the client.
Futures & Commodities trading is High Risk due to highly leverage markets.
THE RISK OF LOSS IN TRADING COMMODITIES CAN BE SUBSTANTIAL.
THE HIGH DEGREE OF LEVERAGE THAT IS OFTEN ATTAINABLE IN COMMODITY TRADING CAN WORK FOR YOU, AS WELL AS AGAINST YOU.
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NOT NECESSARILY INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS
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Well are you mister know-it-all. Regardless, what's your point into users profitability? Which it pretty high with zulutrade. Have you tried the platform, I do you have a live account? or you are simply bouncing back and forth comments?I don't really have a point into user's profitability, so far as Zulutrade goes. Just commenting that true black boxes work very well. The firm I work for runs the managed futures accounts with them.
As for trying Zulu, no, I have not tried it. I do have an account, however it is a self directed account that uses QST as the user interface/charting platform.
As for my comments, I am mostly just chit chatting back and forth here.
Futures & Commodities trading is High Risk due to highly leverage markets.
THE RISK OF LOSS IN TRADING COMMODITIES CAN BE SUBSTANTIAL.
THE HIGH DEGREE OF LEVERAGE THAT IS OFTEN ATTAINABLE IN COMMODITY TRADING CAN WORK FOR YOU, AS WELL AS AGAINST YOU.
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NOT NECESSARILY INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS
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Well, it is not exactly a blackbox, you have all the trading history with the traders so you can based your decision to follow or not, based on the executed trades.You can also backtest their performance and simulate what is there to come. I dunno about other auto-copy platforms, but at least these are how trading works on zulutrade.You have that with black boxes as well. All of that is the same. It has to be published as the trading record of the CTA overseeing the black box.
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Maybe I am reading this all wrong, but to me "Auto Trading" is like a black box. You plug it in, and it does all the trading for you. It enters, sets stops and targets, and exits all on it's own.
The brokerage I work at uses these successfully to run the managed futures program. We don't do anything but plug the client's account into the system, and it day trades on it's own, completely autonomously.
Futures & Commodities trading is High Risk due to highly leverage markets.
THE RISK OF LOSS IN TRADING COMMODITIES CAN BE SUBSTANTIAL.
THE HIGH DEGREE OF LEVERAGE THAT IS OFTEN ATTAINABLE IN COMMODITY TRADING CAN WORK FOR YOU, AS WELL AS AGAINST YOU.
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NOT NECESSARILY INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS
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Why not forward test with real money ?Well, because if you don't have a tested, prove system, and you just jump in with real money you are far more likely to lose everything you have trying to develop a system, than not.
Back testing works. However, that said one needs to understand the context. For example, back testing, especially in manual systems, cannot test the entry on an evolving bar.
If you have a trading idea, you need to understand the progression.
1. come up with an idea.
2. Back test it.
3. Now, *IF* it is working in back testing, the next step is to use a simulated account with real time data to test it over time in simulation.
4. If you are successful over the majority of the most common market conditions, then, and only then do you begin to test it with real money.
Back testing is only *Part* of system development. If you skip any of the steps in the progression, failure is the most likely outcome.
Futures & Commodities trading is High Risk due to highly leverage markets.
THE RISK OF LOSS IN TRADING COMMODITIES CAN BE SUBSTANTIAL.
THE HIGH DEGREE OF LEVERAGE THAT IS OFTEN ATTAINABLE IN COMMODITY TRADING CAN WORK FOR YOU, AS WELL AS AGAINST YOU.
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NOT NECESSARILY INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS
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If this is true, about all the big forums, I wonder what would happen if someone were to start a completely open forum where a "Hands off" moderation policy was the MO? Say moderating only things like swearing, or blatant personal attacks and such.
I think you are being a bit tough on forums. Some forums are worse than others. The t2w zoo is currently the best example of a group of internet marketers cynically manipulating the stupidity of the few to exploit the gulability and ignorance of the many. However, I, and many others wouldnt consider the time we spent posting there as "wasted".I know traders who where once evangelical supporters of forex factory, elite trader, big mikes, this place etc, but who are now totally disgusted about how these places are operated, but even so, most still have no regrets about trying to help out others.
