zdo

re: “What are mini lots?” 10,000 instead of full 100,000. Most fx brokers have fixed sizes. Oanda is one of the few that doesn’t … so re “On OANDA, could I trade forex for like 1$ per trade to test out a system…?” Yes. And the commissions (actually the spread) on 1 unit (not 1$ unless 1st three letters are USD) would be miniscule. You’ve been talking about whether to leverage or not, etc. As far as sizing goes in FX and Oanda, maybe set your leverage to 10:1 and then place stoplosses where no trade is risking more than 1 (-3) % of your total equity. That’s crude MM, but it will suffice until you get a better understanding of MM in general and a better feel for the risk profile of your particular system(s) There are threads all over the place about MM and risk of ruin, etc. You should also do the rounds of threads comparing poker to trading. Most emphasize the similarities, but per individual the differences can be determinant of whether trading is right for you or not. Random vs random-like. Discrete hands vs continuous data. Limited outcome vs ‘unlimited’ outcomes. etc etc. If you keep in mind that you’re really studying yourself though, not the games, clarity will come sooner... re: “Where do I learn how to develop a system for the forex market?” There are thousands(?) of FX websites and forums and thousands of available ‘systems’ for free. No, I can’t recommend any, because I”ve never looked at them… I did follow one link to babypips once… Never been in it but, Oanda has a forum too. Most ‘systems’ (free and for sale) are trash, but all of them work sometimes and learning when to do what is where it’s at. It’s totally central to my game – but that’s just me… Find you own way !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just like ‘practicing’ / playing poker, you have got to get in there and pile up screen time. re: “Is there a place where I could learn how to use OANDA side by side with MT? (don't know what MT is btw and I'm not sure if I'd want to use it)” Hello, have you been to Oanda.com??? MT is a trading platform provided by various brokers to their customers. re: “Where can I learn how to back test or paper test a system? (don't know what a papertest and I think a backtest is where you take data from the market in the past and see how a system would have worked in that market) ” Unless you really are into backtesting, (in which case I would recommend TradeStation ) how about Don’t backtest! Instead Forward test! If you’re freakin scared then do it via sim mode. But I always tell noobs to get right up in there and learn how to lose correctly. “Professional money is not professional money because it is never wrong........... It is professional money because it is BETTER at being wrong.” But be wary - the good advice may actually be bad and the bad advice may actually be good... hth… time to kick yourself out of the nest… Have a great weekend all...

Finish Strong. Finish Stronger. Just got off the phone a little while ago with a trader friend up in Toronto. It inspired this thread. We talked a little about the trading over this last week, and he said he had backed off. He used typical phrases like “crazy volatility”, “more prone to errors”, “usual way of knowing where to place stops didn’t work”, etc. and after I shared some things he then opined that I should have “taken a break” on Tuesday. I went off on him! ‘Tactically fit’ winners continue to raise their game into and until the end of the championship! As a very, very green trader in ‘87, I participated early, then through Monday morning I watched my 'mentors' and others go into ‘stand aside’ mode and got sucked in… The trading capital was ‘safe’, but I paid in inner capital big time (and not just in coulda, shoulda, woulda’s). Never again! These “championships” don’t come along every day… or even every year… Have I reached my potential this championship? No! But I have raised my game every day except one and if the ‘championship’ continues I can raise my game more... even if it goes on for weeks. Btw, this is not about ‘holding some back’ either. It’s more about putting all my heart and soul into having more heart and soul to “finish strong” … and, yes, I do need “rest” but I’ll get it when this is over …

As my great grandpa used to say - “outta breath and plum wore out” In all performance activities, trading included, it’s not how well the player ‘strokes and strikes’ in general. Rather, it’s how well he or she ‘strokes and strikes’ when experiencing exhaustion and ‘running out of juice’ that makes the champions.

In sports and gaming, the interested parties know ahead of time when the big tournaments are scheduled. Football players and fans know when the playoffs and super bowl is. Basketball, baseball, tennis, golf, Olympics, hockey, poker, racing, martial arts, …even frekn bingo… Are you deep in awareness that we’re starting to wrap up a championship in trading that started just over a week ago? You know they don’t come along that often? Were you prepared? Have you played like a champion?

