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.

You want to be in a liquid market as well. You need to be able to move the underlying or move the options quickly, or you can get caught. And overleveraging is very risky, but unlikely in stock options.

You may be able to guess where I am gonna come down on this by my screen name. My history is out of Japanese Jiu Jitsu, and turned to Aikido when I found a really excellent sensei. My body style lends itself to a grappling style, so it was natural for me, and the Aikido philosophy is one I can embrace. My advice is to stick with what you're doing if you're enjoying the training. All of the martial arts will give you a decided advantage against the untrained street knucklehead, so unless you're gonna be a pro, you're fine. If your intent is to fight trained fighters MMA is the way to go as is evidenced by the UFC and Pride. Good luck, and stay with it, the rewards of your training will be more than just the ability to defend yourself.

Indeed, though this sector has had antigravity of late even on bad market days, and with oil hitting new highs every minute, that could continue.

Here's the China story from Bloomberg this morning: Nov. 7 (Bloomberg) -- China will invest in stronger currencies when diversifying its $1.43 trillion foreign-exchange reserves, said Cheng Siwei, vice chairman of the National People's Congress. ``We will favor stronger currencies over weaker ones, and will readjust accordingly,'' Cheng said in a speech before a conference in Beijing today. The dollar is ``losing its status as the world currency,'' Xu Jian, a central bank vice director, said at the same meeting. Chinese investors reduced holdings of U.S. Treasuries by 5 percent to $400 billion in the five months to the end of August and the government set up an agency in September to seek higher returns on currency reserves. The U.S. dollar has weakened 4.7 percent against the yuan this year, while the euro has advanced 5.7 percent. ``Cheng has a history of speaking out on a range of financial market and economic developments and his comments are not always accurate,'' said Glenn Maguire, chief Asia economist at Societe Generale SA in Hong Kong. Balancing U.S. currency and euro holdings ``would represent a massive selling of the dollar,'' Maguire said. Cheng's remarks on Jan. 30 that China's stock rally was a ``bubble'' caused the benchmark index to fall the most in almost two years on Jan. 31. The Shanghai and Shenzhen 300 Index, then over 2,500 points, has since climbed above 5,300. ``China will use our income to readjust but that doesn't necessarily mean we'll buy more euros,'' Cheng told reporters after his speech. The National People's Congress, China's legislature, isn't involved in setting currency policy. China Investment China Investment Corp., which manages the nation's $200 billion sovereign wealth fund, said last month it may get more of the nation's reserves to invest. The company, established in September, will use about $67 billion to buy shares in the Agricultural Bank of China and China Development Bank, Li Yong, China's vice finance minister said at the conference. It will invest another one-third of its assets in financial markets. ``The world's currency structure has changed; the dollar is losing its status as the world currency,'' Xu from the People's Bank of China said at the conference. The dollar slumped to $1.4704 per euro, the lowest since the 13-nation currency debuted in January 1999, before paring losses after Cheng's later remarks on euro purchases. It traded at $1.4671 at 11:03 a.m. in London from $1.4557 late yesterday. Currency Is Challenged ``China will inevitably reduce U.S. dollar holdings as the currency is being challenged by the euro and currencies of other emerging market economies,'' said Peng Xingyun, an economist with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. ``China wants to choose currencies that are performing strongly.'' Cheng also said China will keep ``autonomy'' on setting its exchange rate, responding to criticism from European and U.S. lawmakers that the currency is kept artificially weak. ``Excessive liquidity poses a risk to China's economy'' and may cause it to overheat, the lawmaker said. A stronger currency would help to curb the inflow of cash from record trade surpluses that's bolstering currency reserves and may stoke inflation as well as property and stock bubbles. The yuan rose 0.15 percent to 7.4421 versus the dollar as of the 5:30 p.m. close in Shanghai, the strongest since the end of a link to the U.S. currency in July 2005. The currency has gained about 11 percent since the fixed exchange rate was dropped. China should keep the yuan at a ``reasonable, stable'' level while increasing flexibility, Li Dongrong, vice director of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, said today. He also reiterated China's pledge to make the yuan fully convertible. China should let the markets decide interest rates earlier and allow more funds to flow overseas, Li told reporters today in Beijing. To contact the reporter on this story: Josephine Lau in Beijing at jlau22@bloomberg.net

Ouch, although no complaints here, I get paid in yen when I am there, so if it holds I pick up a percent or two. FOMC is in a tough spot, now and looking forward. If China starts selling dollars look out for a lot more of this.

That patient is dying. China talking about moving into "stronger Currencies", doesn't look good for the greenback.

Anybody gonna read it? King of the Club: Richard Grasso and the survival of the NYSE, It's about the former head of the NYSE. I read his first book "Blood on the street" and while interesting, his writing wasn't really gripping, and on occassions didn't seem to have a point or conclusion.

I don't know if anybody followed this but it closed at 23.20 today, 15% on the week, not too bad.

Another solar ready to run. Stochastic cross, uptrends on OBV and RSI. Great sector.

If you're just getting started trading individual stocks they are a good start.