I dont think forum owners are getting things quite their own way. Check out the scale of the resources being wasted by management over at the zoo in a desperate and totally futile attempt to stay afloat as their site traffic drops to new lows. Its not easy to get the full picture, and I personally think the situation is a lot worse than it looks, but one things for sure, time's must be pretty desperate, and unless something changes soon, this particular market will have been juiced dry, at least by the forum business model. The zoo will probably be the first failure, but there's a few in the queue shortly behind them who wont last much longer.
However even in a place like the t2w zoo operating a proactive policy of dumbing down content, there's still quality historical content despite the sites current adgenda. Thankfully content editors on most forums are simply not capable of assessing the impact of most of the content thats posted. Good stuff does occassionally slip through the filters, and despite the abundance of dumbed down effluence thats actively promoted and hyped on most forums, I'd be hard pushed to identify a single forum that didnt contain something of value. Sure, you could write the combined output of decent stuff on the back of a small sheet of postage stamps, but there's decent nuggets of information that can be mined. I dont follow TL very closely, and their output has reduced substantially over the last couple of years, but Ive seen at least 2 posts that pretty much let the cat out of the bag for anyone that followed up ideas in those posts.
Im often asked for advice, and one of the very few things that Im usually prepared to say is "avoid forums like the plague", and whilst I stand by that advice, even I would be forced to admit that there's a wide spectrum of damage that forums cause, ranging from totally destructive, through to mostly harmless.
One of the big sticking points for me is the issue of LULZ ?
There's no better source of lulz anywhere on this plannet than t2w during their period of the sites decline, its pure comedy gold. Most people who want to trade for a living are going to fail, in the same way that most of us as children wanted to play football as a career failed to achieve those goals, and for precisely the same reasons. If you are going to fail, surely you might as well share a few laughs along the way ?
I think we need to accept that time's constantly change and whilst you might argue that the zoo contains a vast amount of seriously damaging content, most of its content is mostly harmless, and there's been no trading related content at all for the past 5 years. What harm can it really do accessing a source of entertainment (other than soiling one's pants laughing)
At a push, you might even argue that if a site such as the zoo is proactively censoring content, deleting posts that are damaging to its sponsors etc, then thats actually very useful information if you are lucky enough to witness that happening.
I know a couple of people who seriously considered paying mike baghdaddy for training, but changed their minds after seeing t2w deleting posts. If t2w handnt deleted the posts, theyd have gone ahead and wasted relatively large sums of money. It was only t2w's actions in covering up the truth that led these people to understake further due dilligence. I'm not just singling out t2w, I know of similar instances at forex factory, forex tsd and baby pips. So in some ways, the internet marketers running forums do provide useful information, if you know how to interpret it.
Even the frequency at which I post on this forum gives away information if you know how to interpret it !
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.Anybody who can trade is not going to be teaching poor trading mindsets , unless they themselves can not trade and there is a lot missing in them to , they are missing knowledge and lack mental edgeWell, of course no successful trader is going to teach poor mindsets. The rest of that comment is not talking about successful traders. It's talking about those who are not.
Any professional who can make 100 pips a week , will be a billionaire within a few years , there are several threads on compounding billionaires on the net , that will explain why.I am not sure how you come up with that figure, unless you are thinking about doing extremely risky inverse pyramiding schemes.
I don't play Forex, I play Futures, so let me try and give a futures based example. One point in the ES (S&P 500 E-Mini) is $12.50. The automated trading system we run our managed futures program with makes maybe 15 to 16 trades a month, and has gains that often around $400.00 (32 points) So if you calculate that out over a year, that is 72K profits in a year. Sounds real nice right?
Well, you have to understand that NO system goes straight up. Every trading method known to man has periods of draw down. So while it may make nice gains when it is doing good, often even for periods of time, it's only a matter of time before you also have enough losers to negate a lot of those gains as well.
Trading is risky. You cannot eliminate that risk. You will always have losing trades. Since you can't know how many will win, or lose, or even what the amounts are in a hypothetical guess like this, we need to go to the books to see what actually happened.
