Kiwi

Interactive Brokers. Good platform, good costs, higher than many margins (a good thing). Currency cash and futures, stocks, futures incl non-electronic. Overseas markets including Hong Kong, Australia, Taiwan, Japan etc etc.

I think you can say "most people who have learned to trade from books and bulletin boards don't use inverse rrs" without risk of being wrong. You could also say that all the buy and holders who bought over the last 5 years aimed to have a rr in the 3+ range (if they ever consciously addressed such things). But 50,000,000 flies eat xxxx .... which doesn't mean that following them is the smart thing to do. Survival of the fittest (most adaptable) or survival of the one who does what all the amateurs (and most semi-pros) do? I'm trying to say that its not a different discussion at all. This business is full of "religious" ideas. But the profitable businesses may well be built on ideas scorned by the followers of the trading religions. Your friend may really be on to something. But he does need to understand both his expectancies and also what would cause his strategy to fail ... and whether that is likely / avoidable.

Faith vs Reason Religion vs Science Opinion vs Evidence

It might be time for you to take an evidence based look at it. Look at his system. Analyze his results. Recheck with Monte Carlo. You might well find that his risk of ruin is considerably lower than yours for a give risk percentage per trade. Perhaps with his high win rate and the resulting reduction in probability of a sequence of losing trades he can thus risk more per trade for the same risk of ruin. Evidence not faith leads to better business decisions.

Don't do it John. That's magical thinking - anyone would think you liked Macs or something. It is all about expectancy. A sub 1:1 system can be better than your 2+:1 system. Just teach him about expectancy and his options. Then he can use evidence and analysis to find out what works and go with that. He won't thank you if you get him to change because of your beliefs and then he can't ever really make it work. Science vs Religion > Science must triumph.

If you can find me saying "Windows can not be run natively on Mac hardware" then I will be impressed. The stuff you posted is just what I originally said it was. I stand by my prior statements: 1. Most trading software is designed to run under Windows. 2. Running windows natively on given hardware will always be faster and more reliable than some form of software shim - there are less instructions to run so both will be true by the very nature of software. And would add - if you want to run trading apps then why pay a price premium to Apple for it. On the other hand if you want to run an Apple you will do it anyway for reasons that have nothing to do with speed or reliability.

Note that I never said that Windows can not be run natively on Mac hardware. That would join some of the other ignorant statements. My statements relate to the foolishness of suggestions that various shimming softwares are either faster or run more reliably than native operation. No tests are required and any tests you have (you haven't quoted them) will be comparing pears with peaches (ie, the hardware will not be the same). 1. Most trading software is designed to run under Windows. 2. Running windows natively on given hardware will always be faster and more reliably than some form of software shim - there are less instructions to run so both will be true by the very nature of software. Note that 2 requires that the hardware be the same (not faulty) and that the people setting up the software don't make mistakes in the setup. Such mistakes form the basis of many benchmarking disputes in the XP/Vista/7/Linux world. I didn't realize they'd crept into macworld as well.

OK. This is tech ignorance at a very special level. Now we have a claim that a mac is more reliable running shimmed windows than machines without extra software between the user and the hardware ??? Get a grip. If your mate has hangs on another machine then he either has a flawed installation or he has faulty hardware. I have 4 windows machines. I run XP on most of them but also Windows 7 and Vista. Guess what? No hangs. Never. Guess why? They are not faulty and the software was properly installed. So, my small numbers trump your small numbers. But lets get real. The real issue is simple: when you run Windows in a Mac environment it is shimmed in their in one form or another. That means there is extra software between the user and the hardware. This will inevitably have two effects: - for the same hardware it will in some way be slower. - more software is involved so it will be less reliable. And that ignores any premium price one might chose to pay for an Apple.

You are being blinded by technology and slick bs. If an app is designed to run in windows it will run better in Windows without something shimming the hardware. The link is marketing stuff ... and we all know the difference between a used car salesman and a computer salesman, right? The difference is that the used car salesman actually knows when he's lying to you.

As long as you don't mind not being able to run your trading and management software natively.

I found this post on "Re: Thoughts from a Professional Trader" interesting and have nominated it accordingly for "Topic Of The Month January, 2009"

3 or 6 or 30 or 60 ... stretched out to 20 characters by including 300.

OK. I've watched 30 mins so far. What training? Gee ... I just pray that there are some people like that trading my markets. Hell. There must be. That explains why I'm profitable.

The liquidity isn't there James. For asiapac the futures contract ranking from most boring to least seems to go: - Nikkei - STW (taiwan) - SPI (aussie) - HSI (hong kong) with KOSPI probably similar to SPI for range/volatility but much greater liquidity and more intraday choppiness. Lower liquidity does seem to correspond to better trends, perhaps because you can't count on it chopping back and have to get on or watch it go. I find myself unable to trade Nikkei when there are more interesting things around and was trading STW and SPI. Now that I expect ranges to drop again I have added HSI back into the mix and am trading it when a particularly nice setup occurs.

For those in Europe. Everything that Brownsfan said could well also be applied to the Bund (IB symbol GBL). This is a quietly tradable bond future with excellent depth and more trendiness than the ESTX50 or other european indexes. Price per point is reasonable for most traders. Sadly, trading in the Asian timezone I haven't found an equivalent. Soultrader?

