RobinHood

I don't know what I am. position / momentum / trend / swing. Everyone seems to have their own definition. When I traded stocks I bought breakouts . For gold I was simply picking tops on daily by looking at 30min chart (so swing I assume).

I'm working at a cafe at the moment. I hate it. I want to work in something close to the markets, but I'm not sure where to apply really. My options seem limited. No prop shops here. A few brokerages, applied to most already. Any ideas? I have a diploma in financial markets and completed school, that's all.

I know Dan Zanger watches his stocks intra-day even though he puts trades on for weeks -> months. In one of his interviews he even mentioned he sometimes watched level 2 along with ask/bid, vol, last. I just don't see how he extrapolates anything useful from this to make such large trades which he hopes to stay in for months. PTJ also considers himself a "tape slave" but I hardly think he is watching T&S these days... Essentially, what I think they are doing is giving a huge weight to present intra-day action when it comes to interpreting the previous price-action on a chart. All T.A books however only really teach you about past action and looking for a pattern on a static chart, causing you to mis-time entries. Thoughts? BTW I recently setup an experiment where I worked purely of sentiment/news, price-action (speed of moves) and SR (30min charts) on gold futures (CFDs because account size was small). Holding times were a few hours to days. It was highly inaccurate - so its just not feasible with small capitalization, but 17:1 win-loss ratio. I imagine it could be vastly improved with better data, maybe some macro work, and of coarse more capital (You would have to keep getting smaller in size cas with 15% hit rate you will have pretty bad drawdowns if you don't, and often). See equity graph here: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_znF9pQ5oe98/SEKcsv6j2tI/AAAAAAAAAFg/1y2Cm-xhSpU/s1600/unoptimized.PNG

(http://www.camron.com.au/mainpage.htm) This kind of data seems very important to me, makes a big difference if a monster is eating up 20 lots in one go over time, or 20 people eating one lot each. How does one go about "constructing" it? My only guess would be time-based analysis of T&S but nothing out there seems to even mention any of this! Are there any other such things I should be aware of about the order book & T&S before I spend all my time watching them?

I would only require the IB feed for this? Eurex is open to me at night and Hang Seng during the day. While timezone was a consideration so was the size (I have only $20k or so to operate with). I'm going to simulate for the first few months anyway so I have the option of playing around and finding something I think would suit me more in the initial stages of my scalping. BTW which contract is STW?

OSE, HKFE, SFE, EUREX / mini-nikkei, mini-hang seng, SPI 200, bund bobl schatz Will most likely start with just two instruments, e.g. hang seng + schatz. Don't need much backfill as I'm going to just be recording intraday using Ninja Trader.

If I put this in a bad location, apologies. Don't mind if it is moved to another thread/location.

I've been trading for 3.something years now. I've had nights where I've lost a few thousand (more than I make in 6 months from my day job). I've had months where I've lost more money then I make from my day job in a year. I've given up on holidays, trips and adventures so I could keep trading. It was all worth it. I have not made it yet (I made more than I lost, but not what I would label professional consistency). I'm about to begin scalping (I was a position trader) so I could lose a whole lot more soon but there is no doubt in my mind that I will eventually 'make it'. Its only a matter of time. I'd like to share with the readers of this forum some of the concepts that have only really clicked for me in the last year of my trading journey, fresh from my trading journal. They are really simple and obvious and yet they have eluded me for so long. Screen time Reading about patterns and looking at static charts is one thing, but actually watching the market movements live is another. You pickup things you could not possibly pickup from a static piece of paper, the finer and more important skills required for profitability. 'Experience' is probably a better word for this. This is why you can have someone who has a read a chart pattern book and is able to see patterns on static charts, but is unable to compete with someone who is intimately familiar with a market through screen-time (and has not read any books) - he knows the tricks and the way things move, the shakeouts and fakeouts - he sees them before they happen. This is also why if you read a book on kick-boxing you still cannot possibly compete with a pro-kickboxer - you need to internalize patterns and automate reactions to them with your subconscious / 'feelings'. Leverage This one really depends on who you are as a person. When I started trading I was attracted to the really volatile speculative issues but they simply weren't for me. They may move quickly, but if you like trending less volatile stocks you can still make as much money by using leverage - since the risk of a 50% gap-down is just not the same. This is why you can make as much money trading futures moving .5%-1% a day as a stock moving 8% and in my opinion you can make even more as usually the solid movers allow you to move larger sizes without moving the actual market against you. Starting capital $1k isn't enough, neither is $20k (for most - exception here is those actively investing - e.g. CANSLIMers who only require IBD newspaper who today can get pretty cheap discount brokerage). It is possible to make it but really the odds are against you big-time when you have to buy data and charting packages and in many cases you are blocked of from trading many contracts because they are simply too big for you. I think here your learning curve will be really slow as you have to build up enough capital to the point where you can afford betters things - conducting your own serious research on historical data and getting access to better rates on brokerage and other data (market newsletters, metric software like TraderDNA etc). I've spent weeks organizing all my trades so I can go over them - something which would take TraderDNA a few seconds and probably with much more accurate and detailed metrics/stats. Adaptation This really relates to screen-time, it could possibly be the same thing but I think its important to give it a mention. IMO the real "secret" to all of this trading is quickly adapting to conditions and finding a style that suits your context. Adapting to conditions is skill you can only pickup from screen-time. It can be pretty easy to make money when conditions are conducive to your strategy (e.g. buying breakouts in a strong bull market) but the real challenge to consistent profitability is how quickly you are able to tell the environment has changed? Will you blowup (because you didn't learn proper risk management) or will you suffer 20%,30%,50%,70% draw-down (death by paper-cuts as I've heard before) before realizing something is different (which is what happened to me)? The pro will quickly be able to tell that conditions have changed through his screen-time /experience and then either go to cash or change his strategy in response. The only real lesson to take from this is implement proper money management principles so when you do get to this point your drawdown will not be so bad and you'll survive to trade another day and work on improving. ----------------------------------- BTW, these days, I would also say shorter-term trading is a much better place for the trading newbie to start. You see in one week what would take you a few months to see and learn swing trading on a longer term time frame, things like the above concepts. The only downside is the overhead.