In 2013 our one automated system for the ES was up 70% (after fees and commissions), in real money. That is dam good by anyone's standards. You would be hard pressed to find more than a few real systems that actually performs like that, or better.
We require a starting capital of 5K per contract for our ES system. 70% of 5K is $3500.00. If you put up 50K, to trade 10 contracts at a time, you would have seen 35K added to your account in 2013.
35K a year is not a heck of a lot of money. Even if you invested that back into the account to add more contracts, you are still not going to see 100K the following year (assuming it does that good a second year in a row). That is a long, long way from being a billionaire. It will take a lot of compounding, and a long, long time of doing it to hit the big "B". So, I don't know where you get a Billion dollar number from, especially in a few years.
Actually most of these failures are not billionaires , but sellers of education , more importantly sellers of a failures knowledge and education.These failures hang around internet sites and forums.You could be right. Trading is not easy. Anyone who can do it, will openly tell you that. In fact, it is really hard, and you get beat up way more than you would realize. Emotionally it takes a toll on you. This is especially so if you are trying to make a living from it.
I am sure there are plenty of people who have wining methods, that simply cannot stomach the drawdown cycles. They just give up, get out, and write courses. Then they have to suffer being attacked and maligned when they are the very ones who bring working methods to the public.
The truth of the matter, is that trading is a full time commitment...and most people simply cannot blow off work for years on end, to stare at a screen all day in order grow their account to the point where it's big enough to live off of.
They have to pay the bills in the mean time. Who can afford to do that while they try and take their 10K account to the 500K they really need to make a living? It's a gamble if they can do it at all. We have not even taken into account the learning curve.
Unless you are in the business, where it's your job to be pickled in this stuff, it's just not realistic.
So the people writing courses may not be failures...maybe they are honest people trying to figure out how to make it happen with a good system?
The real traders would charge their batteries , not appear on forums posting lies.:rofl:I think there is no way to tell what a real trader, who is successful, will be doing, or not doing. Someone who has put so much effort to actually getting good at this game, is probably a little obsessed with said game...so why would they not be on forums? We are.
DISCLAIMER:
THE PRECEDING POST IS STRICTLY HYPOTHETICAL IN NATURE, FOR THE PURPOSES OF EDUCATION AND DISCUSSION *ONLY*
THE RISK OF LOSS IN TRADING COMMODITIES CAN BE SUBSTANTIAL.
THE HIGH DEGREE OF LEVERAGE THAT IS OFTEN ATTAINABLE IN COMMODITY TRADING CAN WORK FOR YOU, AS WELL AS AGAINST YOU.
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NOT NECESSARILY INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS.
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If they are good, they are usually reclusive and secretive.I don't know if this is 100% true. However, I do know one guy who has proven skills. He actually has several good systems that work. He is very reclusive though.
He also really values his free time. So what he did was to code his various systems, and now his computer runs them for him, automatically.
He is a good guy, but the last thing he would ever do is make a trading course and sell it to anyone. He has no motivation to do that. It's a huge, huge overwhelming undertaking (Believe me, I did it myself). He could just as easily be on the golf course while his computer trades for him.
He does lease the programs out to a brokerage (which is how I know him, as I am an AP for said brokerage), who uses them to run their managed futures program. However, you will never see, or hear anything from him personally. He won't even share how the systems work with us.
When I see the over all attitude towards those who are on the education side of the industry, I can completely understand why someone who can trade, would never step up and start teaching anyone. You would instantly go from being someone who is a respected, successful professional, to having the reputation as being a liar and a scamer whether you deserved it or not. Just look at the overwhelming opinion on educators in this thread alone. No real professional is going to tarnish themselves like that.
DISCLAIMER:
THE PRECEDING POST IS STRICTLY HYPOTHETICAL IN NATURE, FOR THE PURPOSES OF EDUCATION AND DISCUSSION *ONLY*
THE RISK OF LOSS IN TRADING COMMODITIES CAN BE SUBSTANTIAL.
