Kiwi

I'd recommend Acronis or Macrium Reflect to generate disk images that you can quickly rebuild a dead system from as step one. And on a weekly or more frequent basis Cobian Backup to incrementally backup key files. I store to both an offsite disk and another local networked computer.

I still have metastock floppy disks somewhere. End of Day of course. Then the joy of Trade Station 2000i And some experiments with other things including metatrader over the years. But Sierra Chart has been my main squeeze since about 2003. I, of course, trade price action at support and resistance (PASR). The best set-ups possible. But I would encourage every newbie to try a bunch of indicators and trade with real money as early as possible. Nothing like being a donor to make you feel good about yourself. :rofl:

Don't watch it continuously. I've found that I can determine that there can't be a qualified setup in less than X bars so I now set a timer, disengage, do a few press-ups or something and then come back in a better state. The timer is important at least for me. Use a kitchen timer or something like Easy Timer which is an analogue clock in the corner of my screen with an easy timer setting. .

For the record ... if you find an "educator" who has a lot of indicators, especially if they are the "indicator of the month" and they say things like "I use different values to everyone else" and other things that make them sound humble but super clever ... run don't walk away from them. People who trade trend, support and resistance, and a bit of price action to confirm with sweet f all on their charts are more likely to be worth listening to that the excited super teachers.

That answers the question about universities as scammers too. It depends what you promise or (for truly great scammers) what people think you promised while you avoided actually doing it. If you teach something and are honest about it and it has an expected value similar to the cost then you are not a scammer. The scam starts with the promotion or excessive price for something that once discovered is actually dross But when you listen to the booker presentation you do get a few clues when you've seen as many scams as I have. Universities that severely overpromise and then underdeliver can also be scammers. Edit: Sorry forgot Suiya's other question : how come the fair trade organizations don't take them to the legal system. Answer: its too hard to prove and often the customers are too embarrassed by their naivety so it rarely happens to "educators." Similarly with Universities, we have seen foreigners being scammed (with overpromise of jobs and citizenship) but you don't see many attempts at prosecution let alone success.

Easy to say with the benefit of hindsight. But remember that Rob and his ilk don't sell it as "take it but test it thoroughly" ... they sell it as "this works, just do what I say and be happy." Hence its a scam. I buy the odd potential scam/crapfest still on the possibility of hitting something useful. The win rate is pretty pathetic. Twice is actually possible too. I bought a course from Denise Shull a couple of years back and it was really a pretty monumental waste of my money. Friday I bought her book on the hope that it advanced my original investment (and it cost less then 1/100th as much). Guess what ... fooled twice. More annoyed about the waste of my time finding out that she can't write and didn't add value than the price. I think she might get my amazon review as a return for the time wasted. She really is pretentious ... I hate the way these psych and education majors pretend to know some science when they just expose their ignorance. I did take this one knowing that I was probably going to be disappointed. Its like a trade that loses in this case though. Price of finding the gem amongst the dross.

joshdance, If you doubt that you attacked fxdad then go back and, imagining you were him, read your post. If you still doubt it ... you come from a tough home town. Gosu, he didn't say you did. He said josh did. Frankly I don't think you can say anything that is too awful about scammers. And Rb's kids, should he have any, will be able to find some pretty negative views on the net from those who knew him and didn't love him. But there is always another sucker.

Not true. The dream of thousands of people who like to believe that they are honest - wishful and perhaps self-righteous thinking. But generations of politicians prove otherwise. As do the founders of many of the biggest businesses and clans like the Kennedys. Rob B might or might not be somewhat honest. I watched the video and could make money doing something like that but why bother. Why add another stupid indicator to a chart that told you more without it? Probably to sell courses. Honest or otherwise. Whether he's a trader or otherwise.

Covel is a famous "can't trader" who made is his initial dollars selling a pathetically poor quality course based on the turtle trading system. Now he takes newbies by writing books. At least he doesn't post here yet.

And back he comes with more discredited early last century jungian nonsense. Funny how trading snake oil merchants hang in with this sort of rubbish.

So you smell like a vendor but you claim you are not one. Perhaps you should read the sites rules before the stench makes people sick. :helloooo:

The OP said that the only bar on which the close was important was the daily bar. I often wonder how people can develop such wrong perceptions of market data. But after years I realize that my perceptions also changed and sometimes dramatically as I realize something that, although in front of me all the time, I hadn't perceived. Bar close is important in at least two ways. First it sets a closing price and second it sets the highs and lows for sure ... no more changes. Now, the OP has perceived truth in daily closes. Personally I perceive them in other time frames as well, but, they are market specific. It depends on what timeframes are being watched by a large enough percentage of that market so that closes and ohlc relationships matter for that market. Think about daily closes ... in forex, which close is more important, the London midnight close or the Greek midnight close (corresponds to the end of the Globex afternoon)? So are even daily closes necessarily simple? As a trader I try to understand how the rest of the market is reading what happens and how their expectations of the future are impacted by what they see and hear. That provides the basis for the next bet. So maybe those who don't see it will never see it and maybe it will matter to them and damage their trading results. It depends; hopefully not.

