aiki14

I don't post much, but this is such a good post I had to say it out loud. I also have mentored a few and never taken a dime for it, don't do chat rooms because I focus on the business at hand which is trading, and am sickened by the vendors promulgating some system. A system works until it doesn't then you sell it. If you're a successful trader you already know these things, if you're anything else read the above post until you do.

Ditto. Run my mac book pro with parallels. Not a multi screen workstation, but in an airport or hotel it runs everything I need to get by.

Saw this forum and thought I'd post this PDF . I do not know who was the original author but it's a good overview of a bunch of candle patterns a newbie to candles may find useful. It's 20 pages. candlestick quick reference guide - 001.pdf

I trade in stocks and options, with an intraday to 2 week timeframe, so I may have a different perspective than you do specifically, but here's how I do it. When I enter a position, I have an entry price, upside exit price, loss tolerance and time frame. If any of those are reached, I am out of the trade. If it's a loss I remove it from my screen for 30 days to avoid wash sale problems. If it's a win or the time is up, I re-evaluate it as if it's a new trade. Usually if I do re-enter it's with less at risk, so I lock in a portion of the profits. If I do not re-enter I avoid watching for a while so I don't second guess myself. Then after a few weeks I'll spend some time trying to determine what I may have missed. My upside target is normally 2X or 3X higher than my loss tolerance. The technical trading in futures, commodities, and Forex, is outside of my purview and I'll leave it to folks expert in those areas to comment on how they handle your quandary.

I'd read this before sending your money http://www.gurubusters.com/Scam_Gurus/Jake_Bernstein.html

The Museum of Natural History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Opera, The Empire State Building, The Naked Cowboy, The United Nations, Greenwich Village. So many things to see in the Big Apple I don't see trading as a heroic endeavor any more than any honest effort to do the right thing for ones family. Thinking of it as a heroic pursuit seems to me to put it in the realm of military service or the police or fire services, where ones life is on the line. I am satisfied to see it as a challenging vocation with the potential for very large reward. Over dramatizing it by calling it heroic serves to attract dreamers and gamblers, rather than those with discipline and a work ethic, who are much more likely to succeed at it. As to the Naked Cowboy, he strikes me as marginally talented at best, a guy who needs some ridiculous gimmick to feed his desire to be noticed. Standing around Times Square in Briefs and Boots while disinterested New Yorkers pass by and gawking tourists snap photo's is hardly heroic. I'd say sad at best, and demented at worst. Just my opinion of course. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Cowboy

Frankly, No, I don't think there is a way to learn this quickly. You may get lucky, so give it your best effort, but learning this stuff is a long process. Good Luck

I am here. Staying at the Agnes Hotel on Kagurazaka and Sotoburi Dori.

I think if your hard earned money is at risk you're gonna have stress. The key to surviving is to have mechanisms in place to reduce the stress during trading, and to have decompression strategies when not trading. If you're really stressing during trading, reduce your risk, or shrink your positions to a tolerable level. For decompression, find an activity that helps you, for me it's Aikido training or long bike rides. Things that require focus so you can work off the stress while thinking about something else. if you're hitting the Prevacid and Tylenol or worse alcohol or other drugs, you have to step back and evaluate what your goals are, and what your tolerance is. Killing yourself is not a good idea.

James thanks for the reply, I've had motsu nabe, and have no food aversions, grew up on tripe and the like, guts don't bother me. Have done the Shabo shabo, and Fu Gu as well. I have also been on the Nozomi shinkansen and to many other cities in Japan. I wish we were going to Osaka this trip, we love okonomi yaki, and tako yaki. Our hosts will probably pick the restaraunts though. Looking forward to the Sumo matches, that's a cool sport. I met a few of the sumo's last time I was in Tokyo, in a club. I am as big (taller but not as heavy) as some of them and it's always entertaining to see them in public. I would really like to meet a traditional swordsmith or even a shinsakuto that is working currently. That would be interesting.

Wondering if any of the folks here who live in or have experience in Tokyo could recommend things to do or places to go. I'll be there wednesday through the following thursday. Staying at the Agnes Hotel near the British Consulate and the Lidabashi JR station. I have done all the tourist things already on previous trips. Then I'll be in Fukuoka at the Nikko, and would love to hear about anything to do there, we will get to the Basho for a couple nights but need daytime stuff for the days we're not busy. Thanks

Wow, pretty heavy indeed. The shot of the Liberian women excited to vote is poignant, when you think of the images of the marines who fought and died for our right to do so, it is sad that we americans do not share that excitement. 40% of eligible Americans don't vote. Here's an old article on the voting numbers: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/27/AR2006102701474.html

I came at this game differently than most. I retired from a different industry and began full time trading without the worry of feeding my family, and I never excede 15% of my investible assets in my trading portfolio. I trade Stocks and options only. So to answer James's points: 1) Being an Aikido practitioner gives me the confidence to face anything, find something in your life that does the same thing. Being a husband and father forces one to take responsibility for ones actions in all things. I endeavor to remove emotion from all my decisions but I can't say that I am 100% up to doing so, the markets are emotion driven and my emotions allow me to react to that component of things. 2) I don't know about feeling silly, but there was a sort of apotheosis in my life where I knew I had figured things out and would never want for anything again. Funny, but I have been more successful since then, than I was before. Something about a sense of confidence and inner peace that makes ones decisions more clear. I'll add one more thing. I believe you have to be disciplined, willing to be self critical, and focused. The other key, in my opinion, to success is research. A methodical approach to researching positions and re-evaluating the positions post trading lends itself to a logical rather than emotional style. It requires time and effort, premarket prep and postmarket analysis. My trading day is 14hrs long, maybe a smarter person could do it in less.

I do the same and couldn't agree more, background noise, and some scrolling info. I do like Leisman and Santelli.

Blaming someone else when things go poorly and taking full credit when things go well? Frankly I am shocked.