THE HIGH DEGREE OF LEVERAGE THAT IS OFTEN ATTAINABLE IN COMMODITY TRADING CAN WORK FOR YOU, AS WELL AS AGAINST YOU.
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NOT NECESSARILY INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS.
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So, do you know if price will break to the upside or downside. S&R? or, which side of the middle line price is on ?Nope. You pretty much have to wait till it starts making the move, and then jump on. Ride it out till the pattern begins to dissolve, and get out. It does allow you to see the move in it's early phases though; and you can see where the real (and often moving) support and resistance is. So you have a better gauge on when to exit the trade.
You have to enter, and exit by hand though. Since everything is in a constant state of flux, you can't preplace orders, including Stoploss orders (I still place what I call emergency stops well outside of the trade in case I have a stroke, or heart attack or am prevented from a manual exit some how).
The way I play the game, is more like surfing than how most people look at trading. The fact that I cannot use any predetermined parameters, and basically surf the trade as it is in play, is why I can't use the method to trade customer accounts.
DISCLAIMER:
THE PRECEDING POST IS STRICTLY HYPOTHETICAL IN NATURE, FOR THE PURPOSES OF EDUCATION AND DISCUSSION *ONLY*
THE RISK OF LOSS IN TRADING COMMODITIES CAN BE SUBSTANTIAL.
THE HIGH DEGREE OF LEVERAGE THAT IS OFTEN ATTAINABLE IN COMMODITY TRADING CAN WORK FOR YOU, AS WELL AS AGAINST YOU.
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NOT NECESSARILY INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS
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If you look how the outer bands come in close together, and then open up, That is a classic Bollinger band squeeze, and a confirmation.
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I think this is one reason why guys become brokers, even though they can trade just fine. The income coming in pays the bills during the drawdowns.
I'd add that the income from the job as a broker, is a huge stress reliever, because you know the bills will be paid. You don't have the stress of the baby needing new shoes hammering down on you with every trade you place.
There's even more to it- expenses never stop coming. Say someone remains flat for first six months (costs for learning to trade). Do his bills stop coming? can he tell his mortgage agent that he is having a bad phase? Hell, no. He needs to keep withdrawing something always IF he is "trading for a living".And even more to it- there could an disease, divorce, heart-break or anything which brings down the productivity. The expenses do not stop coming.
This is why I took the figure 5K instead of mangeable 4K.
I have a different perception here though. It's not about being a star or being on top. It is simply about being a professional trader.
What is the survival rate for wannabe athletes? or entrepreneurs? It's very low similar to professional trading. The majority don't make it, even though who make may just have a average IQ. There are several large trading floors in NY and NJ... walk into one and you'll see REAL TALENT.
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Does anyone here play the Bollinger band Squeeze? If so, have you tried using it in conjunction with more basic break out of congestion patterns like 1-2-3, Double Top/Bottom and head & Shoulder patterns?
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The use of Bollinger Bands and moving averages can be very helpful to quantify the break out. Although, I actually like to do it backwards. I look for breakouts of congestion, to be signs that my Bollinger band set up is good.
What i do, is watch for a bollinger band set up. Then I can remove it from the screen and see if there is also a more common break out set up as well.
If I have both a recognized bollinger Band set up, AND a recognized break out at the same time, then I know my BB set up is good, and I can trust it.
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I think Gold can go either way in the near future. On the weekly chart, I have what I call a bullish "Spear Point" set up. However, if I scale down to the daily chart I see it is at resistance right now.
The question, is if the daily chart will just go sideways the rest of this week, or turn down. If it goes sideways, then there is a pretty good chance we will see a few bars of bullish activity on the weekly chart.
If it turns down, the price bounces off of resistance, then I think we can see lower prices over the next few weeks.
THE RISK OF LOSS IN TRADING COMMODITIES CAN BE SUBSTANTIAL.
THE HIGH DEGREE OF LEVERAGE THAT IS OFTEN ATTAINABLE IN COMMODITY TRADING CAN WORK FOR YOU, AS WELL AS AGAINST YOU.
