Kiwi

The trick is that planet earth may be owed a fair bit by mankind. Should the planet collect the boys with the baseball bats might be a little harsh.

Very cute James. Sleepless nights shall follow ... you might want to cut back on the trading when you're tired.

A very interesting post Sick. And something I've often done Thales ... my number one enemy in fact.

Yes, my definition was too limited, that's the modern movement of the original term. It used to imply a body of knowledge, standards of behaviour, the ability for the Profession to disown you and revoke your right to practice. But you are right: tiger is a professional golfer and it doesn't really matter what he does. Similar to professional rugby league players down under - there are no limits. Or Nick G at Barings - I think he's back So the adapted meaning is simply: 2a. Does it to earn money as opposed to for fun (professional gambler) 2b. Does it with the intention of keeping at it permanently (professional soldier). If you adopt those definitions then a professional trader is one who: - does it to earn money as opposed to dabbling for fun - intends to keep on doing it rather than do it for a few years and move to something else. If you can answer either of those in the affirmative then you are a professional trader. So I guess I have to change my original statement to: "There is no Profession of trading."

I actually doubt that there is such a thing as a professional trader. Certainly most bank traders I've known hardly qualify as professionals in the same sense that a doctor or engineer can be a professional. Its not as laughable as a "professional real estate consultant" but it is almost as unlikely. To quote: "A professional is a member of a vocation founded upon specialised educational training". Trading is both a vocation and an avocation but it isn't founded upon specialised educational training (normally 3-6 years long). Certainly one can be an employed (institutional) trader, a semi-employed (profit sharing) trader, or a self-employed trader. But not professional. One can also be a consistently profitable trader; an impressively profitable trader (500k+); a well bankrolled trader (3M+); but none of those things make one a professional. Employed traders have training in something else (physics, finance, fine arts) and then find their niche just as salesmen and others in potentially enormously profitable employment situations usually do (I can't recall all the salesmen I knew who started out as accountants and just got too bored). So; there is no such thing as a professional trader. I am a trader by choice and I am consistently profitable and I have a high nett worth, and I have 3 University Degrees, but none of that makes me a professional.

And there are people who don't get a warm feeling when they hear the word Fibonacci? Sitting in Australia watching fat happy people buying flat screens with their $950 handouts I never believed that this correction had run to the end. China is going to save us (Aus is on the end of the supply chain) so all that happened was the Govt Deficit went up up up. So my target is new lows until the 20 year credit balloon is corrected. But to be honest I'll trade whatever I see - targets are just a mechanism for take profits.

It is good to see evidence of another way though. As I said in my post, it will be interesting to see how his hedging works in a real 911. I remember the discomfort when I discovered all my positions were still open ... and staying that way! I wonder how he enjoyed last night (today for you). That was one impressive multi-index spike.

This might work for you

Note that in Peter's recent material he talks about volume and time ... and for the profile he still regards time at price to be the key. And that is despite volume being available so you need to do your research if you are serious about mp. Understanding why might prove important to you (or not). Here's a reference.

Agreed gooni. I note that ET is today showing zero worry. So, does anything have an opinion on the basic suggestion: if these markets don't turn around this price and within a month or two then the bear is over - but this is a great point for it to resume! And we even have a baby head and shoulders that broke today to point back to in a few weeks if it holds ...

An interesting set of views. Good to see an iconoclast interviewed. I recall being heavily influenced by an interview years back ... and regretting it now to some extent. One thing he doesn't realize, not having traded thru 911, is that he might not get out of those positions and the hedged black swan will still be interesting. I'd be interested in seeing a followup interview after something like that.

I'm with Uli. You need to do what he states at a very specific level. You can summarize it down to a page but the specifics need to be somewhere other than floating in your head. I write software and find that when I try to automate any part of a trading strategy I have NEVER been specific enough in my initial descriptions. Two other documents will help. 1. Draw up a specific checklist for every trade (I have one for stalking/capture and one for management). 2. Draw up a list or mindmap of your errors perhaps grouped by when in a trade they might occur. Include the thinking you notice before any error. Include ideas for negating them. These two documents need to be actively used and amended to be most helpful.