1. Can someone correct the spelling of this thread's title? It's embarrassing. 2. Of course you can perceive divergence without an indicator. Divergence is typically between some so called measure of strength or acceleration and price. So, if you can see price and mentally differentiate it then you can see divergence. Just look for more bars to get the same price difference for macd/rsi and pay a bit of attention to closes at the highs (up = strong) for stoch divergence..

For the OP ... note that there are two implicit assumptions in this statement that probably reflect the posters training method seeing he's a vendor. 1. the edge is very small 2. ticks to the stop are needless. Think about the assumptions, deceptions, and pumping in posts that you read on TL. There are a hell of a lot of assumptions and, almost, a larger number of self-interested vendors on this site.

There is only a contradiction in that NEVER. An initial stop should represent either your view of when the original premise is wrong or (better) when the probability of failure to stop suggests the stop should be. Everything in trading should really be probability based ... because any stop can be moved through and then back again. Then, as a trade develops sometimes it will take out your stop. Other times you'll move forward inexorably towards a solid profit. Other times market behaviour will not match that expected by your setup and you exit early because probability now favours a larger loser if you don't get out now. But there are no absolutes - there are only probabilities.

Wasn't it amusing when Urma came out of the closet. After denying that he would sell anything to anyone here ... whoops ... he was what I always accused him of "an egotistical old fraud or a vendor." I was never sure which one it would be - comfort with uncertainty is important don't you think? :helloooo: I join you Steve in hoping that your antagonist shut the fxxx up and buy some of Urmas stuff. Then he can tell us how wonderful it was if he survives the experience. Which of my suppositions about ub will prove more correct?

I don't believe that learning should be free. Heck, I even bought the book to see if there was any meat. But I don't believe that snake oil salesmen offer any proof. They need to obfuscate and make a bunch of claims that can't be tested. After a while it sounds a lot more like one of those pay me now, heaven later religions than like science or edumication. I do get irritated with people who're using the forum as an advertising medium and then get all upset on being called for it. Oh well ... why be surprised ... the down southern preachers do the same. ... oh yeah ... in response to the why read threads on psychology ... 1. you can always get better ... and 2. its interesting to watch the sellers of oil of serpent.

I think its more like "control of your thinking and actions in the situations that can give rise to rising emotions" results in the improvements. This then permits the move to greater pressure. And another round of improvement. The place to look for evidence isn't in trading. Its in poker where the challenges are nearly identical but come at an even faster pace. And the population is greater so the evidence piles up faster. The funny thing is that there doesn't seem to be anyone pushing near-stupidities like building populations of Jungian archetypes in poker. I'm not even sure that they have any freudian talk therapists either. They actually seem to use modern, evidence supported approaches for their coaching.

Why is it that all these people who are vendors can post here without giving away their nature? This one is marked "not a vendor" in his profile but the oil still smells of snake. I've complained about a few of them including umbloomer who repeatedly denied his true nature only to come out in a post a few months back and admit he was selling shit. What's the story? :deal:

Actually Tim, you are a vendor. :dito At your site you sell at least one document. That makes you a vendor. Look it up in a dictionary if you don't believe me.

I want to say "yes discipline is an edge" but it isn't. At least by any definition of edge that would be applied to gambling or trading in the statistical sense. One of the problems here is "what does edge mean?" Damned hard to find even in the dictionary. The nearest I got at dictionary.com was its use as a verb: edge out, to defeat (rivals or opponents) by a small margin: The home team edged out the visitors in an exciting finish. What discipline is though is necessary. But even discipline needs to be defined because its not about flagellation, self or otherwise, but about executing one's edge over and over, despite any inclination to do otherwise. The thing is, if you're hypothetical discretionary trader had great discipline, perfect money management, but no statistically valid edge then he would slowly go broke as the slippage and commission eroded his perfectly executed zero expectancy trades. To make money he must not only execute with his perfect discipline he must be doing something better than 50/50. Maybe he's got a feel for trend, or for support, or exhaustion but just doing a dumb thing with great discipline is still doing a dumb thing.