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NOT NECESSARILY INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS
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I examined the method years ago. My thought is that it gives off too many false signals. So you need some way to optimize it. Although, this is my complaint about any system that relies solely on break outs of congestion (Or 20 day tight channels as in this case)
THE RISK OF LOSS IN TRADING COMMODITIES CAN BE SUBSTANTIAL.
THE HIGH DEGREE OF LEVERAGE THAT IS OFTEN ATTAINABLE IN COMMODITY TRADING CAN WORK FOR YOU, AS WELL AS AGAINST YOU.
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NOT NECESSARILY INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS
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I use limit orders to buy and sell, and I also set a stoploss. So I can avoid most of the slippages. I understand that Stoploss is the only type of orders would have slippage among the three I use.
I would like to point out, that market conditions can prevent ANY kind of order form executing. For example, a Limit order may trigger, but if volume dries up and there is no one to take the other side of the trade, it may not actually execute. Same if there is a limit move, or the market is stopped for some reason.
Not saying your ideas are not usable. It just that you should understand that risk, and slippage cannot really be eliminated for sure. Be aware of that.
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It's about sticking to your rules. Let's say out of 10 trades, with a 1:1 R/R you average out at 5.5 winners and 4.5 losers. At the end of the year you have made money.Agreed.
Of course, you have to have good rules too. That is where years of market study, and a constant study of ideas and methods is essential.
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My thought is that ALL traders lose money. It's not possible to trade, without losing. However, that said, I think just as many win too. It's making sure those wins are bigger than the loses.
I suspect that those who stick with it do better than most people think.
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I was a trend trader for several years and I hated every minute of it. Day after day, year after year I could see that if I had just put my greed to catch a trend aside and take the "hit and run" trades, I would have been light years ahead in the game. If the market is going to trend strongly, I'll get numerous opportunities to get back in.Follow the Trend - What trend? A short term trend can easily be a long term pullback. I love trading pullbacks. They are generally quick and very accurate.
Cut Your Losses Short - Nobody's been able to define that. Use a 2 tick stop? Good luck. You have to pull the ripcord on a losing trade based on a number of factors including the current market condition. Choke your stops and you won't be trading long.
Let Your Profits Run - I do. They run right to my profit target and it's generally not too far away. If I have an 80% chance of bagging 10 ticks (about $200) in 5 minutes and a 30% chance of 50 ticks in 2 hours, sorry guys, I'm out in 5 and off to the next trade.
Manage Your Risk - That's pretty much my "cardinal rule" but it needs a lot of work on definition. Basically, I never get emotionally attached to a trade by spending too much time finding it or getting so deep in a hole I can't let go. I never get even close to that point.
My stops aren't placed on the traditional 2 or 3:1 formula. That doesn't work. For example, you enter a trade long for 30 ticks and you place a 10 tick stop. The market stagnates and 4 hours later, the trade has wandered all over the place but now is 10 ticks above BE but coming down steady. All your indicators say the market is tanking and will drop another 50 ticks before finding support.
But you can't exit now or you'd be breaking a cardinal rule! It's 30 ticks or bust. That's nuts! Determine the odds of a trade's success and stay on it. They can change dramatically during a single trade. I built an indicator that does that for me because the algorythm is pretty complex. If they stay above 50% on a 3:1 trade, stay in. If they drop below, get out fast. But you'll rarely enjoy the high percentages going for the big targets.
The problem with these "Cardinal Rules" is they're all too vague. Define them for your specific system and don't be afraid to toss the ones that flat don't work for you. Just because they're cardinal rules for someone else doesn't mean they have to be for you. Your rules are what works for you...and that's all that matters.
Although you and I probably use different tools, it sounds like we have a very similar philosophy when it comes to trading.
My stops are generally put just past a major support and resistance level. I see them as "Emergency Exits" only. Say I have a heart attack, or I lose my internet connection and can't see whats going on, my stop is there to save my account in emergencies like that. It's not there for trade management at all. I get in, and get out manually. If I ever actually hit a stop, something is very wrong.
Have set up, enter. Lose set up, exit.
It's shockingly simple.
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I ignore all of these rules.
