zdo

Thanks Tradewinds. Good post With me - When I first started using forums, I slowly realized the very best questions never get an answer at all. I always have to anwer my own questions. That's just the way it is. Still... the ideal is something like your middle sentence hence the topic...

nbalance I personally found futures (ndx’s, CL, and longer treasuries, etc) to be the best instruments for me in my very shortest time frames and high hit rate systems. If you’re using price only patterns, FX instruments will also do just fine. You can always find a major pair that is moving etc. re “spending as little time as possible” Look around for it – there is most likely an early morning ~2 hour session that will optimize your ‘time’ returns that can be routine 4 out of 5 days a week Let your own real time experience be the single most important factor in decreasing how much you are “leaving on the table” . ‘Tricks of the trade’ are extremely system dependent! So don’t be looking to others for them. Like wrbtrader said – Know the stats of your outcomes and go with your odds. Understand though, those odds will always give you ranges not exactitudes – build real time experience in self knowing and when you’re hot push to the middle of the range for matching your exits to MFE's and when you’re turning cold back off to the low end of your range. Experience… ditto a thousand times! I would suggest you put serious energy into position sizing. You’ll never get it exact but you can avoid being too small (re your OP ? – this is the best way to “capitalize” ) and you can avoid being too large (the ‘best’ way to blow up ). With high hit rate systems I use a verging on conservative variation of optimal-f that keeps me in the sweet spot. re “If you desire to be right an overwhelming majority of the time, it's important for you to understand from the very beginning of your adventure that it is THE most difficult way to succeed in trading” Steveh2009 The really most difficult way to succeed in trading is to try to trade a system (and it’s concomitant W/L ratios, etc) that is not in alignment with your true self. If the 80% type systems are true to your nature they will be easier than any of the other types. Your way is the easiest way for you. Someone else’s way is the easiest way for them… Sim will mostly just teach you how to be right. Real trading will teach you how to be right and win, lose, and be wrong – and get you in touch with some other stuff too . :spam: :doh::crap: :helloooo: = There’s a lesson about learning to lose well in Steveh2009’s post. The internal dynamics behind “…several years… and no background in trading I have just now have worked up the confidence to start trading with real money.” will most likely continue to be an issue for you for some time… PM me if you get ‘stuck’ All the best, zdo

I estimate there are 25 + questions I have asked on TL which received a strange absence of serious responses. They have a cumulative effect maybe … and yes, I know there are thousands of singular noob questions that never got any answers at all… this is also about them too. Examples: Recently I asked about what it would look like / be like if USD lost its reserve status. The one reply was about how ‘you can’t get there from here’ instead of what it would be like if it came to be… So I also asked what it would take to get there. Out of thousands of people comes only one reply – and it was from MMS – which makes him non lab-ish OR the only one not in shock or denial OR the only one who knows or has an opinion about it ??? Prior to that I had asked someone how they defined the teaparty… I do understand that could be interpreted as one of those trap / setup questions… but it wasn’t. My concept of the teaparty is incomplete. To me, they are just a bunch of plain ole regular almost dumb Americans who got energized enough to send representatives to congress with a mandate to hold the line on debt and deficit spending. Maybe that’s a WAY incomplete picture. Maybe they’ve now been co-opted into other attributions... Anyways, worst case even if any of the above topics turned into a flaming brawl, we could still move the mess to the General Discussion section … and best case, we would all have a little bit more inclusive understanding of the issues… ... best I can tell from all this is that as things stand now, the talking heads continue to set the paradigms for thousands and thousands and thousands of us traders............ All the best, zdo

TL, re “Come on its not all that bad is it?” No MMs it’s not bad at all. My questions were about us members not the site itself. When I have an obviously incomplete and possibly inaccurate construct going, I like to be able to turn to those who know more than me for different perspectives. I ask here and then end up thinking “that’s more than weird? No one knows anything or even has an opinion about this?” and “is everyone so focused on the micro here that no time is left for macro conjectures (been there, done that – nothing wrong with it)” or sometimes “” is shock, fear, and denial running that rampant ? “ I’m ‘out there’ for sure – but not so far I can’t carry on a respectful conversation or listen very carefully to answers to my questions So re “What would you like to see different?” I would like to see more of my market and trading questions answered to my complete satisfaction :missy: zdo

MMS, why are you removing the blogs?

msgbox: The message you have entered is too short...

unsponsored Education (from the Latin – “to bring forth”) How the Fed Helped Pay for World War I - John Paul Koning - Mises Daily … triggers curiosity about the concept of ‘real bills’… especially in lieu of ‘gold standard’ money systems ???

Should I go to ET? Should we all go to ET? I ask serious questions I really don’t know the answers to - not ‘set up’ questions – and get no answers. At least at ET, I would get some opinions, spiced with condescending and derogatory flavor, but it would add horizons and angles I hadn’t previously included in my constructs… Lately, my questions have been about big picture stuff. Maybe I’m just not ‘Lab-ish’ enough. MMS has also intermittently asked a string of big picture questions with sparse response. Is MMS also not ‘lab-bish’ enough? Or just maybe more of the posting population is beset by shock, ptsd, hunkering down, defensiveness, withdrawal… but traders can’t be zombies! Should we associate with zombies? Hell no! Good traders can’t be zombies! Good traders can’t associate with zombies! I watch as other posters, usually with a sincere but more fringe/niche methodologies, still get hounded away. The detractors aren’t as overtly abusive as those filling that role at ET or T2W, but they consistently interrupt ‘meetings’ of those really interested… enough to effectively trash threads and drain contributor and reader interest – unless they are fully impassioned of course. It’s particularly sad to watch threads intended to chronicle testing out something that’s new to the OP get trashed for no reason besides it doesn’t jive with the detractor’s world view… Anyway's for me personally it makes it doulbee useless to ever discuss the specifics of edges... I don’t want to discourage noob threads, issues, questions at all – but the ratio of noob to experienced queries and offerings is getting skewed more and more… basically while TL has always welcomed noobs, I don’t think at its core it was designed as really a noob noob site…