Tyler Durden One of the purposes of this thread is exposure of the big lies. This qualifies… Washington's Blog

someone’s wishful, delusional thinking that president would ever “stand up” – he’s more ‘bought’ than congress (if that’s possible). But hey, anti – illuminati talks comes in all forms THE EMPEROR WEARS NO CLOTHES! Ratigan Spells-It-Out! PAY ATTENTION OBAMA!!! - YouTube

“Each big inflation — whether the early 1920s in Germany, or the Korean and Vietnam wars in the US — starts with a passive expansion of the quantity money. This sits inert for a surprisingly long time. Asset prices may go up, but latent price inflation is disguised. The effect is much like lighter fuel on a camp fire before the match is struck. People’s willingness to hold money can change suddenly for a “psychological and spontaneous reason” , causing a spike in the velocity of money. It can occur at lightning speed, over a few weeks. The shift invariably catches economists by surprise. They wait too long to drain the excess money. “Velocity took an almost right-angle turn upward in the summer of 1922,” said Mr O Parsson. Reichsbank officials were baffled. They could not fathom why the German people had started to behave differently almost two years after the bank had already boosted the money supply. He contends that public patience snapped abruptly once people lost trust and began to “smell a government rat”. Chapter 17 entitled “Velocity” From the book Dying of Money: Lessons of the Great German and American Inflations

Yes I have. From Post 19 “Generally (and somewhat in terms of trends), I am repeatedly assessing the probabilities of whether the current move back to my ‘mean’ is a correction and the mean ‘value’ will hold and the current trend resume or price will cross mean and a new ‘trend’ form with my ‘mean’ / ‘value’ now moving in the other direction from the direction it was moving at the most recent extreme before the reversion.” I have a ‘mean’ that (is only used / “carries any weight” in certain MarketTypes and in those Types) gets visited / tapped by the high or low extreme of a bar quite frequently. Was just asking what others do (if anything) at their ‘mean’. Two ideas so far… from the OP (Post #1) “… if you don’t use a ‘mean’ or make trading decisions or executions at your ‘mean’ as described above, then please ignore question..." ie the question was for those who do routinely make trades at their ‘means’ Besides the fact that all but a few of us are "looking for something that is "kinda right" based on price patterns", why am I even talking with you?

Does that mean making trading entries at (your) "mean" price is also somewhat superfluous?

Eric, I understand what you're saying and appreciate your intentions, but the "38 or whatever list of rules of successful trading" is not the way. It's the consensus - but it's herd joining bait... the four lane to looserville. Just maybe a quick double of the account followed by a blow up will do far more for MattSS's future than will "small building blocks of success and confidence and realistic expectations". It’s conceivable he has no idea how self virtuous you have to be as trader. I’m serious! You have to be so self virtuous that even the ‘discipline’ (as the 'paradigm' is hurled around in all the trading advice, etc) seems stupid!

Eric explained FX, Oanda pretty well. Available leverage with Oanda is 10:1 , 20:1 , 30: … 40: and 50:1. Instantaneous changing via clicking a drop down vs going through office, etc… Eric suggested no leverage. I suggest finding what is true to your own nature re leverage. You’ll also have to discover for yourself which instrument classes are best for you to trade. Check Forex vs. Stocks etc and re “dow e-mini futures (5$ each per tick) as recommended in the sticky. They appeal to me for their smaller size and therefore smaller risk. The max I could afford to risk on investing would be 5k right now. “ Be advised: Generally speaking, the brokerages that will allow you to daytrade for less than 5K per contract are going to eat you up in commissions. In summary, the advantages to using OandA for you would be: You could 1. Be real / trade live from the beginning. 2. Use small size so that your stake is never at risk 3. Oanda platform is simple and straightforward 4. Looks like they just added access toMT4. Never used it but understand it is one of the best free platforms out there… not sure MT allows small position sizing though… but Oanda platform could be used ‘side by side’ with MT to just place orders 5. Account size can be $1 USD. Many firms have minimums - account size, etc.. I’ve used them off and on over the years and have had no problems. Since they had to pull offering leverage on PMs, I will not likely be giving them any business going forward… but continue to refer traders like you to them. Idea: Open a demo account and see if you like the whole ball of wax… they aren’t the only game in town. If I were in your shoes, I would also seriously consider opening a TradeStation FX account ($5k minimum?) and trade mini lots. I really don’t want to bust your bubbles but re: “I would imagine (just guessing here) that investors (esp day traders) try to predict how say a certain piece of news about a company or some world event will affect the value of related stocks. Amirite?” Vast majority do not understand the game (even though they write pages and pages about it). Actually that is a valid way of playing, but fyi, I personally have NEVER, NOT ONE TIME (yet ) tried to predict how a certain piece of news about a company or some world event will affect the value of related stocks. btw, I personally go around breaking half the all businessy 'trading plans and rules that work' too... First find out if you really are a trader. (btw I would never tell a real trader to find a job. Plain silly...) then Find your own way! hth