I enter when I have a set up, and exit when it evaporates...that is all I do. Those are the only rules I follow.
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Hi,You're talking about the ES, right?
I agree that the prior day's high has a high probability of being hit, and that trying to estimate any further excursion beyond this is tricky; I concur that exiting at the prior day's high is therefore a sensible option.
However, precisely where 'under the previous day's high' would one want to get long?
The prior day's low would seem to make sense, wouldn't it?
Now, how are you going to buy, market or limit? And what impact will each of these order types actually have (as opposed to what you might optimistically imagine that they would have) on your net profit, bearing in mind the typical daily range of the ES? By the time you've covered the spread plus slippage, or lost a few winners due to unfilled limit orders, paid commissions, and covered your other overheads, are you anywhere near to turning a profit?
BlueHorseshoe
Yes, I am talking the ES
Here is the thing. I don't actually trade this way. I wouldn't. It's not my forte. I do understand how that trading style works, of course. However, I have my own set ups that I look for.
On the other hand, many times one of my set ups will occur somewhere below the high of the previous day. In THAT case, I may enter and set an MIT at, or right under the previous high, to get me out so i can take the money and run (as they saying goes)
If I am going to keep my eyes glued to the screen, I can also exit using my exit rules based on the relation of the price, the 3 main moving averages and the bollinger bands to each other. If I am not glued to the screen, then I might use the MIT at the previous days high so I don't have to watch it every second like a horse race.
So for me, I can't really answer where i would enter, because my entry is based on another system of trading. It varies, because my set ups occur independently of where the price is. I don't look to break areas of previous support and resistance.
My set ups are totally based on the price, moving average and bollinger band relationships. When I see the right relationship, I enter, and hold until it dissolves. Where the price is, or isnt when the set up forms, and dissolves is not even relevant to me. I only care if the set up IS, or ISN'T solid.
Again, my personal method. It's not limited t the ES (but it does work with it)
As for the order type, since I generally like to enter manually, if I see a solid set up, and my entries are not based on price, but the existence, or not, of my set ups, I generally pull the trigger with market orders for the fastest in and out execution. The only real exception, like I said above, is if I am being lazy and just want to exit as son as I hit a level I am really sure it's going to hit. The previous days high is one example. I more often use my MITs at, or near the outer bollinger band.
I use MITs over Limit orders because they become market orders on execution. I do this because I want a rock solid exit. where as a Limit order may be touched, but before your order gets filled the price drops below it and never goes back up. This often happens when you are too optimistic of the range for the day. The MIT helps me to ensure a fill, even if it's a bit under my price (Because I am probably wrong anyway).
I never care how much I made on a trade, ONLY if I profited, or not. so if I had a $100.00 with a limit order, but instead used an MIT, and filled with half that profit, I don't care. I still made $50.
If I had used a Limit, and the price just touched it, and the 20 orders ahead of mine got filled, then the price dropped under the limit before mine could, maybe I will never get filled because the market turned at that point and just dropped and dropped until what was a win, is now a loss.
The MIT helps prevent that.
Sometimes i set MITs at arbitrary points with the intention of getting out manually. However if my MIT gets hit, i want an automatic out because I may be trying to hold on too long by then. I now my psychology. If I set an MIT at a place I could make good money, I am good. I can do this BEFORE the heat of the game starts effecting me.
I may still get out sooner if my set up is obviously dissolving though. In that case my MIT becomes a bit of an insurance policy against my own psychological weaknesses.
All that is way off topic though. Really needs it's own thread.
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First, I think there is a major distinction that needs to be pointed out because it may not be obvious. There is a difference between being able to make a living wage trading the e-mini over a year versus trading the e-mini for a living. Typically, when one thinks of "making a living" they think of steady, consistent, and risk free income whereas trading results are often non steady, inconsistent, and are at risk.Typically, I look at making 30% of my max risk per day good while keeping my average realized max risk and gain about equal. I also think that risking up to 3%-5% of daily capital is not too excessive if one is consistent. This implies that one needs about 34k to be able to attempt to make a living wage of around 55k.