An interesting analysis Tasuki. I don't think I've ever posted on VSA before - simply because when I looked at it and listened to its key advocates I didn't really see value. Why does VSA work at all? - because it has elements of Wyckoff/PA trading built in that do have an edge? - because practitioners pick up on that same action in their chosen markets and develop some trading "intuition" that adds to the edge? The "big boys" etc stuff is probably largely a fantasy the makes trading more enjoyable because one feels an increased sense of certainty, the satisfaction of taking advantage of said bbs, and that this is why one should do X, Y and Z in a disciplined manner. Cool really.

I think it is worth keeping at least the key threads clean. Otherwise readers can't judge the underlying method. But it seems only reasonable to run parallel hybrid threads within the overall forum --- just labeled as such. Otherwise things get stultifyingly boring once the basic stuff has been explained 15 or 20 times.

LOL. Its a tough call. I use 3, Traders Laboratory, Trade2Win and EliteTrader. Average info quality decreases from left to right and I learn almost nothing from bb's .. a trinket here or there. But elite is the only place to go to check IB problems and also does get some excellent news/economics posts. T2W is active without the shear (enjoyable?) offensiveness of Elite. Trades Lab is more likely to produce a gem. Babypips was ok for forex babies. Forex factory has a great calendar but is populated by lots of indicator junkies plus a few good threads (james16, jacko's, the system II (Yes with irony)). Most others had no appeal.

Calculate them yourself. Pivot = yesterdays H+L+C divided by 3. The big difference is likely to be when a site considers midnight to be for forex because their is no fixed market. I like midnight London, or Opening for the CME Eurofx. But many just use their local midnight.

And I'd like to join you in wishing everyone a happy and prosperous new year. Go with the flow :groove:

Sorry, I'm a little slow today. Lets check if I understand you. You're saying: "Steve, you're not a pro - you're a pretender." "It's easy, just use the bond markets to resolve those uncertainties." "I can see right through you, I'm so cool." Is that a good summary? Edit: There are so many BS's in the post two down from this that I can't understand him. I am pretty sure he's saying that the way I make my money every day doesn't work. Well, heck.

It was still db's choice and responsibility. I suggested that he start another thread for related but slightly off topic discussion. Wyckoff has been dead a long time but seemed to be the sort of inquiring mind who would be interested in some of the related material. Perhaps I'm wrong in that but I'm not wrong about your post earlier in this thread - I think I read every one of Steve's posts in the Wyckoff threads as well as most of yours and db's and given how few there were I can assure anyone that "he had continuous problems shifting your posts elsewhere" is a gross exaggeration similar to the ones you made in your earlier posts. Now if you want to whinge about someone's useful posts further why don't you make up your own thread to do it. You are off topic in a thread titled "Ideas for Struggling Traders" doing exactly what you wrongly accuse Steve of doing.

Bearbull, your early paragraphs are a (deliberate?) misunderstanding of Steve's very useful addition to that Wyckoff discussion. Two people nominated Steve's initial post for best of the month. If there had been more openness then there might well have been even more learning. Your second to last paragraph is an incorrect attribution of responsibility. Closing down or deleting a thread was not Steve's action. And in that thread he was not asked about specifics - he was shut down. And he responded politely to that. The debate was hardly long or drawn out - sadly it was never really started. So saying Steve was responsible is pure bs.

I can't prove it but I think you'd be wrong about that. Most people start trading with a variety of indicators. Only after time do they abandon them and move towards price action. This move seems to take a number of years in most cases that I am personally across. If we say that 95% of people who start trading will fail then under any reasonable statistical distributions a large proportion will take place before indicators are abandoned. I seem to recall a 90% in six months figure once but lets say thats too dramatic - 90% in 2 years. And if its even and most PA traders took a year to wake up then well over 45% of traders will have dropped out by then. Of those left the survival rate will thus be much higher than 5%. The other group of PA traders that would skew the distribution are those who were trained in PA trading either at a prop shop or by a mentor. I don't know what the failure rate at the shops is but I suspect that personal training reduces the failure rate. Thus, if one believes that PA trading is usually an evolution from indicator trading or a result of training the failure rate will be substantially under 95%. One doesn't have to believe that PA is better than IA to accept this - belief that PA is superior would further improve ratios.

In fact, because your statements were: "Taking advantage of fundamentals is ALL that separates the pro trader from the wannabes." "You CANNOT become a successful Forex trader ..." Shouted. Whats more. Like the advert you were quoting (the one for a smelly little news trading "training" outfit). In this case you only need one trader who is happy to state that they have traded forex without fundamentals for each of the last 3 months to prove you wrong. I don't trade forex so I can't ... but I'm sure that someone can. For that purpose I nominate Wasp who posts here and who has been explicit about both is purely technical method of trading forex and his success this year. You will have to excuse him the last few weeks as he did so well that he stopped for the year and went on holiday (Well done old boy ) The best bit I like from that trash advert was: "Henry becomes a professional trader. You never see him frequenting Forex discussion forums, or online trade rooms, because he’s too busy making a fortune in his live account…" Clearly Henry hasn't discovered that you don't have to watch the market every single moment of the day to be able to trade profitably. Perhaps its that the scammer with the advert doesn't want Henry to go to a trading room and discover that he's just been taken. Like most who fall for the "make a fortune with forex" messages. LMAO. :spam: