Uli Schmuli

Just to be clear: This is NOT my website, I only said that I had the same idea about five years ago. Regarding why serious traders would join, I say, why would any serious seller of trader education & softwared NOT join? What a great way to set yourself apart from the carnies!

I had this same idea about five years ago and cannot wait until the launch. Finally, we traders have a way to verify the success of forum and chat room participants, and to prove our own! http://www.opentrader.com/home.aspx A lot of shysters are about to have their worlds upturned, I think!

I liked the (I'm assuming) unintended typo: Take control of your "futures" today! ;-)

I have three setups that I trade mechanically. I have incorporated these three setups into a program in Tradestation. Together, annual return is 400%. This number is based on the margin requirement for each contract. This is a forum, and as such I can say anything and typically there is no way to verify what I'm saying. And quite honestly, I'm not feeling so hot right now about helping other traders. I've tried to help literally hundreds, and there are only a couple over the years who get what I teach, and who trust that I'm honest and are willing to do THE WORK. I've experienced so much pain learning this craft, and I love it when I see others turn that corner into consistent profits. If you are running Tradestation platform and trading Euro Currency Futures, I would consider sharing a demo version of this strategy so you can see it perform in real-time. But only if you're nice, and only if I like you. I'm not selling anything, but I make this offer so you can see for yourself that it is completely possible. However, automated trading does NOT mean unattended trading. There is no 'money machine.' Read the link somewhere else in the forums called the 38 steps to success. I didn't write it, but that's exactly my experience, right there!

1. Press Reset. Take down all those unfulfilled vision boards and quotes, etc, off the refrigerator. I feel lighter without them. 2. Forgive myself for past mistakes. Truly forgive. 3. Forgive others for their mistakes. Truly forgive. 4. Remember that discipline is not needed if executing the trading plan is viewed as your only job and you just do it. Nobody likes to be disciplined, so don't create a situation where it's even going to be an issue.

Maltz also said: "For imagination sets the goal picture which our automatic mechanism works on. We act, or fail to act, not because of will, as is so commonly believed, but because of imagination."

You need a trading plan. What you have provided is not enough detail to be considered a trading plan. Here are some elements that should be included in your trading plan: Defines The Trend (many ways to do this) Defines Trade Setups (Which markets, which charts, which indicators) Defines Entry Triggers (If a setup is present, when EXACTLY do you enter?) Defines Money Management Techniques (Share size, scaling in, scaling out) Defines Your EDGE Defines Targets (both price and S/R areas) Defines Stops (both protective and profit-locking) Defines Exit Conditions (if targets aren't hit) Identifies Times & Days Of Week (when to stay out)

I've been asking myself whether or not to respond to this thread. The reason I hesitated is because I've tried to help so many traders (literally hundreds) and my message to them was rarely heard, if at all. Call me jaded, but it seems pointless to me to try to help traders anymore if they don't have a trading plan. Here is the message: YOU NEED A TRADING PLAN! Without a trading plan you are destined to remain a loser, and risk losing everything - your money, your house, your relationships - everything. Without it you are a gambler, and probably an addict. Your primary question at this point should be "How can I create a good trading plan?" Once you have a good trading plan, then your original questions become relevant. Without a trading plan, I wouldn't even try to address those questions. It's pointless. Please understand that my strong language is for emphasis only. Call me jaded or arrogant if you like, but I know that most 'traders' do not have a trading plan. Develop one, and then you at least will have a chance at being successful. I do welcome responses from any 'successful' traders who disagree with the idea that you need a trading plan. I find them amusing.

...as mentioned in earlier post: Tradestation.

EMG, I'm just reporting actual data from my trading. I enter all trades on limit orders, and therefore can only potentially experience slippage on stops. The point is that slippage (if any) is an acceptable amount. No complaints.

I think it is absolutely, 100% as liquid and effective as it was when it was before the ICE move. As I said, I've experienced no slippage, as long as orders are routed to the exchange immediately and not sitting on TS servers. I can't complain about no slippage, that's for sure. But then I'm only executing 2 contracts, so I can't really say about performance for you 10-lot big-league guys & gals.

Futures Magazine publishes these figures every month.

I have more information since my original post about TF slippage. I was using OCO bracket orders in Tradestation. If you place an order like this, the exit orders are held on Tradestation servers until the order is triggered. Then it is sent to market. That is why I was getting such a big slippage. Even if you enter and OCO bracket order and then cancel one side of the order, leaving only the stop portion - the order still remains on TS servers until triggered. Since finding this out, I now use stop orders, not bracket OCO orders if there is a good chance of being stopped out. Since doing this, I have not had even 1 tick of slippage over the last month or so. I know this to be true first-hand, so I don't understand why some people are so down on TS as a broker unless maybe they don't understand this issue entirely.