Answering the first question: because it's hard to be a consistently profitable trader. The conversations above seem to illustrate part of the reason why: because people seem confused about what is required. For example: discipline is not an edge, it is simply a requirement for most people if they are to repeatedly execute the steps required to deliver their edge(s). At the risk of one of those lists: - You need a combination of setup, entry, trade management and exit that has a positive expectancy (the edge). A purely discretionary trader who wins more than he/she loses has an edge: even if they don't know what exactly they do - they do something right. - A process that you follow to execute your edge reliably and consistently so that the money it can potentially generate is actually generated - Discipline - doing the process over and over with as much consistency and accuracy as your self and your process allow. - Bet sizing (money management) so that you don't blow your account in a bad run whether by a predictable system failure or error and that you earn adequately from the bets that you make. - Physical environment such as quiet, computing power, software, and reliable communciations - Emotional regulation so that when you get a run of losers or winners or exposed to whatever your current hot buttons are you can bring yourself under control and execute your process. - Probably a good record keeping and planning process to adapt when errors occur or the market changes in ways that reduce the efficacy of your current edge. - etc But you have to have them all. Any gaps reduce your ability to deliver the result you want.

I use IB's feeds ... both of them ... the live one gives real time data that never lags but because it sends no more than one sample per 100ms and the sample is a single price it can and at least a few times a day misses a price bar extreme. the true data or 5 second feed is sent at the end of each 5 second feed and includes all prices and accurate volume (if so reported by the exchange) in OHLCVT format. Back at TWS 906 ib was charting using 5 second data. Now on 920 they combine them but as I reported are still not getting the transition, where the live data has started a new bar but the first 5 sec data has yet to arrive, correct. Sierra Chart is the only package I know that combines them correctly (it isn't impossibly hard, I wrote the dll function to do it) and I use it to trade HSI which is one of the fastest moving markets in the world. .. Just read the comments about manual refreshes ... I remember having to do that to get the bar and swing highs and lows to be accurate ... which is why I first hassled my friends at IB and then wrote (and rewrote until it functioned flawlessly) the dll. It's interesting that this discussion has just made me realize that there is a simpler way to do it that my original method. Note: you can only combine true and live data with 100% confidence on time charts (5 second and up).

Actually, Josh's trader was 100% correct. With IB's live feed as you use it with ensign the highs and lows of bars and swings can and surprisingly often do miss the extreme ticks. I tried to get IB to fix this a few years back and they came halfway to the party with a 5 second feed (OHLCVT bars at the end of each 5 second period) that is correct but is also 0 to 5 seconds delayed. With Sierra Chart the two feeds can be combined so that the live feed controls the current price, bid and ask and that the 5 second feed is used to fill in any lost highs and lows. So you get a feed that never lags and is correct. But the software needs to take both feeds and combine them or this won't happen. Note: if you are using an ib tws chart to show prices then they use the 5 second feed which is why the data is correct. Feed it into ensign and you'll see a different story. Note 2: on ib charts, drop down to 1minute on something that moves reasonably fast like hsi and watch it. They combine the true and live feeds but their algorithm is slightly screwed. Whereas Sierra Chart correctly combines them and if you get a high or low on a bar it's right IB sometimes shortens a bar soon after the new bar starts (realizes the combination is wrong when new true data comes in) - which should never happen.

This is a little bizarre guys. Here are a bunch of people who I've known to be intelligent and may also be good traders. But you're slagging Douglas off for something he doesn't purport to be / do. I read the book 10 years ago when I was new and sort of got it but sort of didn't. Then I have reread both books in the last couple of years and 100% get them. One of the differences in between is that I went from interday trading to interminute and intersecond trading and discovered a bunch of things about myself that were not present on longer timeframes. Things he talks about and attempts to address. Another is that I've run into a number of people who had valid edges (read setup, exit, management package) and never turned them into money. The thing he's slagged off for seems to be not telling people how to do the trading bit. But if you note, he's up front about that and he does define some things that are important: - your edge must have positive expectancy - in the mechanical stage it must be so clearly defined that you can trade it without thought or hesitation. So he clarifies key point for a training setup. Then, at least in the first book, he offered that anyone who didn't have such an edge could email him and he'd refer them for such an edge and potentially training if required. I was new to day trading so I emailed him and sure to his word I got an email back with some advice (setups and exit disciplines plus possible trading) that I didn't take at the time but knowing what I know now would have worked. So, the package was there. ************** Someone also gave the traditional "hes an author not a trader" response. Not true; its a while since the books and he went back to trading although he does still pick up bucks from books, tapes, and the occasional seminar. ************** I do agree that in terms of psychological techniques to address trading issues steenbargers books offer a lot of extra tricks. Although I think they would be well read as idea's for working within a framework like Titz or Tdt. If one is looking for books that address that area and provide extra technique for people having trouble following the learning process from Titz, a guy who primarily works with people with Obsessive Compulsive disorders wrote a book that might be even better than steenbargers: - You are not your Brain by Jeffrey Schwartz MD ************** But lets stop slagging Mark for stuff that isn't supposed to be in his (good but boringly written) books but was offered by him free to those who ask.