Guest Post: The Fed Wants You To Beg For QE3 | ZeroHedge but they will try to hold off until after 2012 election to give it to 'you'

I didn't quite get to throbbing optimist and didn't get off on the Goldman generalization that much, except to enjoy their shock - but I really did appreciate his emphasis on focusing on OPPORTUNITIES! .. think they'lll be calling him to come back on ?

What scenarios would result in USD losing its reserve status?

Thanks, Tams. I should have started with the 'what would it take to get there' questions... will open a separate thread for that... my question was about our constructs of what it would look like if and when it happens... "The regular session has ended"

Ferrari's are not for everyone ? http://cryptogon.com/?p=25098 http://cryptogon.com/?p=25076

What are your scenarios if USD loses its reserve currency status? Thx

Кто-нибудь покупки, что курсы? Я особенно заинтересован в ленте чтения. курсы стоят очень дорого. как вы думаете, есть основания платить за это Мой русский еще хуже, чем вы английски шутка Welcome to TL There is nothing 'wrong' with tradethemarkets.com per se, but like with most vendors, only a very small percentage of consumers are really going to find a real fit there and get their money's worth... also, past the rudiments, tape reading is a very hard skill to teach / transfer... and, seriously ... if you have to / need to take a course in 'tape reading', you might need to consider the possibility that you really don't have the neural aptitudes for doing it day in and day out... All the best

I have not researched, quantified, or applied this but I concluded that tick volume of retail FX is just that – an isolated indicator of retail activity with unsufficient consistent correlation with what the ‘banks’ ,etc are doing. (and, btw, this thinking isn’t really based on a ‘smart money’ / ‘dumb money’ polarity. ) Based solely on the roots of VSA principles, I would be very hesitant to apply VSA ( or methods akin to VSA) to that data stream of ‘volume’. There are probably long periods of high correlation between the retail and ‘bank’ volume… but it’s when, at important times, those individual setups from the retail stream aren’t reflective at all of what really happening ‘at size’ that would keep me from using retail FX tick volume in those ways.

One option is opening a small FX account and hedging your EUR against the USD when necessary using very simple medium or long time frame signals ...so you're not jumping in and out all the time, etc. hth

Gold spec shorts all covered now 20% at ~ 1700 20% at ~ 1681 20% at ~ 1645 Hedge for physicals still on. Will trail stops down for now... ... Would love to see silver bullet on down to ~24 Have a great weekend all

Where are ya'll getting your definition of the 'tea party' from? Thx.

yep, long ago I moved back to the east coast so I wouldn't have to get up so early... but getting up at 4:30 AM almost every day for going on three months now ... may have to move across the pond or develop some new polyspastic sleep cycle... : )

Are you saying 'tea party' 'republicans' would be an impediment? How?

More re Maybe it's just me, but it sure seems like global systemic insanity and denial has taken another uptick or two... btw and fwiw OP, I now doubt Soros really sold gold ... Speaking of insanity - I'll show you some insanity. Way back when - pre Japan quake, heck almost pre - Euro mess, I started accumulating a long USDJPY position. (Some of it was chronicalled over in SilverDow spread thread for a while.) Well, I'm STILL in that trade! infreakinsane !!! Average price is worked to sub 78 but getting there has required more size than initially planned and the original planned position size was already huge-r than normal. I'll end up making some good money off it someday - but good lord - the opportunity costs during that time... Since I'm not really a position trader it really is insanity I tell you ... maybe it is just me :haha: :helloooo:

Tick Volume is simply a count of how many trades were recorded during that bar with no accounting for the size of those transactions. Real volume includes the size of trades in the recording. Across large samples, tick volume correlates pretty well with real volume(especially with spikes) - but there are certain conditions when real volume is the only way to utilize 'volume' measures ... re At its simplest, high and low tick and real volumes both show levels of participation and urgency, etc Oanda now has MT4 and I would 'trust' their tick count more than I would FXCM's - but who knows they may be the same... I have never had an FXCM account... any broker using Gain feed (if it's still called that) would also do in a pinch... ultimately you want to get to at least currenex level feed and if you're going to be really dependent on volume measures (ala Wycoff) get to futures and / or out of FX altogether...hth

What an excruciating trade! Avg. position is ~ 1842 Planning to take off another percentage of the spec at ~1700 I sort of understand the dollar strength, but could use some enlightenment on the return of the yen as risk off - especially as how they may need to evacuate the whole gd freakin country... NO HOMEWORK... NO TESTS... NO GRADES. ONLY THE PURE JOY OF LEARNING any tiime, any where!

The Fatal Flaws in the Eurozone and What They Mean for You - Blogs at Chris Martenson …what he said… :haha: ie if I could write and I knew what I was talking about, this is what I would have written in the OP to begin with …