carcanaques

All of TTM TradeStation plug-ins suck. It's amazing that anyone would pay anything for them, but John Carter is the consumate salesman in the futures business.

I also trade ES pre-market from 7:00 a.m EST. Some days it's dead and others it's moving. I'm only looking to get 2-3 points per contract and shut the platform down which is doable most of the time, especially after a market moving report is released at 8:30.

I started my speculative career in sports betting where one can get rich winning 60% of his wagers, but most win less than 53%--the amount to break even after vigorish assuming ALL your wagers are the same amount. I don't know what you do for a living nor what your favorite hobby might be, but chances are there is something at which you are very, very good. Maybe you're an excellent chess player, or horseshoe pitcher, or furniture salesman, carpenter, upholsterer, cook...whatever. There is something at which you have become very skilled...Right? Right. ...And chances are, if a stranger tells you he is also very good at your special thing, it will take you....oh....about a minute and a half to figure out whether he's lying ...Right? Right. How can you do that? You can do it by listening to the guy. If he's claiming to be a good chess player and says something like, "The knights are more valuable to me than the rooks," you'll know you've got yourself a ringer. If you're a good cook, and this guy says he bakes biscuits at 200 degrees, you know this guy doesn't know biscuits from baloney. Sooner or later, phonies always give themselves away. And it's no different with trading. Professional traders can spot a non-expert very quickly. The most obvious giveaway is that phonies tend to make outrageous claims. If an ES futures trader or "educational service" tells you it wins 70+% of its trades (defined as a one point profit before a 1-1.25 stopout) offer to lay 11 to his 10 that it won't win 70+% of his next 20, or 50, or 500--or whatever--trades. In fact, call your banker and mortgage the ranch to back that bet! That's the closest you'll ever come to getting a 'lock' bet. (Better have an honest third party hold the money, though.) :haha:

With all due respect James, if you're not prepared to back up your statements, why bother. You just go into the same category as the others. Anyone can post things like that and then hide behind a self imposed gag order. You made a strong remark and you should support it. If not, don't make it. Talk about a tease! How do you think this protects ET members anyway? All the other forums have run these types of threads on and off for years. It's really old news (or rumour I should say). Since I'm not a principal to this matter, I'll bow out. I've made my point whether or not anyone else agrees. Maybe a few of the TL people who were alleged to have joined the Zoo will come forward and share their feelings--those that sent $6000, not the jaded or jilted.

Don't believe any of these bashers. They have no first hand knowledge. Through all the ranting and raving from the likes of brownsfan and others, the fact remains that not one single longstanding member as ever publicly voiced anything negative about it. Newbietrader--have your friend come here and tell us directly about his experience. brownsfan--you have a long documented history of zoo hating which only got worse when a few emails in which Soultrader told the Zoo he wasn't pleased with you Zoo bashing here started to float around the forums. I happened to see a few and there's no doubrt about the dialogue between James and them. That must have stung a bit, hey? There was a zoo member who sent his trading statements to some joker named pitbulltrader on ET who became conspicuously silent after he received them. I don't know much about the Zoo, but until a few people who spent their money come forward and explain why it's a scam or junk--and submit themselves to scrutiny by other members to validate their claims (no bash shills) I am not going to believe one word by the naysayers that smear them. So, it looks as though James has allowed this crap to creep back into his forum or he's taking a vacation. In any case, let's hope he deletes this garbage OR allows members to openly express their opinions about vendors without censorship. I vote for the former. Vendor chit chat is not helpful to the learning experience especially when the posters deal in innuendo and heresay instead of facts from first hand knowledge.

Walter, There is no free lunch. Tradeoffs work in both directions. The ES is the blessed mother of eminis and home of the professionals. Great liquidity. Less noise? Perhaps, but not a place for novices. More like the Texas Hold Em of trading. Caveat emptor.

Your question is redundant. A tick chart by definition is a small time frame. What are you trying to accomplish?

I don't recall complaining about it. I just think it is silly and could mislead novices to think that people with high "IQ" actually know any more than the person with a low one. There are members here who didn't post anything much more substantial than "sounds cool" or "gee, thanks" a hundred times and they win the honor of having a the label "Guru" next to their name. That may float your boat, but not mine. p.s. Sorry to continue in an off topic mode.

Isn't there a policy here that vendors are not allowed to promote their services? I don't see JPJ posting here or any other vendor for that matter. Does that preclude members to start threads and ask about these vendors? Maybe the owner (no mods, please) will clarify what the policy is. In my opinion, a far greater risk is using this forum for so-called "experienced traders" who claim success (but don't prove it) to promulgate their trading methods regardless how bizarre they appear to the uneducated. The rating system here is also a bit absurd. Member's trading accumen is scored based on the number of posts they make (Traders IQ), not real trading knowledge. So many "Guru" and "Master" traders. Reminds me of my kids star system that used in kindergarten.

