Kiwi

You do tend to get surprising levels of cooperation. Maybe pressure is involved but they also don't want the hassle of customer problems when it goes wrong. The spreadbetters (fx buckets by another name) are the most obvious one (try to open an account from the us). Online pharmacies and Amazon is another one ... try to order drugs that are legal in the US but not approved in Australia for Aus and they won't take your order. So, if you get draconian laws in the US you might be surprised, given the linkages in these organizations at their willingness to exclude you guys from overseas operations.

Not significantly irritated. I just wondered because I saw it on et and in a moment of boredom decided to google it. Personally I just have large files of stuff by year and go back occasionally to seek inspiration or horror at what I once found interesting.

Its not as though this is the only place you've asked this. You seem to be running exactly the same thread at T2W, et, TL, and one I'd never heard of, TraderJi. Are you planning to write a book for Indian traders?

LOL. And that is the $60,000,000 question my friend. Do we have a 2B down with more to go or do we have a test and resume on a big old bull. I think its a 2B down for the grumpy bear. But it will take more than a couple of days to get confirmation either way.

Thats the thing though, Thales. He said: "I think it was a long step forward in my trading education when I realized at last that when old Mr. Partridge kept on telling the other customers, "Well, you know this is a bull market!" he really meant to tell them that the big money was not in the individual fluctuations but in the main movements that is, not in reading the tape but in sizing up the entire market and its trend." In Mr Partridge's terms we may be at the end of a reactionary swing in a Bear market. So maybe he'd be holding short still - I guess it just depends on his time frame. One of the strong arguments for this being the beginning of the 2nd leg of the bear is that no one over at ET thinks it is; actually my brother's Chicago stockbroker doesn't either Attached a chart of the current "bear," with a beautiful rise into 62% and then an immense amount of uncertainty over the last few months. Looking at that and thinking about intial bear targets you'd have to like the 50% of the current rise given how nicely it coincides with earlier S&R. .

I'm currently yearly/monthly bearish. Why: - fundamentally the debt/bubble issues haven't played out in the rest of the world even if they have in the US so I don't think "it" has finished. - we have a nice retrace on the bear market which would be about right if we had a 1929+ sized event but doesn't necessarily make it a bull just yet What would change me: - I think the highs of the first week of August are important so to break them and hold above them for two weeks would suggest the bear was seriously hurt But: - day by day and hour by hour I will just trade what I see in front of me.

There are strategies that are less simple than ours MMS that can make use of the extra margin. Some of them are quite good. Its applying 200:1 to straight out single bets without good money management that offers the potential to clean out the account quickly. In response to Malta etc won't you just get the (protectionist?) legislation in the US that stops you using overseas purveyors of extra margin similar to the stuff that stops you using spread-betters. On the other hand, if its primarily the industry and politicians protecting their re-elections by being seen to be doing something they'll probably be satisfied with their current effort.

It is interesting that you say that MMS. I think that one of the keys to a discretionary systematic approach (or is it a sda) lies in that statement: "a preset target like "1.50 points" it seems to be ineffective after a while." In my years of watching a number of markets I find that for some of them actual numbers matter. But that they morph. Why do they matter? Because, say, the testers of prior S&R build a consensus of how far they need to go to collect the majority of free liquidity without signalling reversal to each other. Why does it change? Because you can't have the suckers catch on (or you can but then you take their money again). When I was trading HSI it was a fast morph (I visualized a bunch of guys meeting for tea in the HK towers before open) and I'd watch the first couple of trades to get a read on what today's market would be like and then apply rules based on what happened there. Sometimes stops and patterns would stay the same for a week or weeks but sometimes they'd switch from day to day. You could use ATR and make the stops big enough to cover the variations ... but where would the fun be in that - or the high expectancies. As a historical note: HSI went crazy a few Augusts back when the Chinese were thinking about opening a mainland futures market so some guys in Shanghai were given big big money and used the HSI as a playground. Spreads went nuts and slippage could be amazing even for those used to the HSI. I retired from it to trade STW and SPI. A year later the locals in HK had continuously adapted these guys into their financial graves and the market was back to normal. Darwin's theory was about survival of the most adaptable not the strongest and the boys in HK are the fittest. The big money, even Chinese, isn't always the smart money.

I think the benefit is "I did something so you should vote me in" and the second one is that it doesn't impact on campaign contributors who generated the real problems. Fix the little guy to protect political scum. Warms the heart.

Smoking is a cool one Cory because it is absolutely not victimless and because it is slipping towards "outlawed." Its not as though you even really get high! In New Zealand it will be outlawed in prisons from mid next year. Outlawed. Why? Because prison officers can sue the state for the damage that passive smoking is doing to them in an environment they can't get away from. So, if you think prison is a deterrent now, imagine if you have to give up smoking when you arrive! I guess they'll put them all on tranqs to get through the grumpy phase!

Note wishing to stop Thales responding here. Again just my opinion based on watching myself and seeing what others have written Cory. 1. As you've said the impacts of slippage and commission are higher at short timeframes and given a report I saw that most losing traders made a little before s&c this shouldn't be underestimated. 2. Markets do become more readable as timeframes rise as the noise is lower (I suspect that the higher the timeframe the bigger you have to be to make a meaningful impact / manipulation / spike on a given market.) 3. Psychological issues are bigger than the deniers would suggest. Most deniers then go on to describe issues that are psychological but they just see as hardening the xxxx up! The shorter the timeframe the more impact losses, fears, etc have because when you have an emotion the brain chemicals take a certain amount of time to flow away ... even if at the thought level you think you are past it. I think that strong emotions tend to impact for 15-30 minutes so you need to get your trading decisions out of this time frame until you develop skills for handling your edge and yourself. 4. Markets are different and some typically have more than one swing in a day ... so 1 might be the wrong number. I have developed a liking for trading two swings on forex ... the first from around 6am gmt into 8-8:30 gmt and the second that develops out of that swing (often a reversal for a moderate period).

I'd add a bit to what Thales just said in reply to the M15 question. If you're defining a strategy to catch the main swing then you are looking for a relatively early entry (rather than high reliability but potentially later in that major swing). So that tends to point at 2bs or 123s. Then you look at the places where you'd hope to get turned around, and perhaps you say, "given the big swing I'll get I'm prepared to take 1-2 losses for each of those big wins." And you start big with perhaps hourly or H4 bars and then drop in size until the noise means you get too many 123 signals that don't lead into the big swing. I don't know about stocks but in forex M5 is too fine and noisy for catching the big swings (multiple H4 bars long) - you just get too many false reversals. M15 seems to be about the sweet spot.

zdo, I wonder if they stop posting because internet trading forums are such a poor venue for achieving their goals. Also, in their normal job they are interacting with a more "real" people. So the reinforcing satisfactions are not there for them. MMS, You assert that you wouldn't take the cure from someone who hadn't walked the walk but I think that ignores the value of specialization - on which our whole western industrial civilization has been built. Someone could gain skills in helping people be happier and achieve their goals; then gain some experience with traders and thus understand the drivers of some; and then combine the two to enhance their customer's abilities. I do think we attract more charlatans and one trick ponies than general practice although I suppose even NLP didn't last much longer or stronger with us then in general. I think that the potential rewards might help attract such people to the group; also the extent to which people struggle with themselves in trading. Kiwi

I really loved "Combative? Me?" TRO. As an occasional detractor I am amused. Its funny how much self-deception I've seen on the forum recently and most truly seem to miss-perceive themselves. I think a lot of people practice forms of somewhat passive aggression and in their minds say to themselves that they were being polite. Bizarre. You on the other hand are, I suspect, perfectly in touch with reality. Combat with you is always a pleasure.

Interactive Brokers has a large customer base. Many customers are satisfied with them but you do get a few complaints as their customer service pretty much assumes you know what you're doing. Also their data is not tick by tick ... it comes in packets every 100ms to avoid fast market issues. I love them and like the fact that you can trade Australian and Asian markets as well as forex, and US and European futures and stock markets. Sierra Chart is a great low cost charting platform (not free like mt4 though) and they integrate with a number of brokers for data and order entry and management - including IB. Lots of choices though - those are just my preference

Tams, Your tag line defines you "...as expected, by a delusional comedian..." Thanks for yet another laugh. Why don't you get drunk now and threaten to shoot me? .

Funnily enough Tams seems to have started with me. Its like he's Urma's girl or something - weird given that he seems to offer value to people interested in MultiCharts. I guess he's going for the Thanks that Urma gives him every time he posts anything that slightly agrees with Urmy. The funniest thing with Tams is that he doesn't see himself as argumentative. Self-deception is a wonderful thing. Here's a deal Urma. Stop generating new threads (the sign of a vendor or a slightly mad attention seeker) and I'll leave you alone. Keep generating threads, especially the value free, aint I wonderful type like this one, or the stupid photoshops that repeat the same rubbish (again, aint I wonderful), and I'll take that as an invitation to let the readers know what you are; ok? PS. He isn't Pat, brownsfan; he would just like to be Pat.

