bootstrap

Entries.....Oh where do we start. Maybe this can get you thinking about what you are trying to accomplish. When designing your entry strategy, you have to follow a fundamental rule. Your Entry strategy has to guarantee that your strategy captures every move it was designed for. To do this, you cannot rely on a single entry. (i.e. only buy at support, only buy break of resistance, etc) So with a support and resistance strategy, you know that you will be buying/selling at the S/R levels. But if Support is 1275 you can't just enter at 1275. The market may or may not reach it. Using support for the example. Once support is in place, you have to be ready to enter: at support, at the most recent H/L if support is not reached, or at a break of R if it never retraces back towards the support level. If I had traded your chart, i would have planned on entering at a breach of the second support line (at the green dot). If the market had not retraced back to the second support line, I would have looked to enter at a recent H not yet penetrated and if it blasted back up (never retracing) I would have entered on a penetration of the second resistance line I drew.

S/R is my core trading strategy, and has been since I made the turn. I determine the S/R levels by using pviot prices. And sicne I promised a little meat with my next post, here you guys go. Using your first tick attachment. Wait for the first pivot high and pivot low to form. The order doesn't matter. this forms the Open S/R box. (#1 and 2) Wait for a new pivot price to form outside the OSR. Since it forms above the OSR I am looking to go long. I now wait for the pivot low to form. I want the market to trade completely outside the range of first bar that makes the pviot low. I now have my Zone. In this order, I will go long on a break of of the second pivot low(the green dot), or a break of the most recent high on the retrace leg, or a break of the second pivot high. The initial stop is the OSR support level.

I guess it is now time to explain the "Wonder" in the title. I sometimes look back and wonder if I had to do it all over again, "Would I?" Would I spend almost 8 years learning to do this? Would I let my desire to do this cost me a marriage? Would I let my desire to do this cost me thousands of dollars? Sleepless days and nights? Friends? To be successful, I thought I had to put my whole heart and soul on the line. I was wrong. And the answer to would I do it all over....YES. Just a little different. It all worked out in the end. The friends are still there and I am close to the ex even though we are not married. I would spend more time with the family and friends. I would listen to what they had to say, even if I disagreed. Explain that this is what I wanted to do. That this was what I was born to do. But just like going to medical/law school, sometimes your future has to come first. Don't be afraid to take a stand if you have too. There will most likely be personal sacrifices. That is just part of the fee you have to pay. Hopefully they will not be as severe as mine. Chris

i will say that most students will seek out someone who is trading the style/strategy that they are interested in. but you don't have to change your style to teach someone how to trade a style that is different from your own. the learning process is still the same. and if you teach someone a strategy different from the one you are currently using, you just may learn something new too. you still have to walk them through the personal stuff. why do they want to trade? what is the goal? why does a particular style/strategy appeal to them? this piece usually takes the longest to get through, and is usually where the wanna bees move on. they still have to pick the time frame, a market to trade, how does a random entry/exit strategy perform in the chosen time/market, identify market characteristics to exploit, design the basic entry and exit rules, position sizing, whether to scale in/out, what can be done to improve the strategy, can it even be improved, how much money is needed to trade it successfully. you can use a simple strategy to show them how each step works, but the steps can be applied to any strategy that they want to learn. Chris

the first thing that i tell any would be trader is never pay anybody for anything. do i really think a successful trader would teach you to trade your own way? yes i do. in fact i have done it and know several others that have done it as well. did i ask for anything in return? yes i did. i asked that they give me an honest try.

I think my point was missed. So lets do it this way.. Which would you rather do: (A: Your Mentor) I show you my brokerage account and teach you to trade my way for $10k. And off you go. or (B: My Mentor) I don't show you my account, teach you to trade your way, once I know you are ready, if you want let you trade for me using my money, pay you 30% of the profit, I take all the losses. At any point from day one that you are ready to leave you are free to go. All that you are out is time. Newbies will jump on your mentor because it appears to be the easiest route. But if you really want to learn this business, you are better off with mine. Chris

How true. It doesn't matter what you use as long as you are making a profit. But I also think that new/struggling traders are using too many. The problem is that each of the 10 they are using has the same data source. And by that I mean all of the indicators they follow use the close or some derivative of the close. As long as each indicator is using a different set of data (close, H-L, pivot, volume, time, etc) or combines them in a unique way, they would be better off.

