jonbig04

I think it's absolutely a system. The top 10% of income earners own 90% of the stocks. Sure not all financial advisers are bad. But someone who is performance based is going to work much harder than someone who gets paid regardless of what happens to y our money. That's a no-brainer. Yet unless you are pretty wealthy, you aren't even allowed to take advantage of performance based money managers. This because such managers are seen as "too risky" for every day investors. Risky is handing your money to someone who has zero accountability and using a strategy like buy and hold. I'm not saying there some group of conspirators out there or anything like that, just that the world of finance is set up in such a way that is it tough for a layperson to get anything past mediocre performance, if that.

I couldn't agree more. I'm not really talking about people like us who live in the markets, but the blue collar people who think their financial advisers know what they're doing. The truth is if those guys could make money in the market they wouldn't be advisers. They have no incentive to perform because they get paid regardless. Federal laws prohibit normal people from being able to take advantage of performance based managers, which is complete BS to me. My point is that if buy and hold is dead (let's face it, that's all most financial advisers know how to do) where do lay people go with their money?

I'm really starting to dig CL. Mainly because I feel like my biggest weakness is low number of times I can take my setups. CL can cure that lol. I'm not focusing on 6E so much because I'm so anxious to get a foot hold on CL. I'm thinking my setups happen 2 or 3 times as often on CL as ES. It's great! But I want to make sure I get used to it before I jump in for real. Click for full size - Uploaded with plasq's Skitch The first is a long from last night. I had the order placed, but decided to cancel it because the swing was only 10 ticks. During the day I want to play swings that are larger when entering to avoid getting whipped around. But I took a note on the chart because I think during those hours, with the volatility less, I can take swings that are a little smaller. That suspicion is reinforced now, and I likely won't miss one like this again. This trade is the first green box on the chart above. Here's a zoomed in view. Click for full size - Uploaded with plasq's Skitch It's not a coulda-shoulda-woulda because at the time I wasn't taking swings that small no matter what time of day. I was following my rules. The second green box represents where I was trying to get long, but we never have a significant enough pull back swing for me to trade. Bugs me too b/c we had a massive vol spike and I really wanted in. I wanted to see it pull back to at least 80.60. Oh well though. Still a nice flip though. Click for full size - Uploaded with plasq's Skitch

I'm mostly thinking about everyone else. Working class Americans who, almost by design, know nothing about the market and aren't allowed to hire performance based money managers. It's a complete ripoff. Most of these people have no choice but to buy and hold because that's what their financial advisers are going to put them into.

I'm no expert, but is the age old "buy and hold" still good policy? Certainly it has worked in the past. Below is a monthly chart of the S&P going back 40 years. Click for full size - Uploaded with plasq's Skitch As you can see, buy and hold certainly worked for a large chunk of the time. Especially for those who started putting away back in the 60's, 70's and 80's, otherwise known as the baby boomers. Maybe the same people who are responsible for promoting the "buy and hold" strategy. Sure it worked for them. But will the same thing work for us younger folk? It looks like buy and hold stopped working around 1997. Is there a possibility that the current generations will have to be more nimble with their finances, or at least more financially savvy than the baby boomer generation? Could we say that the uptrend from 1969-1997 was due in most part to America's booming economic growth? And if so, can we expect that same growth in the coming decades? Something that has been on my mind.

Had some fun in crude today haha. Took a short that I really shouldn't have. R/R wasn't there. Think it was -13 ticks. Then I caught the fake breakout to the upside, out BE on that one. Click for full size - Uploaded with plasq's Skitch Looking for a long on ES around 1112.75

I use the whole session. There seems to be some good action at night.

That was a strange ride. I managed to get in on the break out, though with worse fill than Thales entry. Price quickly fell back and I went out BE. It has sice fallen back through the R I was hoping for it to flip. Hmm. Sitting on hands now.

There that BO haha. My stops at BE. Figure if it wants to pullback and flip 80.48, I can get long there. Click for full size - Uploaded with plasq's Skitch

Yeah I got burnt on that one haha. As you said, should have played it closer to 80.48.

That would likely be a nice BO to the upside if price can break through the 80.48 area. I'm currently trying to play a short off of that level, thinking we may retest 79.40. It's not going well at the moment though! Click for full size - Uploaded with plasq's Skitch Click for full size - Uploaded with plasq's Skitch Just got filled and am down a few ticks.

Would you consider 1125.75 a virgin level on ES? It hasn't been touched since 1/20.

Was looking for the same trade, a short at 79.40. Would have been a nice flip of the breakdown area from yesterday. I didn't get the confirmation I wanted and stayed out. I'm looking for a short up here near 80.48 now.

Haha I feel you. Trading crude and then going back to ES is like switching from a Michael Bay movie to a Jane Austin novel. Thanks.

Crude is a beast. I love it and hate it at the same time. Anyway I got knocked out BE on that last short. This AM I took a full stop on a long for -14ticks. But then the breakout setup happened again. Hmmm it would be great to take it live I thought. But I maintained discipline and took the trade in sim. The breakout happened nicely and I was able to get a pretty good exit for +105. Figures. I used a stop market order though and I'm wondering how realistic my fill was. I know experience that 10 ticks slippage is possible, so it does make me wonder. Click for full size - Uploaded with plasq's Skitch

Heck yea. R/R is where it's at! :beer:

Got knocked out BE on this one, which stinks after being up 60 ticks or so. I would have tried to re-enter but I was asleep. Then I tried a long this AM and took a full stop for -14 ticks. Then we got the "jonbig" break out haha. Notice the successive LH's followed by repeated tests of S. Just hit the target for +104 ticks. BTW this is all sim until I get used to crude. Click for full size - Uploaded with plasq's Skitch I've been noticing every one is sharing their gains/losses in terms of R/R, I think that's a great idea. My stop loss in the last trade was 14 ticks from my entry (the fact that the last trade's stop was also 14 ticks is just a coincidence). That would put my R/R around 1:7.4, so this would be a +7.4R trade. I think that's what you all are doing, correct me if I'm wrong. I want to follow the same format as everyone else.

Speaking of crude, I have learned my lesson and will be sim trading it until I get a feel for it. Currently in a sim short. Click for full size - Uploaded with plasq's Skitch

Stop moved to BE on the CL short.

I'm going to try to keep that in mind.

Interesting to see how you played that Thales. I'm in a sim short on CL right now. Click for full size - Uploaded with plasq's Skitch

Ha that was great, I love Top Gear. That joke about the German trip computer cracked me up. Seriously, the Audi has to be one of the more gorgeous cars ever built. I mean right? I can understand Clarkson's point IF I lived in England. There the corvette would be this terrible monstrosity that would scare the hell out of everyone, which would be great. In America though those monstrosities are around every corner. I'll take the Audi any day,

Worst month ever, finishing at -6.5ES. The bulk of that came from that crude breakdown that I kept screwing up and shoulda taken sim until I knew what I was doing. Stupid decision. I've already gone through the whole "I'm a piece of crap trader. I know nothing. I'm a failure" stage, and have moved on to the more productive "what can I do better" stage. I'll post about that later on in the week.

The girl isn't very hot.

Sorry I haven't been around. I'm having my worst month ever and I don't feel like doing anything but putting me head through the wall haha. Anyways here's some 6E action. I'm wondering if it will turn this thing into a large double bottom, or keep making LLs. Be nice to see one more bounce off of that 3450 level. Click for full size - Uploaded with plasq's Skitch