How about “At each moment in time, there is a whole spectrum…” ? That and “in each price pattern” and “at each price” all seem functionally interchangeable to me at this point… but please note I’m probably getting downright slappy at this point… am on a trading marathon. The trading is fun and easy at this time - but I’m really starting to feel the net 17 hour + days spread all over any 24 hour period… and I may be at it all week... more turns in last 4 trading days than previous (vacation shortened) month combined... yammering post count per day also way up., too.. hmm :missy:

MattSS. re: "MM" MM = Money Management. sizing, risk, etc. re: "All that means to me is I just need to learn the psychology of crowd behavior as it applies to trading. Its just another skill I have to develop." Preface to my reply… Bluntly – “skill” ?? Please think again… :helloooo:Even better – ask yourself some more tough questions comparing the two games in consideration here… Fortunately, there is no way on god's green earth you could waste your time... re: “recommends dow and S+P e-mini futures” in my experience, 2 to 5 k is “statistically” not sufficient capital to trade YM or ES Exceptions abound… but… Re: "Any software ...?" . Ninja is ok. At that level, also check out TradeStation. ie Sample a wide range of platforms to see which one best has the features and look and feel, etc you like . hth and good luck... (luck is involved...) PS EricM, the essence of those questions have already been answered in the OP. (I know - now I’m really being a smartass…)

jpennybags, et al, re: “What is throwing me, is the term "at your mean"”. I emphasized ‘at your mean’ to keep the question an open question. Had I limited it to a certain moving average or another ‘mean’, I suspected that those who didn’t use that particular ‘mean’ would be less inclined to contribute… so far turns out it didn’t matter much and re “Price defines the mean, and I'm responding to price action as it corresponds to the mean.” Yes price does create ‘mean’ but it doesn’t define ‘the mean’. At each price there is a whole spectrum of available ‘means’, not just one ‘the mean’ . Most ‘means’ are ultimately 'mean'ingless :doh: – those considered AND those not included in considerations… re “There are strategies in use of the Andrews pitchfork which involve buying or selling the extremes, and scaling in or out of positions at the mean…” Great observation ! Also makes it a perfect one off example of why I didn’t specify a particular ‘mean’ – few would consider / remember / whatever that the Andrews Median Line is yet another way of ‘mean’ projection. …and basically, the OP question is the same as Andrews conundrum – what to do at ‘your mean’? Andrews' Pitchfork - an Explanation Attached is EURUSD 144 minute sort of real time example

Do you have any insights on the recent AUD, NZD, CAD, etc actions relative to the USD? Thanks.

In terms of ‘correlation’, I’m saying some corre but not high enough. Sometimes they can't, but most of the time 'they' can cloak / disguise ratios, etc. I found some pretty good patterns but they would not play out as often as they did. There are many other ‘predictive’ approaches requiring a whole lot less work / processing that can make that same claim. More on trickery... with premium you never can know what you're buying... so you can never really get what you thought you were paying for. ... I too thought the idea was intriguing (still do ) but never got it up to the level of consistency I was after... moved on. Not saying you or someone else can’t… All the best

Note: Don’t read into the following that I’m saying his material is worthless or untradeable… but! Re “What is the basis…?” Try taking the a and the s and the i out of word basis Bill Williams co-opted the word chaos (and got a good piggyback on the ‘fractal’ word, too) because Mandelbrot was all in vogue at the time. ie his indicators are no more a product of chaos theory than a thousand other algorithms out there. The indicators attempt to measure supply and demand – what!?! where's the freakn chaos !?! His 'theory' sorta reminds me of one dry vertebrae of VSA – no skin, no other bones, no meat, no guts, no brain, no blood – just one dry bone. way too harsh... hth