IMHO, a good mentor doesn't charge a dime. A good mentor does not claim to be anything. They just are. Just as the old saying goes " When the student is ready, the teacher will appear."

There will be those that will disagree with me, but here is my opinion based on my own research. Scaling In actually falls into two categories: Averaging Up and Averaging Down. The Turtle method averages up, and is still effective for a trend trader. But only if the exits are adjusted accordingly. The beauty of Averaging Up for a trend trader is that it allows you to get in early using a very simple entry with a minimal position. You only have the full position on when the market proves you right. For scalpers and swing traders, I lean toward putting the whole position on at the get go. these guys usually work with targets as exits, and very seldom let the market run like a trend trader does. I personally do Average Down on my long term investments.

i meditate everyhour of everyday, but its probably not what you are thinking. for me meditation is being in the here and now. and i try to stay that way throughout the day. it is not that i do not plan for the future or contemplate the past, i just want to be in the moment at hand as much as possible. there is no moment more important than the one you are currently in.

both....Fear makes you hesitate when you should be bold and greed makes you take to much risk and/or over trade. Bulls make money, Bears make money, Sheep and Pigs get slaughtered.

if you want a stock filter here ya go. hopefully this will give you an idea of where to start. long - above 21EMA shorts - below 21EMA Inside day with high volume the rest is up to you.

http://www.winninginvesting.com/

To shed a little more light on my perception and where I am coming from. The key to understanding this is the "perception" of randomness. And while this is fun to debate, it really does not matter one way or the other as long as you can trade it and make a consistent profit. Before I get carried away, back to my perception of the randomness of the markets. Compress your timeframe down to the single tick. You can not look backwards, you can only look at the current/last tick and have no knowledge of the past. If XYZ has traded at 102.50 where is it headed? Up, Down, how far. As you move forward tick by tick losing your knowledge of the previous move, you will see the markets as nothing more than a random move each time. Now move up a time frame to a mere two ticks. You now have more information to form an opinion on where the market is headed. The further back in time you move, the more information you have to base a decision on and patterns begin to emerge. but then again, this is just my perception.

I consider myself a long term intra-day trader. I take postions that are planned to go flat by EOD, but if the action is right the trade moves to the next level. IMO randomness is seen based on the method used and not the time frame traded.

This is without a doubt the one book that turned it all around for me. I was participating on the boards at "Futures" when POP started posting. IMO this is one book that you should re-read at least once a year.

good post... my key to pulling the trigger each and every time is approaching the markets with the opinion that i am wrong from the moment i hit the button. in my mind at that very moment the trade is already a loser. the market has to prove me right or i get right back out.

Man you guys have been busy since I was out. Vacations are never long enough and as usual, I had to check in on the markets while I was relaxing. Called my trading partners a dozen times, glanced at the ticker scrolling across the bottom of the radio when i could and listened to CNBC all the way down to get my fix. Drove the girlfriend crazy. As you can tell there was alot of banging my head on my desk during those early days. Everytime I thought I was over the hump, I ran into another wall that had to be climbed.

i have seen threads on this topic for years, and have this discussion with fellow traders over beer and a grill almost every weekend. IMHO the truth is somewhere in the middle of unpredictable and random, and the factor that will tilt the needle one way or the other is the time frame traded. The shorter the time frame the more random the markets appear, and the longer the time frame the randomness dies down and only unpredictability remains. But I really don't care. I do not try to predict, I just prepare for the inevitable movement. Be it up, down, or sideways.

you are quite welcome. i am about to sign off and head to florida for a few days. i will check back in with you guys when i get back home on wednesday morning.

I wasn't sure where to put this, so the powers that be can move it if they see fit. I put it here for anyone who is just starting out and wondering what it really takes to become part of that elite club of profitable traders. I lurk on several trading forums. I join a few and make a few posts. One thing that I rarely see is the painful path one took to becoming successful. So for all you beginners here is what becoming successful took. For my fellow brethren that are already in the club have a good laugh. The markets had always lured me as a kid. I would read the paper and make predictions. Sometimes they were right; sometimes not. Then one day I got that famous commodity-trading flyer, sent my money off and took the plunge. My first stab at trading was commodities and I started with $5k in 1991. I was using the strategy as outlined by the guru. The account was gone within a few months. Well that didn’t work. I thought, people do this everyday and make money why not me. So off to the library. I read every book the Memphis library had on trading and investing. I paper traded the strategies I found while I built my bankroll back up. I learned exits, set-ups, position, expectancy, market psychology, and portfolio management. I soon realized that I was reading the same thing over and over no matter which book I checked out. Time to build my strategy. I am ready to do this. I bought a new computer, Metastock Pro 6.0, and opened an account with $30k. Its 1995, and this is my shot. By 1997 I was toast again. The family life went to hell in a hand basket, and I thought I could trade through the difficult times. The result was an account with a balance of $2500. Back to the drawing board. Took care of the personal stuff. Lived like a monk raising capital. Worked nights and watched the market during the day. Took a second job on the weekends to raise more money. Then one day out of the blue, the little red and green candles started to make sense. I saw patterns develop over and over in the same spots. I placed a trade and made a profit. But I had done this before. I removed the MACD from my charts. Placed another trade and made a profit. Maybe I am on to something. Removed the channel indicator that I stumbled across. I could still see the action and new what the MACD was doing and where the action was in the channel without them even being on the chart. I even stopped drawing trend lines. It was just me and the screen. I planned every trade. I knew exactly when, where, and why I entered and exited. I was patient. I became a predator. Lurking and waiting. I took every shot the market gave me. If it started to go wrong, I got out quick and waited. If the market did not give me an opening, oh well. There is always tomorrow. By the fall of 1999, I was consistently profitable and have been ever since. For those that are waiting for the sales pitch, there isn’t one. For those that are waiting for me to expose some great secret, well there isn’t one of those either. What I will give you are a few simple pointers that I learned the hard way. And the sad part is, most will stilll learn these the hardway. 1)Take everything you read with a grain of salt. That includes this post. 2)Never pay for a system. It is just not that easy. 3)If something comes up in your life that is distracting, stop trading. 4)Plan every aspect of your trade down to the smallest detail, and plan for every possible outcome. 5)Develop your own strategy. Don’t let someone tell you that you can’t trade a simple moving average if you truly believe you can. 6)Test the strategy in the market that you will be trading. If you like the results, trade it in another totally unrelated market and see if it still holds up. 7)Paper trading is ok, but there is nothing that truly tests the strategy like hard earned cash. 8)You will have to make sacrifices in order to make it. I still do. In the middle of my learning period I was working 18 hours a day during the week and 12 on the weekend. 9)You are responsible for everything when it comes to trading. That includes stop running, bad fills, limit moves, your PC crashing. I mean everything. See #4 10)And last but probably most important, don’t be afraid of failure. Just do like Edison and go, “Well that didn’t work”. Good trading to you all.

The Only Three Questions That Count by Ken Fisher Freakonomics by Stephen Levitt

i might as well give you a little heads up then. Buy and Sell signals make up about 10% of a trading strategy. why are you buying or selling? how do you determine position size, do you average up, average down or go all in, do you scale out of trade or exit all at one time. what is the goal? how much time can you devote? what do you do if your pc or connection goes down in the middle of a trade? how often do you take money out of the account? these are just some of the things you have to know each and every time you push that little button that initiates a trade.

that would have been Mr Robert's TWMPMM...