If you're using candlesticks and "reading" them ala Nisson with all those names for every possible configuration, than they are defacto indicators. I use candles simply because they are easier on my eyes than barcharts, but you should be able to understand price action even without looking at volume per bar. Just zero in on the time & sales or the "print" in real time. And remember, it's not about support and resistance, trendlines, or pivots. It's all about supply and demand, period. That's what moves markets. It couldn't any simpler. Why people make it complicated is perplexing. Probably has to do with tweaking and modifying this that and the other thing to find the Grail. My experience with traders is they pay great lip service to acknowledge there is no Grail and then proceed to tweak all knid of systems, methods, and indicators to find it. And that's why forums like this exist. The input on this forum should be 80% on psychology and 20% on setups, not the other way around, imho.

Bookmaking is illegal in the US except in jurisdictions where it is legal and operated by a licensed casino. Most of those outfits charge 11 to 10 on all bets that involve a pointspread; for example, football, basketball. Moneyline wagers (betting on the winner straightup) have set odds for payouts, much like the horses and the bookmakers cut is built in to those odds and payouts.

Never read that book as I stayed for away from horses. As far as trading goes, my money management is garden variety. I won't risk more than 2% of my capital on any trade and no more than 4% per day, which is to say, if I have two stoputs in a row, I quit for the day and live to trade another.

Suite yourself. For the record, I offered a peace pipe to Reaver in a PM and it was rejected. Apparently, he thinks he owns the place. Oh well, that's between him and James.

Thank you James for the clarification. I am enjoying my time here, however, if you feel I have overstayed my welcome and/or violated your rules, please let me know and I will depart with dispatch.

How dare you call me a clown! I resent that and demand an apology. I have been nothing but courteous and professional here. Doesn't every new member come out of the blue? Is this a private country club or an open forum? And who are you to tell me what to do here? If James has a problem with my posts, I'm sure he'll let me know.

Chances are, if you ask several different sports bettors what percentage they pay their bookmakers you'll get several different answers, and, chances are, most of those answers will not be ringing with confident finality. Even battle-worn veterans who flatly answer "Four-and-a-half percent" are really operating with a false understanding of what's going on. Contrary to what many veteran gamblers believe, almost no one actually pays 4.55% in bookmakers' commissions. Many bettors are also operating under the fallacy that losers pay vigorish. The fact is--as explained below--losing bettors actually play for free. Only winners pay vigorish...And it's not 4.55 percent. The bookmaker's rather unique commission has no precise English definition, but the French word for it is "vignes." American gamblers have long since converted "vignes" to "vigorish," or to just plain "vig." Nevertheless, the bookmaker's fee is as much a commission as a broker's fee for handling a stock transaction or a Realtor's fee for handling a real estate deal. To account for this commission on standard pointspread wagers or over/under wagers, at traditional bookmakers for every $10 a bettor wants to win he is required to risk $11 - to "lay" $11. (Many internet bookmakers now charge less, allowing bettors to risk as little as 10.5 to win 10, but for our purposes here we will use '11-10' bets.) These 'eleven-ten' bets lead many gamblers to conclude that they are paying the bookmaker a commission of 10 percent if they lose a bet, but that they pay nothing if they win. That's not correct. Here's how it actually works: Say two bettors each risk $110 with the same bookmaker on opposite sides of the same proposition, each bettor trying to win $100: The bookmaker receives a total of $220 from the two bettors. One bettor wins, one bettor loses, and the winner picks up a total of $210; - the $110 he put at risk, plus his $100 profit. That leaves the bookmaker with $10 gross profit as his vigorish on the deal. The bookmaker kept $10 of the $220 total amount risked. That's a service charge of 4.55 percent. Had the two bettors each risked $110 against the other without using the services of the bookmaker, the winner would have walked away with $220 instead of $210. The bookmaker kept 4.55 percent of that $220. The amount risked by each bettor was $110; not 100 dollars. ($10 divided by $220 = .0455) So the bookmaker does, indeed, charge 4.55 percent of the total amount put at risk by both bettors...But be sure to note which bettor paid both bettors' share of the vigorish. It was not the loser. The loser--since he lost the bet-- would have lost whatever he put at risk, with or without the services of the bookmaker. The winner paid. The winnings, which would have been $110 without using the services of the bookmaker, were shorted by ten dollars - 9.1 percent. ($10 divided by $110 = .090909091) The winner got back only 191 percent of the amount he put at risk. ($110 x 1.90909091 = $210) This is also the way it works in virtually all other casino games, such as craps, roulette, baccarrat, blackjack, and even slot machines. When a loser loses, he loses what he puts at risk, of course. In roulette, for example, someone betting on an 'even-money' proposition (red or black, high or low, odd or even) and losing, loses his bet, whatever he risked, period. But someone winning an 'even-money' roulette proposition does not get paid the 'fair' odds of 10-to-9. (There are 20 ways to lose an even-money bet at roulette and only 18 ways to win. The odds are 10-9 against you.) The winner only gets paid 1-to-1 odds. In all these table games, the winner pays the vigorish. Of course, in a larger, more philosophical sense losers not only pay the vigorish but also the light bills of the casino and the salaries of the casino employees and all the other expenses of the casino. But we're not addressing philosophy here. We're addressing how the business of gambling actually works. This is no place to play with words and semantics. Vigorish is deducted from winnings. It is important to understand this point. You can be sure most bettors don't. In effect, the bookmaker becomes a partner of the winning bettor. Understanding this point is important when figuring the real cost of various sports betting opportunities.