This reply may have no value to you individually – but I’ll stick it out there because some other reader may benefit. I’ve previously written several posts all under the zdo handle about gaming and trading and about how gaming is pretend trading ie it developed ’in the field’ as a limited surrogate for real trading. …Search if you care. TL and other forums have some good ‘transition’ from poker threads…Search if you care. In poker, you got three main styles of playing – loose medium tight. If you know which one you are in poker then initially orient your search through trading techniques to find trading styles compatible with your poker style. Next, how did you manage your ever changing position at the table? Find what your personal equivalent to where your sitting’ at the table is in trading. Hint: think MM, etc. Poker, especially online, does not train you to read multiple competing (and situationally cooperating) large dynamic ‘crowds’ ( crowds as in LeBon’sThe Extraordinary Madness of Crowds… and not). In trading, that’s ultimately what you’re learning to do – whether you end up ‘using’ fundamental or technical or ‘whatever’ data to represent those crowds. Inside, how do you react to that? Does knowing this expand things for you or narrow you down? In poker there is really only one time frame you can play to. In trading you can trade from seconds to years timeframes. What does that open up for you? Re: Reading. If you have the capacity to do it I’d suggest you not “read” anything at first. Rather “skim” as much as fast as you can and only slow down and actually read when something really resonates. Instead of ‘mastering the material’, make your work questioning and answering how does this fit with my true nature. I.e. Leverage your beginner curiosity to cover as much ground as possible. You’ll naturally gravitate to one of the multitude of styles – ie taking a “when the student is ready the teacher will appear” attitude… ... and if you and trading take, expect to spend more than 4 hours a day at the beginning... 10,000 hours pattern yada yada Re: “As they built their bankroll they could move up to the next stake, gain more experience, battle tougher players, win larger amounts of money all at the risk of their small initial investment. Is there anything like this in the trading world so that I could get experience at a low risk? Contrary to what you’ll hear from a vast majority of posters, I advise noob’s to start with real money, learn to trade, then practice on sim as needed. So - Re: Starting with 2 to 5 k . I normally point beginners in the direction of futures (and occasionally stocks) and recovering traders in the direction of FX but with this small starting capital maybe try OANDA. They offer infinitely variable account and position sizing and also self variable leverage levels which is a fit to what you’re starting with. And FX has plenty of movement…

$0.59 "The only thing we can really be sure of is that the government will use each new crisis to justify further extensions of its power." Mises

What happens if you click Ignore this user on yourself ? Word cloudlet “…threats to consciousness…” hm… [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Peu7eeGtmQ4&feature=player_embedded]‪Simon Lewis: Don't take consciousness for granted‬‏ - YouTube[/ame] little wtf of a cloud mind location ANANDA'S SEARCH FOR THE MIND IN SEVEN LOCATIONS1

op, Have you heard the old expression “fool me once,… fool me twice,…” ? Well, the option writer’s goal is to fool you twice. After banging my head at this same idea (and also playing as a premium seller) many years ago, I would consider anything you find in distributions of premium OR greeks across the array of strikes to be happenstance at best… no reliable quality edge. jmho

Your understanding that the ‘means’ (whether they be moving averages, stairsteps, or whatever.) move with ( and lag ) the trend is generally accepted across the board and is not ill concieved. The notion of 'value area' moving in discrete quanta is probably more useful than the concept of a 'mean' moving continuously and more smoothly. I would suggest you look a little deeper into your preconceptions about “market consensus of the "mean"” though… “Mean reversion” has been thoroughly treated in the trading literature. “Mean excursion”, too, although not explicitly in those terms as much. But, besides MA crossover crap and content about retracement to 'mean' , specifics of methods, techniques, etc. ie basically taking trades at one’s ‘mean’ hasn’t garnered much discussion. That is what this thread is about. Folks, should we infer from the lack of exposition elsewhere and dearth of comment on methods in this thread that traders are making most entries before or after price has contacted ‘mean’, but few are making trades at their ‘mean’? Boys if that's the case...

The question is the answer… Generally (and somewhat in terms of trends), I am repeatedly assessing the probabilities of whether the current move back to my ‘mean’ is a correction and the mean ‘value’ will hold and the current trend resume or price will cross mean and a new ‘trend’ form with my ‘mean’ / ‘value’ now moving in the other direction from the direction it was moving at the most recent extreme before the reversion. One of my almost daily practices is to ask myself “what can I do tomorrow to make myself an even better trader?” and/or “what can I do today to trade even better?” In that spirit, this question unfolded about certain systems as it occurred to me that in the evolution of my skills and platform representations, I’ve become more ‘unconsciously competent’ and precise at assessing, measuring, and trading ‘reversion to’ than I have at ‘excursion from’ ‘means’. Proficiency with the ‘excursion from’ ‘mean’ trading is less elegant and results are also less consistent– intermittently / sometimes almost automatic, other times out of phase… in certain systems. …will try to refine the question. To start, we can remove the “distinctive” part from the question… was trying to avoid a rehash of methods “everybody” already knows about… and the question is still not about valuation or quantifying a valuation or where or how to place a ‘mean’. Thanks all. The question is the answer…

nonvrbl comunikshn see attached Trying to keep up, Tams … Does these pictures have anything to do with the OP question? Thanks.

calsprdr, just messin' with you... My illustration was a question to see if I had the right idea of what TradeWinds was saying. I could care less about how that particular situation works out. Seriously, re how long it spent there, etc. was part of my question about the whole concept to him..