Is this the case for all futures contracts? I don't really mind suffering from backfill problems if I can save money. When I start making some more money I can look to buy better data. However "quirky" data is problematic. I don't want to spend countless hours and days watching depth and volume if the data is "quirky".

I was considering parking some money in an IB account so I can use them just for the data and occasional stock trade (probably none). I don't want to move all my money because I want be able to trade futures (age requirement for margin use). Are there any problems which may occur as a result of this? I know they have a $3 p/month fee but apart from that I'm basically getting data I would otherwise be paying $100 or so per month for. There are no requirements for me to trade etc?

how rude of me not to say thanks for everyones help. thanks.

'These' - schatz, bund, bobl. I would've liked mini nikkei, SPI, mini Hang Seng (not sure if this one even exists), but I don't think that's gonna happen until I can move to IB. schatz looks really good for my account size - except the thing look like it hardly goes anywhere! something I would have to work orders on alot as opposed to buying @ market. Can I even pick-up that skill through simulation? and any links in terms of recommended reading (I don't mean psychology or T.A books...) - market mechanics, working orders, info on bots, level 2 tricks etc or is this stuff I just have to pickup from some screen-time?

any brokers apart from IB offering these? I only found one: Amp futures. But there are no comments on any forums about this broker which makes me concerned. Worst case scenario I think I'll just have to keep position trading with real money and simulating scalping for a year until I turn 21 - but then I will hardly learn as much.:crap:

yeah, was thinking mini DAX ?? It will be like 7pm open for me so that is okay.

A quick look at the CBOT official site shows CBOT mini-sized gold contracts trade from "6:16PM-4:00PM" (http://www.cbot.com/cbot/pub/page/0,3181,932,00.html#metals) However, MB trading (my broker) shows metals as trading "12:30AM-5:00PM", and "6PM-11:55PM". (http://www.mbtrading.com/f/futuretradinghours.pdf). Which one is it?:crap:

Having read around the forum I noticed mini-nikkei, topix and hang seng mentioned - but the only broker apparently letting you use them is IB? I have to wait another whole year before moving to IB. and just wanted to clarify the above post (as I can't figure out how to edit it): When I said time-frame is only problem with handling e-minis I meant time-zone. and internalizing market patterns - I mean being able to experience and master the different conditions in a much shorter time as opposed to a few cycle / years with my longer-term position trading. and does anyone know of a simulator which lets me work with historical data including level 2 ?(I would like to be able to test out how I perform on the nastiest days).... Most sims only seem to offer it on live data

Background: I just turned 20. I've been trading for three years now. Not consistently. I've made more than I've lost. Traded US stocks. Recently begun trading CBOT mini-gold. Why I want to scalp and what I want to achieve? I just missed out on a gig at a prop firm, this was not due to my trading, but along with a recent drawdown I've experienced it got me thinking... I want to trade on a really short-term time-frame as I can internalize market patterns much more quickly than position trading for days, weeks, months. I will almost exclusively follow one favored instrument after playing with a few options and then once consistency is attained I can look to expand. However, this is where I need assistance. I'm in Australian time-zone and I've only got 20k from trading, so I'm obviously very limited in terms of appropriate risk management, what are my options? Some possibilities: SPI, Hang Seng, Nikkei, KOSPI (even when using a few tick stop these are all limited to the simulator until I get enough funds for position sizing) I can however handle a few of the e-minis (time-frame is the only problem here). Finding something allowing 0.25% position risk should not be too hard. Rough Plan for world domination: Find good data feed for futures Play on the Ninjatrader simulator for a few months (screen-time watching DOM etc) Read more books paid mentoring??? nahhh? enroll in economics at college just because there is a tribalistic emphasis placed on degree and I have no choice Apply for the prop firm trainee intake again next year if I have not blown up thoughts? guidance? P.S once I begin trading I'll put it up in the journal section (you may get to see a blow up so it will be fun! but be warned I'm a tight ass with risk management, mostly). and for those who are interested I did a complete post analysis of my trading to date on my blog, http://www.yontrade.blogspot.com cheers