The problem with this model is that its not at all realistic but is based on best case vs worse case scenarios. In reality, it is best to consider worst case scenarios. In worst case, a trader should need enough savings to be able to run himself for at least a year and a trading account large enough to cover a year's losses. Some might say 2 years even. Based on this new minimum, one is looking at about just over 100k. Yet, in truth most traders will see the benefit in having a multiple of that to forgo the benefits of a career and to reduce the risks of over leverage. The mathematics change quite dramatically to favor the trader if the trader has additional income streams, side businesses, etc -- which is why every trader should have such streams.
The lesson is clear: for most, it is a much better deal to attempt to make a living wage trading then to attempt to trade for a living.
My personal thoughts on this are along the lines of, I don't like to trade more than 1/3 of my account at any one time. maybe even no more than a 1/4.
Based on my personal day trading system (Not the automated algorithm I am also discussing), I would need 50K of operating capital to make a living. This means a minimum of a 150K account. Frankly, I want 250K to trade 50K at a time.
The system works by taking very small slices, when maximum momentum, is on my side so I have a very high probability of winning. If I am not confidant I can make $50 to $100 on a trade, with an 80% chance of success, I won't trade. If we are talking something like corn, I only need one winning trade month to pay all my bills and have money to chase women.
However, that system will not work exclusively with the E-Mini. I have to search all major market sectors for the right set ups. I can't limit myself, so it' not really relevant to this particular thread other than to discuss the money management issue you just brought up.
I also agree that having a side stream of income is essential. To me, this is not to have a steady flow of income because trading is erratic. But more for psychological reasons.
When you know your bills are covered, you don't feel pressured to trade, to meet your financial responsibilities. Having a side income that can cover your basic expenses, means you can relax and just trade when you feel like it, no pressure. This prevents over trading.
Over trading blows out accounts. You want to avoid it.
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You should have a gold "C" so that us non "C's" can quickly identify you and know if you are drinking at the right water fountain. Personally, I don't let my children mingle with the children of "C's".When you say real time trades, do you mean demo real time?
No. I mean the logs are the actual real market entry trades that were taken. Not demos.
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YOUR absolutely right Mr. Princess...2 whole years (not quite)....but close enoughWow.....again....no thanks. no sale...
Also, maybe in your rush to lynch someone for no reason you became a little confused. When I said proven, I meant I have the actual real time trade logs showing each trade as they occurred. Those logs prove what the performance was from Jan 2011 to now.
As for your "No sale" comment. I don't quite understand that. I was not intending on selling you the trade logs if you PMed me. i was going to just send you a copy.
I never really intended to make an offer like that. You have been challenging and insulting. I was basically answering your challenge with the facts...which you are now clearly running from by acting like you are not interested.
The truth of the matter is you have been acting like a disrespectful ass, and are about to get checked by the trade logs if you were to actually look at them. so now you have to run away.
I mean, God forbid someone you have been attacking actually have some proof you can't refute.
Bollinger Band Squeeze
in Introduction to Technical Analysis
Posted
I actually use the 18 bar SMA for mine. Seems to be more reliable, due to the fact that he 18 day moving average is more widely used.
I feel it is like trading a market. You always pick the month with the highest OI and Volume, because the signals are the most accurate due to the traffic trading that contract.
The more people trading off of a signal, the more accurate an entry based off of it will be.
DISCLAIMER:
THE PRECEDING POST IS STRICTLY HYPOTHETICAL IN NATURE, FOR THE PURPOSES OF EDUCATION AND DISCUSSION *ONLY*. IT IS NOT DESIGNED TO PROVIDE ANY INVESTMENT OR OTHER PROFESSIONAL ADVICE.
THE RISK OF LOSS IN TRADING FUTURES AND OPTIONS ON COMMODITIES CAN BE SUBSTANTIAL. THEY MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR ALL INVESTORS.
THE HIGH DEGREE OF LEVERAGE THAT IS OFTEN ATTAINABLE IN COMMODITY TRADING CAN WORK FOR YOU, AS WELL AS AGAINST YOU.
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NOT NECESSARILY INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS