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Minis Trader

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Everything posted by Minis Trader

  1. For me the first thing to keep in mind when I set my daily, weekly, monthly and annual goals is that you need to have something to shoot for. But most importantlly is the goal needs to be realistic. To have a goal of 1 million dollars a day with a 50k account is pie in the sky (At least it is for me). If you set a goal of $250 per day and you start reaching it on a consistany basis you are then able to move your goal up to $400 per day. Then $1,000 per day and so on. By having a smaller goal set as you get started you will be able to focus only on setups that meet the rules of your system and you will start to build belief in your signals. To me a goal is a starting point but goals should not be stagnant they need to be dynamic. Remember this "A goal not written down is nothing more than an idea", write it down and review it daily.
  2. The 89 tick chart forms a new candlestick after 89 trades have gone off on the stock or other position. During the busier market times an 89 tick on the YM could be the equivelant of 3 to 10 (or more) bars. In the evening session the 89 tick could take quite a while to form one bar. I also trade "RIMM" and I use the 89 tick for it as well.
  3. On this day of Thanksgiving keep these people and their families in your thoughts and prayers.
  4. I have been looking for a MA smoothing indicator similar to Juriks, thanks for sharing.
  5. I love Infinitys dome and the fills are super fast. I am not crazy about their charting, I think Tradestation us much better.
  6. How much to risk is important in any strategy but you also have to consider the reward side of it. If you are willing to risk 2% on a trade but your profit goal is 1/2 of 1% it only takes a few loosers to see large drawdown in your account. Here are my rules on one of my setups for the YM: * Go long (or short) 3 YM contracts * My profit target is +8 on 1st contract, +16 on second contract and the last target is left open (let my winner run) * My innitial stop is set at 20 ticks * I move my stop up to break even once my second contract is taken off. * I then trail my stop by 20 points and allow the last contract to get taken out by the trailing stop. Is this system perfect "NO" will every trader like this "NO" but for me it pays the bills. Happy Trading
  7. Be open to different time frames as well as indicators. When you go from an end of day trader to an intraday trader it takes some getting used to. Dont discount the power of tick charts (I am partial to the 89 tick) or even 1 or 2 minute charts. There really isnt a better or worse one for the masses it is what works best for your personality and lifestyle.
  8. Welcome from NY. I wish it was as warm here as in Maui
  9. Infinity has a good system with a multi trailing exit feature. http://www.infinitybrokerage.com/ Hope it helps
  10. Other habits such as The Superman Complex, a trader gets a few winners in a row and they feel they are Invincible.
  11. As mentioned get to know your platform. I have a buddy that trades equities and wanted me to show him how I trade the eminis. He papertraded for 2 days before putting real money into a trade. On one of his first trades he sold (Instead of bought) 30 contracts of the YM (Instead of 3). Lost 14k before he knew what happened. Know it in your sleep
  12. This is by no means all inclusive but whenever I work with a new trader this is what I give them to get started with for their plan: Questions To Ask Yourself 1. Why do I trade? 2. What do I trade? What do I prefer trading? What am I most comfortable with? (stocks, futures, options) 3. What time frame do I prefer to trade in? (day, swing, intermediate-term, etc.) 4. What position size do I trade? (Is it too large or too small) (What percent of my total account am I trading) 5. How many positions at once am I comfortable trading? 6. What overall market conditions must be met for me to trade? (What conditions do I avoid) 7. What are my trade entry signals? Am I using them effectively? Do I use a combination of signals? •Market Conditions, specific patterns, Technical Indicators 8. When do I get out of a winning position? •What are my rules? Do I have any? 9. When do I get out of losing positions? •Do I always use protective stops? •What are my rules? (Percentage, set dollar amount, support/resistance levels, volatility-based, technical indicators, fear) 10. What do I do when I have a losing streak? •How do I define a losing streak? 11. What specific money-management tools do I use? •How much do I risk on each trade? •If I were stopped out of all my positions at once, what would the result be? 12. Do I trade both long and short? •Do I need to? •Am I comfortable with going short? •What is my experience trading on the short side? 13. How do I trade the open? Or do I? Should I? •What is my gap-up strategy? •What is my gap-down strategy? 14. How do I create my watch list? •How can I improve it? •How often do I update it? 15. What is my trading style? What traders do I follow? 16. What do traders that I admire do that I don’t do? 17. How much time do I spend daily outside market hours doing research/homework? •What is my routine, Do I have a routine? •How much better would my trading be if I were more disciplined about this? •What specifically needs to be done? 18. What is my annual income goal? •Break it down to daily/weekly goals (i.e. $250,000 = $1000/day or $5000/week) •What do I need to do to achieve this goal? The next two questions are designed for newer traders: 19. How much money will I start out with? •What percent of my net worth does this represent? 20. When do I plan on becoming profitable? (if not already) •How long will my “paper trading” period last? When this exercise is complete, you’ll have two things: 1.A better understanding about yourself, and your trading 2. The basis for your Written Trading Plan. Writing your trading plan: 1. Goals •long-term, short-term, daily •make them specific and realistic 2. Tasks •what do you need to do to get there? 3. Trading Rules •you’ll use these daily •make these very specific Once your plan is written, it’s important to review it on a regular basis. This is done for a number of reasons: --to track profitability --to track how closely you are following your trading rules --to identify areas that need improvement. --to modify it as needed (At least once a year)
  13. Welcome Scott, Nothing like earning a living while looking over the ocean!
  14. There are companies out there that charge anywhere from 2k - 5k for a two to three day program and there are back end sales of upwards of 35k after that innitial workshop. From what I remember trade the markets gets 5-8k for a week of mentorship (I think it is on the higher side). So to charge 2k - 3k up front for you teaching them seems fair to me. You could also charge lets say 1k up front, to put some money in your pocket for your time and a % of their trading over the next year. Hope this helps.
  15. The nations that are our biggest concerns will own a huge part of the US by the time this is over and then what?
  16. I lost my data a few months back. I went to using an off site data backup of my data as well as my internal one I use. There are many services out there that will back it up for you and they are not that expensive. I use one called Carbonite.com.
  17. Great post UKTraderGirl, I agree with where she is going. For me it was keeping excelent detailed records of every trade. I test all of my systems on paper first before ever putting 1 penny of my hard earned money into the trade. I do some testing as backtesting to make sure the strategy has merrit but for the most part I like to do forward testing with either a demo account or a small actual account. I also used camtasia to video my trades and went back and listened to them at the end of the day. Talk about a wake up call, I would be looking over a trade and say "Why did I take this trade, it went against every rule I have". This was a great learning aid. The one thing that was a big one for me was every time I was getting ready to take a trade I would pretend that my mentor was standing behind me watching my every move. He was watching closely every thing I did. So I made sure to ask myself "Would he do this trade". If not I would ask "why" and if so "why". I forced myself to review each detail of rthe trade I wanted to take. The most important thing is to never give up.
  18. You are right the educational system can cost thousands of dollars for just a few days. From there a trader can take advanced classes which can cost them thousands more and they havent even made a trade yet. Here are two thoughts for you: 1- Since you are taking all of the risk up front have them pay you 50% of their profits (on a month over month basis). They have no risk at all to them. 2 - Charge them the higher fee up front and offer a money back Guarantee if they dont make back their money over the next 6 - 12 months trading your system. Hope this helps
  19. Who is going to bail out the Government?
  20. If you raise corp taxes in the US you are forcing businesses to find ways to lower costs which could be by farming jobs out of the US or just cutting certain jobs out.
  21. I had it done in 2000 and my eyes were 20 / 200 and after the surgery they were 20 / 25. It is the greatest thing that I did, I love it!
  22. I am a huge fan of the show. Last years show being canceled was tough to deal with. Cant wait for tonight. Any other 24 junkies here
  23. You need a guy that knows his stuff. I have seen many traders get nailed from the IRS for poor records and deductions they could not take. I know one individual that made over 3000 trades in 9 months, he took the last 3 months of the year off for a reward and when filed his taxes he claimed "Trader Status" and it was denied. The guy made his entire income from trading, he did it more than any other activity but when he took 3 months off he didnt qualify. It is best to get yourself structured (Nevada or Wyoming) and go from there. Just make sure that the people you use to set you us and the accountant you use is a business accountant so you can take full advantage of the tax laws available to businesses in this country. Later
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