MightyMouse

Of course eating healthy would help.

nOOb, gOOgle it. The steps to learn it are simple and its free. MM

Exercise is important to life! Also, If trading is so much like poker, then i would expect that a lot of traders look like poker players. I play poker in Connecticut and some of those guys are grotesquely obese. A benefit of screen trading is that I do not have to see your disgusting fat ass bidding and offering while you chow down Chinese take out.

Break it down into a simple 2 person market. You and I are the only traders. In order for me to make money, I need to make you think that you are wrong, i need to scare you into closing out your position at a loss, I need to pretend that you can't do a thing right. In sum, I need to do everything i can to make you cough up your position at a loss. After the trade you can internalize it and think that something is wrong with you for taking the trade where you did, and perhaps figure out a way so that when MM begins to taunt you again you hold firm to your predetermined plan. Or, you can realize that MM is a manipulating liar who will do everything in his power to make you lose and next time either stay out of the market or learn to combat me so that at least you are on even ground and then eventually learn how to dupe me and take my money. You need to be aggressive to trade. I do not mean maniacal. Strategically aggressive. Lots of traders are psychological disasters, but when it comes to trading they know how to bring home the corn.

Personally, I think you have to be as gullible as can be to buy his stories of trading in the bucket shops early on. It's pure nonsensical, uncorroborated bullshit. If he were smart, he would know that the odds where stacked heavily against him in the bucket shops and he wouldn't trade. But, of course, he beat them all. Its as credible as reading about Paul Bunyan. It's a Wall St. tall tale. But, as Crabby dog said, he was a gambler.

It will always come back, but the day will come that it does not come back before you consume all your equity no matter how large your account and no matter how small a position you start with. If you are fortunate enough to have banked 100k in profits before that day, you'll be good. If not, you'll suffer. However, i suspect that you are playing so you can simply delete your losses and all will be good again.

That is pretty funny. It's all good fun.

He fades the range and adds until he either loses 4000 or makes a point. He may roll the dice 3 times instead of 2 and wave his hands in the air before he enters a trade, but it's basically fading the range.

Are you using limit orders to enter and exit?

My experience with trying to keep each other accountable to each others trading plan is that it turns into a pissing contest. I do infinitely better as a lone wolf. I trade with 100% discretion and constantly interpret new data as it appears. Talking about Obama or what Palin said is a total waste of my time. I recommend you throw your ideas around on a forum like TL since it is easier to turn TL on or off than it is turn your buddy off. If you do not have self discipline in the manner you are describing, you should go back to sim. Moderately profitable is successful. I am not sure how you can be success in the long run if you are ignoring your stops and not managing your risk.

Open an Ebay account and buy and sell stuff on ebay.

Scott, The math works but, though possible, 500% returns a year are not sustainable. MM

Scott, 100 a day per contract is super good. With a 25k account, one would be plugging along at 500% a year. So, you can restate the above by saying that if you can make 500% a year, you can make a living, depending upon your lifestyle. MM

True, with arbitrage you can be guaranteed a gain. The gain is generally, lower than the at risk gain but higher than the guaranteed rate of return, eg. treasuries. However, at that point the gain is fixed and you cannot go all in. In poker you can either go all if you have the nuts or if your opponent is aggressive and trying to buy the pot, check and let him make an all in or large bet trying to scare you out of the pot when you have the nuts. On the other hand, there is a lot of bluffing in the market as there is in no limit.

A kid asks his father for help on a writing assignment. "Dad, can you tell me the difference between potential and reality?" His father looks up thoughtfully and says, "I'll demonstrate. Go ask your mother if she would sleep with Robert Redford for a million dollars. Then go ask your sister if she would sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars. Come back and tell me what you've learned." The kid is puzzled, but asks his mother. "Mom, if someone gave you a million dollars, would you sleep with Robert Redford?" "Don't tell your father, but, yes, I would." He then goes to his sister's room. "Sis, if someone gave you a million dollars, would you sleep with Brad Pitt?" She replies, "Omigod! Definitely!" The kid goes back to his father. "Dad, I think I've figured it out. Potentially, we are sitting on $2 million bucks, but in reality, we're living with two whores."

I will restate what I said earlier. No one can ever, ever know with certainty what the outcome will be in trading unless you are trading with inside information. A lot of times, inside information gives you what the bias should be, but you may not make money trading it. All the slicing and dicing of technical data will help at a cost, but it will never, ever give you the comp to the nuts in poker.

A very large difference between hold'em and trading is that in poker there are times either at the river or earlier when you know for certain that you have the nuts. Your job at that point is to make sure you extract as much as you can from that table. In trading you are never afforded such a luxury. There is never, ever a certainty unless you have inside information which a lot of traders do. Unfortunately, I do not.

Two lawyers are walking through the woods and they hear the roar of a lion. Lawyer #1 starts running and stops when he sees that #2 is sitting on the ground. Frantic, #1 says to #2, "What are you doing?" #1 calmly replies" I am putting my running shoes on." #1 then says," what are you crazy? you can't outrun a lion!" While tying his last shoelace, #2 looks at #1 and says" I don't have to outrun the lion. All I have to do is outrun you."

Two S&P Pit traders are organizing themselves before the open of trading and one asks the other, " what did you end up doing yesterday?" The other replies, "I got a dog for my wife." The first trader says" Good Trade!"

Fajim, Back in the 70's, 80's if you had a seat and traded in the pit, your commission costs were less than 2 dollars and you had a monster advantage over retail and institutional trading who were paying a lot more. If you read "Market Wizards" Monroe Trout boasts about only paying about $10 a round turn. Only the pit traders could scalp and day trade. They had complete control of the game. I believe that most people fail for 3 main reasons. First, they do not have enough money to trade and realize that they still need to support themselves by other means. Secondly, their plan has failure built right into it. And, lastly, I think most retail and institutional traders grossly misapply math and logic in the markets. One of the books mentioned on this thread has a sample plan that will more times than not lead to failure since it is designed to be taken advantage of by bad luck. You will have streaks of good and bad luck. Your plan should at least be neutral to both good and bad luck, but definitely not in favor of bad luck. Also, a lot of traders do not know how to deal with bad luck when it happens. MM

If in fact you did grow the "set" we could then refer to you as the trader formerly known as FX Girl.

Friend, you may gamble your retirement money any way you wish. Go for it and I will hope a long with you that I am wrong in this instance.

Yes, in the US, they tend to be the beaten down stocks and was specifically referring to them. A poorly communicated idea on my part. I have to remember that the center of the universe is not the USA.

Retail forex does not have the volume that VSA needs. The best way to get volume read on forex is to use market profile. The original use of MP was to estimate volume on futures when the exchanges charged or withheld volume information. It still works, but volume is now readily available. If you became proficient in estimating volume on forex using MP, you'd probably have a leg up on other retail forex traders.

Peter, I do not know anything about you. But, if your pension policy is to be used for retirement, then you are choosing the absolute worst strategy you can choose to allocate the money you need to have later in life when you no longer wish to work. You are infinitely better off allocating your pension assets in a manner consistent with your risk profile and making money over time instead of trying to time the market using a lagging indicator. Keep your retirement money sacred. The average mutual fund buyer losses money in a mutual fund because they buy at the wrong time and sell at the wrong time. Your strategy puts you firmly into this group. If you stand to inherit a boat load of cash or have a job or live in a country where you will receive a guaranteed payment at retirement that will be more than enough, then i suppose you could risk losing the bulk of your pension account and it won't make a difference to you. MM