If you do decide that a slower style might suit you then you can mix the forex pairs (whether as forex or futures) to achieve a higher rate of trade per week. The most liquid pairs (and thus, those with smallest spreads and least slippage) are the majors: EU, UJ, GU, AU, UCHF, and CADU with some of the crosses like EJ, EA and GJ are also pretty liquid. Once you get to hourly or 4 hourly timeframes though the spread/slippage isn't so important as a percentage of your total trade so you add to the possibilities. An important element of a slower trading style is that costs become less important; another is that its easier to trade a plan if the time to make your decisions and recover from events is longer. Forex is prone to solid trending moves so look carefully at Thales and Brownsfan's material here - they provide good opportunities for profiting in these markets.

Great recommendation clmacdougall. I have read both of Dalton's books and found them interesting but I didn't find them really insightful - perhaps they are but they didn't click for me in a big way. After seeing your post I got a copy of 141 West Jackson and can finally understand why people are so impressed with Peter Steidlmayer. Brilliantly insightful and adapting to the changes in the market - not the one trick pony that some self-professed trading geniuses and gurus seem to be but a great trading mind. I'm only at page 51 and really looking forward to the rest of the book. Thanks.

If you search you'll find some cute baby photos ND. I don't think that phase of life combines well with running a website plus ones own career. With all the fighting going on here and the people in denial about their own agressiveness, egotism and/or name calling (yes, you don't have to name anyone specifically (you know who you are )) I thought I'd share this. Net nastiness is nothing on the real thing: Bear Attack in Churchill , Manitoba , Canada . These are pictures of an actual polar bear attack. The pictures were taken while people watched and could do nothing to stop the attack! Reports from the local newspaper say that the victim will make a full recovery. The photos are below . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Attack.jpg

Good article. I thought Aronson had a good attitude - I personally wouldn't like the headaches of managing OPM.

LOL The funniest thing Urma is that you don't see yourself in MightyMouse's post. I could see my contribution but I guess if you are not sane then the ability to see yourself correctly is damaged. Urma, I have called you Pat in the past and I apologise for it because it contributes to your pathology. Clearly you are not Pat; you are Urma. I will clarify one point from an earlier post of yours so that you don't need to make that mistake again. You suggest that I am a "stalker." That would imply that I'm following you around but I don't - you are free to post your self-aggrandizing rubbish on all the poker sites in all the world. You see, I was at Traders Laboratory first. Too me you are the interloper who damages a good forum by repeatedly starting threads to say how wonderful you think you are (and somehow think that will make other people think you are wonderful). You are like a paedophile in my village. I am the concerned parent; I simply want to drive you away. So feel free to leave. I have used up my 10m for this week and the next few so I shall simply post a warning on each of your new threads for now. I hope you get better one day Urma. Good luck. PS Its "Really." PPS. No, its not stalking. It's like warning everyone when you can see a paedophile. Disgust is the emotion.

Urma, Its not your content; its just you. You have displayed all the characteristics of MM's "outright egomania" and I don't like to see it polluting our excellent trading site. So why don't you stop irritating so many people: - stop starting threads - stop behaving like you're in a texan trailer park (big noting on the internet to make yourself feel good) This is the internet. All the evidence still suggests that you could be delusional and living in that trailer park. Actually I still think you are. The last thing I am is jealous of you - I actually feel sorry for you which is why, after a few posts I tend to leave you alone for a few weeks to continue your pathology. Kiwi PS. And its "trailer" and "shopped" Urma.

Urma, I wouldn't post in your threads except that you are such a total headcase. And exposing you for what you are seems a worthwhile use of 10 minutes or so every week. I hate to think that newbies would get taken in by you. No one else starts a thread every time they want to post. No one else keeps saying how wonderful they are with so little basis for it. No one else starts threads with the same thing every time. The last time we saw someone like that it was a Texan. The funny thing is that he Big Noted himself just like you (you are your number one fan). In the end someone tracked down who he was because his ex-wife was so annoyed that he couldn't pay his alimony. He was another Texan with no money living in a trailer park pretending to be a big trader. So here is the thing. You're posts are exercises in grandiosity. Your posts are posted here and, totally out of context, on poker threads. There is no evidence that you are not the same Texan posting from his trailer park trying to be the big man - on the internet!!! (Photoshopped images don't count Urma) For all we know, you are that person. A new thread just to say "I was asked this question by and my answer is "aint I fantastic." Hasn't anyone told you that big noting on the internet isn't really where it is at? Or haven't you talked to any realworld people this week? In fact you must be that texan in his trailer park. Glad to see you haven't committed suicide yet Urma.

As always we should be grateful that someone as important and busy as Urma is willing to grace this humble website with his presence. And the jewels that he casts before you swine should leave you shuddering in ecstasy as he starts yet another thread. Such beneficence. .