Kiwi

I've seen variations of this, including "I don't buy pullbacks, I buy breakouts" based on the same logic. Someone said "Simplicity is the peak of civilization" and such ideas fall into that camp. But someone exceptionally wise said "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler." And overly simplifying heuristics such as the one above fall into the "one bit too simple" category. As a trader you need to evaluate each possible trade for win rate, win/loss, variability in those, and thus expectancy and profit factor and reliability. You might find that the cost of paying the sometimes very large spread outweighed the number of trades you missed. Or you might not. But unless one does the numbers one doesn't ever know. ps. My favourite quote on simplicity is Oscar Wilde's "I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex."

A stop order (not stop limit) will execute at the extreme of current range. IB's data feed (not the 5 second bar version but the real time one) shows a price every 100ms. Its the last price in that 100ms and if the extreme is greater it doesn't show. So you can get filled and the price not show up. Not every price is necessarily shown. If you ask IB to confirm it they can check but it will have filled at the extreme.

You might want to enlighten us first: - what are you trading? - what type of orders are you using? - are you entering them directly on tws and if not do you know what was on tws? and - when you say the last price never reached x, the ask and your execution, what do you mean (what data are you looking at?)

It's always best not to waste one's time in interminable meetings that result in nothing of value. As traders in the markets we have learned that its more valuable to spend ones time evaluating the probabilities of what could happen next and how we'd respond than to try to change the unchangeable. Britain might do well by a similar approach.

One of the interesting things about exercise is that it is one of the very few things that has scientifically tested out to improve brain function and even offer resistance against dementia. Most things simply don't work to a statistically significant level but aerobic exercise does. It seems that by improving the health of our circulatory system we don't just keep ourselves alive longer but keep ourselves thinking clearly for longer. I'm willing to bet that this helps us as traders.

OK. So lets take everything you said as true (or at least true in your beliefs). It still doesn't address most of the issues I raised: - you are continually promoting yourself here - your book doesn't provide answers, instead it keeps promoting the next step (give Rande more money folks) - probably educated in a different field (licensed therapists include a wide range of skill sets - I do recommend the film "Running with Scissors" for anyone who wants a clear understanding of this) - the Jungian Archetypes and the committee or your pseudo-scientific phrases but I'll save that for later. My main issues are that you are using the forum for free promotion (glad to see the link is finally gone) and your book is more of the same in the traditional form of NLP'ers like Van Tharp - although a far worse example than his. It saddens me that you would charge for a poorly edited book when you believe: "Anyone who believes that a book can change neurally hardwired beliefs that have been embedded into the brain during developmental moments clearly does not understand how human beings evolve into the beings they become." The two books I referenced are good examples of tools that can achieve rather more than that. In each case the writers have something to promote but they: a) give the full monte in the book b) don't shamelessly self-promote throughout and promise to resolve by the end only to disappoint by not answering the question promised but referring to yet another course. Finally I find statements like "and, truth is, I have sympathy for you" to be condescending bs. It does make you sound like a sweet-heart Rande but the continuous self-promotion suggests the snake-oil sweetness.

Good question n00b, So far Rande appears to be someone: - continually promoting themselves here - selling a book that puts off the answers to later material (the old hook em and drain em) - mixing a bit of reasonable desensitisation with light hypno called "guided meditation" with, heck, Jungian archetypes with an unusual spin - probably educated in a different field (not psychology or psychotherapy) I'd be interested to know why FxGirl (who I seem to recall might be Freudian) can claim that he, like Coke, is the real thing. Note that the books recommended above both answer the questions they pose and are both better trading books than Rande's one.