I finally found the page I used to use back in the (end of) day. A list of most contracts with price, volume and oi from Moore Research

Now, I never predict the market. In my trading now I use S&R + faded Fibs to buy or sell retracements with the trend. Boring and pleasantly consistent. But this weekend I was looking at the long term dow and I popped the fibs on it and noticed it had reversed nicely this week off the 61.8% retrace of the big drop. And S&P was not far off the same set of numbers. I had originally thought this was a bear market bounce and, based on the biggest in recent history, 1929, I thought it wouldn't last more than 9 months so Christmas came and went and I thought "either its not a bear or its longer and thus probably bigger than 1929." Well to fib fans, when price retraces, you don't expect it to close solidly beyond 61.8% if it is only a retracement. So if this is only a retracement then maybe price will poke beyond last weeks highs but it shouldn't stay there long and shouldn't beat it by too much. So, shall we sell in may and go away? PS. Note that I am a strong believer in the "if there are lots of predictions of a top on ET then it will keep going up." And this weekend they seem absent. Hmmm. .

There isn't really a theoretical background unless you believe in fibs. Unless perhaps its a trend following with complex retracements approach. However if you go and find the site 4shared then you can find a bunch of pesavento material and read up on it yourself.

You got me thinking again Brownsfan and because I was using googlechat I decided to try Trillian again. I found a portable version and tried it out as a non-paid user. Gave me google, irc, and the native Astra network. Astra gives good screen snapping (select, select the area you want to snap (no doubt a chart for us), and send it) with a thumbnail showing in your message that you click for full display. I think you could then use it "in conjunction with" Mikogo because it doesn't seem you need the two to actually be linked. Hotfile.com: 1-CLICK Dateihoster

Or think even? .......

Good. I'd hate to thing that you'd got it wrong

As someone doing both I'd say that adapting a system to changing markets doesn't fit my definitions of discretion in the sense of "discretionary trading." If you exercised discretion with a system it would relate to "this trade." So if I say "conditions are too volatile for the system or the market is really still going down even though the system has flipped to longs" and override it ... then that is discretion. If, however, I say "over the last week the stats are looking bad" and then look to see if key parameters no longer match the market then consider some form of adjustment that is not discretion. More of an adaption. I know you are exercising discretion but you are not exercising it with respect to individual trades. The weakness of the english language and I suppose the legit reason why some guru's add there own words. I guess I'm saying discretion is a real time action and system adaption is not.

In this case the drivee has actually stated that he will offer nothing worthwhile. All the scum here are below his level. This board has attracted more than its share of them recently - although this one was one of the most amusing. His actual offer was: "I am happy to give you a free week to watch my order books throughout the week to see my pnl." Stinks a little of a vendor drumming up business and that is against the board's rules I think. What's funniest is the people who jump to the defense of these types - its as if they believe that the grail is only one barnum away (note: I don't actually perceive that you're in the "jumping to the scumbag's defense group" Blowfish)

When they are arrogant gits from Nottingham or imaginary lands in their heads then it is little surprise. This one stated in his posts that he wouldn't discuss trading methods (and then has the arrogance to give us the old "I tried to help my fellow man" as he takes his unrevealed toys and leaves the sandpit. Even his blog is a combination of "I'm great," "all you retail traders are crap," and "buy my mentoring course. Sending such people away is a service to humanity. Its a shame that some are so close to insane that they continue to build castles here at Traders Lab. It keeps it interesting I suppose and creates liquidity for the real traders.

You can't get anything from the IB demo -- it really is just a demo of product (tws) not of the market feed and the data isn't the same as the live or customer sim mode options. I guess we could create a spread chart for IB with 10 second increments (so it would be the max spread over each 10 secs) ... can you do something similar with Oanda so it could be compared?

You were told to go away previously. Stop wnking on about selling your ea -- spammer! And if you want to increase patronage of a pirate site the best way to do it is to post warnings everywhere. You truly are an idiot randy. Go away.

With interactive brokers, spread spikes are caused because the participant banks and your fellow speculators have pulled their orders. Such spikes seem to be smaller than with bucket shops (although they are there, and for good reason) and are much shorter in duration. I use forex factory news. Because I care about news outside of the US zone I also check: Forexnews.com and Google Translate

Anthony posts over at tradingblox and seems a pretty smart guy so I'd guess the book will be systematic and pretty good.