"Just a reminder that a few of us want to explore some things and shepherding us back to the more objective fields is really off topic…" Sorry, if it seemed that way. I should have said more about what it takes to follow a plan, which is to know thyself. It took me a long time to figure this one out. I have over 20,000 mp3 files in my library on how to operate the brain, have a good life, etc. Since I was 17 (I'm almost 54 now) I've studied all the self-help & self-improvement gurus starting with Maxwell Maltz's Psycho Cybernetics, and followed up with all the popular ones today: Tony Robbins, Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, Joe Vitale, Don Miguel Ruiz, Eckhart Tolle and many, many others. But the one book that connected all the dots, and changed everything (for me anyway) was "Ask & It Is Given" by Jerry & Esther Hicks. Knowing one's purpose for living is a great help when trading. As many others have said, trading is just an extension of Who You Are. Traders having difficulty making money have issues in other areas of their lives, too. I know. Not only have I been there, but I've coached countless other traders who cannot be taught how to make money until they are taught how to 'Know Themselves.'

Regardless of how you define "knowing thyself," in trading there is only one measurement for me, and this is the most important thing in my journal: Did I follow my plan? Yes/No. Few things are so black & white.

Here is how I differentiate optimization vs curve fitting, regardless of the input parameter being used: Curve fitting is when the output achieves a maximized output as a result, with no other considerations. Optimization is when the output follows a bell curve around the increments above and below the optimized input value. For instance: I recently tested a strategy that produced max profit when the profit target was 12 ticks. However, looking at the results both above and below that target value did not produce a 'rolling off' of the optimized output. Therefore, the 12 tick target in this can be considered 'curve fitting.' On the other hand, if my tested input target values were: 10,11,12,13,14 ticks profit, and the output results, respectively, were: 800,900,1000,900,800 then it is far more likely that curve fitting is not what I was doing.

Regarding Support & Resistance... Several years ago, I paid over $12k for a suite of Fibonacci Confluence support/resistance indicators from Nexgen. A couple years later, I was able to do some backtesting of the trading plan that they teach using these areas as support/resistance. What I found is that the plan works regardless of whether the areas used were the (ridiculously expensive) Fib Confluence areas or some arbitrarily selected lines. I tested the system using 5 point increments on the Russell 2k and achieved results just as good as when the plan was applied to the fib confluence areas. What I learned: Support & Resistance areas can keep you out of good trades, and cause you to exit positions as they approach the perceived resistance area. So how do we know whether these areas are expected to break our hold?: Momentum tells us. Another thing I learned: Our mind plays tricks on us. When we are looking for a support/resistance to hold we can look back at the charts and see all the places where this was true. What is overlooked are the many, many instances where this was not true. I do not even use support/resistance or volume for that matter in my trading. Some of the best trades are breakouts from these areas, which in the past I would have been 'afraid' to take. Try this exercise: Go back through your charts and instead of looking to see where your pivots or whatever 'worked', look to find all the times they apparently didn't mean squat. It's an enlightening exercise.

Estate1997 Where do I begin? First of all, a couple very important things: 1. Your backtest period is only a little over a day of data 2. Backtesting should always account for slippage, you have none What market are you trading? What type of charts are you using? Tick, time, momentum, range? What chart intervals? Do you understand the difference between optimization and curve-fitting?

One thing I've found using the stoploss feature is that if you have multiple strategies running, you should be aware that the stoploss execution doesn't care from which strategy it is triggered.

Hunter, Do you have a spy cam in my office? My experience exactly, right down to the being an engineer part ;-) Uli

More detail would be helpful if you are interested in learning how to make TS work for you, instead of just complaining about it. Your comment contains no information useful for troubleshooting your issues.

Thanks for the feedback & interest, everybody. Of course, I was speaking of slippage on market stop orders. Sounds like 1-2 ticks is normal for market orders...

If you trade one contract, or several, each contract has its own trading plan and set of rules. Think about it: If you are scaling in, there are different entry rules for each contract. Same goes for scaling out. Therefore: EVERY TRADING PLAN IS ALL IN / ALL OUT It's just that when trading more than one contract, you are actually managing different strategies. So the real key here is to find a trading strategy that works, and trade it live until you are consistent. Then you can add other strategies into the mix.

Tradestation has bad data? (I've been very happy with data quality and success of auto-strategies in Tradestation) Thanks. Uli