I'd like to recommend two trading books to add to the Ingot54's. Crucial Conversations - Kerry Patterson, et al. Leadership and Self-Deception - The Arbringer Institute What? They don't sound like trading books. Well, they aren't really. But they are both excellent books for traders because, they address key elements of our lives, which if out of balance are likely to support FxGirl's suspicion that most traders won't be sufficiently self-teaching to overcome the issues that they face in this easiest and most difficult of callings. Also, if you take the learning about self-deception from the second you will gain valuable observational tools for finding the drivers behind your irritating trading issues. Similarly the stories created in crucial conversations exist at every critical moment in your trading. So, if you improve your self-awareness and learn to see and improve the stories you tell yourself you might well find that they are far better books than most available. Good Trading.

The other thing is that a double Hull Moving Average doesn't actually make a lot of sense. Uriel, you'll need to post some information about where you've seen it.

1. I like IB but I think OpenECry might be offering them soon too. 2. I sleep while ES trades so I have no comparison. 3. A MHI trade looks exactly like an HSI chart although sometimes MHI will go a tick or two further and less often it will go a tick or two less. 4. Commission on MHI is usd3.14 so its about 2 ticks, while commission on HSI is $4.90 so its under 1 tick. On the Nikkei question; I don't know it could be normal. I've never really lilked Nikkei because it doesnt move as much as HSI or STW or SPI even and I prefer to see the development. But it is very tradable ... the originator of the site was a pretty serious Nikkei trader.

Mini HSI (MHI with IB) is 1/5 full size and correspondingly reduced margin. It looks thin but its arbed to HSI so follows pretty closely, sometimes over or undershooting moves by 1 or 2 ticks. Don't touch Nikkie on a non-Asian exchange. In order of size the options are: Osaka Nikkie (big), Singapore SGX Nikkie, Osaka Mini-Nikkie (smallish and very very liquid) Also, for a smallish one (because it doesnt move to fast) consider the Taiwanese index on SGX, STW. But MHI and Mini Nikkie are probably the best fit.

Beware of people promoting themselves who struggle to manage that basic element of quality: spelling the fucking words correctly. Rande's the same; if they don't present well at the most basic level don't you think it might be stupid to pay them for coaching?

I trade it. One important thing about HSI is the change of hours coming up in March. The current hours are: http://goo.gl/pz19l From 7 March they'll change to: http://goo.gl/NS3Fk That means an earlier opening, earlier lunch hour and earlier afternoon opening. So: 9:45 to 12:30 and 2:30 to 4:15 becomes 9:15 to 12:00 and 1:30 to 4:15 It will be interesting to see if the extra hour in the afternoon significantly changes the nature of the moves. I'm looking forward to the extra opportunity.

The funny thing is that Rande doesn't advertise his book correctly. It should say: - this book will not give you any of the tools you need to solve trading problems - this book will keep selling my other courses on the way through - at the beginning the book will suggest that some answers are in the later chapters but when you get there it will clarify this: you need to buy the next course - and it should say that the book is self-published and not what you might hope for at all. Then it would be honestly advertised. That's without questioning Rande's qualifications; the value of the jungian archetype approach and the twist applied to it here. As another hint: its often funny to get people who really are not well educated in the sciences writing about them; especially if they are trying to appear knowledgeable. I quite like "heart knowledge is going to occur by osmosis." Very down home; but not very scientific.

From another site you posted it at "Doing a little research on their site, comissions appear to be very high. They appear to be charging $5 a side ($10 R/T) plus exchange fees. Not even close to being competitive with IB. Nevermind I guess."

Yes, I agree on the tension resolution ... but this is (as you said) simple stuff that should be included in the book. It isn't the mysterious magic that Rande keeps implying. I'm not so sure about the value of archetypes and the hubble bubble that comes from it. Rande actually seems a little confused and it becomes apparent that his doctorate isn't in science, medicine, or psychotherapy. In this post he seems to put forward his reasons for doing what he does but he's mixing things up pretty magically http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/showthread.php?p=111072#post111072 I'd go through it with a thorough attack but I don't have time today. Maybe later. The funny thing is that I suspect that Rande's approach can enable a trader to overcome their issues (if they are the right type to resonate with him) but that doesn't make his approach "true" or "right." It just makes it effective in particular cases. PS. Glad to see the moderator has finally started deleting his URLs. He really is trolling for business.

Interesting zdo. My review of the book is not nearly as positive. 1. At the start and repeatedly throughout the book Rande is selling the reader on his other material and on personal sessions. He even goes as far as saying that if you think you can fix yourself reading the book you are deluding yourself (not the exact words). It is far far worse than Van Tharp's fixation on selling the next course and starts off suggesting the book will answer the issue (later) but keeps putting off later and pushing it toward the great but much much more expensive course. 2. I don't want to be overly unkind but ... well it is clearly self-published. 3. The Jungian stuff is interesting ... and if one is really attracted to the Archetype approach then it says a lot about the reader. If one gets really involved then its like the people who see the Parent/Child/Adult from the I'm Ok era ... but it is old and somewhat discredited as psychology. 4. The whole committee of self is really questionable. So, I read it and even converted it to epub and then mobi so I could read it on my new kindle. But if you're hoping for solutions to issues in trading then you'd be better of starting with Mark Douglas for descriptions of the sources of fears; and Ari Kiev for approaches to dealing with them and perhaps Steenbarger. Much better off. I don't regret buying the book for a bit of a read but I surely wouldn't buy the approach at all. But understand that everything Rande is doing is in the form of "little bits of free stuff" to upsell you to the expensive and continuing stuff. And the book is in that form.

Nothing is ever that simple. These two give examples of market orders being matched with market orders: - http://www.experts123.com/q/how-are-market-orders-executed.html - NYSE, New York Stock Exchange > Equities > NYSE Arca Equities I think the principles would be: - exchanges are different to each other - if two market orders were matched then the price that was achieved would be at or inside of the price of the nearest limit order. The training book for the SWX lays out how they handle this: http://www.six-swiss-exchange.com/download/trading/training/3_match_en.pdf

As much as I prefer Sierra Chart to Ninja I have to say that there isn't a problem there Dude. Take my favourite broker, IB, and connect Sierra to IB and there are no data fees from the platform. For some things (like forex, hsi, spi and a few others) there are no fees even if you never ever trade. For many things the fees are covered as long as you make trades with a few dollars of commissions a week. For others like LSE there are quite substantial fees ... but they are from your broker or data source not from your trading platform anyway. Sierra also include a number of free data options independent of your broker (or lack of one).

I'm not sure it does save a click unless you currently "mark forums read." For me it would add a click because I don't bother to do it - except when I've recently visited this thread.

Good point. If its only on unread posts it needs to be at the top and preferable top right. Thanks

You are onto it Cory. Getting the probabilistically possible win (=luck) is most important in a game where you get few opportunities for it to apply. So, one big element of luck (taking the job from the guys who turned out to be Intel not from the guys who were Hewlett Packard) can make a huge impact on everything downstream. But we are not in that kind of game. I don't know about you but I get between 10 and 15 trade opportunities per week from my market. Every week. So I would have to be lucky over and over again for it to make a big difference (which is statistically improbable but, just, possible). In this kind of game luck will even out and thus skill in strategy development and adaptation plus skill in professional execution will be the deciding factors. People give examples of large firms (as in the recent meltdown) and the likes of ltcm as "proof" of luck but what you find when you look at the situations is that they adapted to a type of situation and then bet very big on its continuation. As a result when the markets did their natural changes, for a variety of reasons, they either didn't or couldn't adapt fast enough and got caught out. That's why, as professional traders, we execute money management and awareness of market evolution (and revolution) so that our financial accumulation isn't outweighed by the inevitable periods of draw down. Its not about "luck"; its about managing ones risk in a stochastically influenced environment that changes over time.

I support the request

When considering the volume of the fx futures markets one might do well to ask "are major players operating in both markets?" and if the answer is yes then "could they manipulate volume in the smaller futures market to gain advantage in and fx market?"