Is that a suggestion or an order? Maybe you should lock this thread because you deem it to have no value? And all the poker talk should also go somewhere else too? Why do you have a problem with this? It is in the Generral Discussion forum. Let James decide if this is inappropriate.

Well, you exaggerated in your analogy, but yes you got it.

I'm sure quite a few of you are going to place a bet or two tomorrow on NFL games and I wanted to share the inside scoop on the "vig." Unfortunately, I can't do this in a few short paragraphs and I know you guys like detailed explanations and backup, so I'm going to spend a bit of time getting my thoughts together and post it here, rather than the other forum. I hope to have this done before the games start (not that it will have any bearing on your wagers). Stay tuned.

Please correct me if I'm wrong. By and large, the power IBs don't speculate in E-minis like many of us do. They use very complex trading systems, and hedges, to capture a small dollar profit that can be large because of the size they play with. Their objectives driving those trades differ from us self-directed folk and they employ very bright minds from all the best schools to do that.

Perhaps you two should agree to disagree on this point.

With all due respect to brownsfan and Reaver, I think there's more here than you are addressing. And I also think you guys are digging in your heels because you're not in the losing category and feel as though you want to defend your turf. It's absurd that anyone who writes a book on trading is going to titled it "Don't Even Think About Trading Because The Odds Are Enormously Against You." On the contrary, the vast majority of trading books hold out the carrot that anyone can turn $10k into big money by pitching "proprietary" indicators, war stories from very well publicized traders like Paul Tudor Jones, George Soros, and so on. People aren't interested in buying books that go against their egos and inflated self beliefs, I think. In fact, most people who embark on a trading career are very intelligent people who were successful in the prior occupations--doctors, lawyers, engineers etc., and think they can simply apply those traits to trading and bingo, the money flows in. And that is the rub. THE PEOPLE WHO ARE GETTING INTO THIS BUSINESS WERE IN THE TOP 10% OF THEIR FIELD AND SO THEY WERE VERY CONFIDENT THINKING THEY WOULD ALSO BE IN THE TOP 10% OF PROFITABLE TRADERS. It's not like they said, "damn the odds are stacked against me, so why should I bother?" On the contrary, they believe that all they need is a good computer, a few seminars, books, trading software program and the big money will roll in. All of these people are aware of the 90-10 "rule" and it doesn't faze them one iota. They believe if they apply the same traits that made them successful--hard work, experience, and perseverance--they will not make the mistakes of other who have failed. And despite all the testimonials that there is no Holy Grail, new traders think they are smarter and with enough tweaking, they will find it. In short, what makes them fail is their own EGO and false beliefs about the market. More to follow.......

I think so. The odds of success are overwhelmingly against new businesses regardless if it a bagel store or a day trader. So, if one fails at trading, he shouldn't be too hard on himself.

It's bettor, not better. The first is a noun, the second an adverb. I would rather have almost anyone (including professional self-directed traders) on the opposite side of my trade than a GS or Cerebus trader et.al.

I don't know how that 90% figure came to be conventional wisdom but I recall reading it in a few books on trading that were not published or authored by people who sell trading systems and the like so what would they have to gain? And of course it's not in any broker's interest to publish a number like that (they already hate those disclaimers) because that might scare even more new folks from taking the plunge. But if you have a great relationship with a broker, he might agree after having a couple of drinks :martini: