Soultrader

hehe.. got ya

Hi wayneL, What do you mean by that? Negative TICKS are simply TICKS under the zero line. Are you referring to TICK hooks? TICK's using a line on close chart? Or a TICK using a candlestick chart?

A simple but powerful book. The book is in a letter format covering topics ranging from marriage, life, college, business, partnerships, entreprenuership, diversification, employment, money, criticism, balance, etc... I read this years ago and I truly treasure it with the amount of wisdom inside. For those who are familiar with the short book, "A Message to Garcia," you will definitely enjoy this book. For those interested in starting a business or if you are simply a student of the business world this is for you. Balancing your life and work is an important factor in life. A very inspiring little book.

Heres a method I use to detect warning signs in markets when I am in a trade. CLICK HERE TO VIEW PART 1 CLICK HERE TO VIEW PART 2 Charts created by Tradestation Presented by Traders Laboratory

I recently ran across a DVD called The Secret. Here is a review taken from the website: I havent watched and I do not have any plans to. This is because I already the know the secret to unlimited joy, health, money, relationships, love, and youth. So what is the secret??? MARKET PROFILE!!!!

Hello WayneL, ASF is a great forum as well. Most of the trading forums that exists in my opinion are very weak. The topics and discussions covered are so pointless. I found ASF to be fairly interesting. Thanks for joining us as well. Our forum is still relatively new but we have some great traders on the forum. I am always enlightened by the comments they make. I look forward to your participation here.. especially since you trade the eminis with TICKS and PIVOTS! (my favorites ) Glad you liked the video... you are more than welcome to post them also. Regards, James

On Thursday Oct.12th, we saw the markets break out of consolidation and establish a higher value placement. On Friday the 13th, we established an overlapping value. This may indicate price acceptance in this new zone. The late afternoon rally pushed prices above the critical 12000 mark to close bullish for the day and week. The markets also closed above Thursdays high. Premarket action will be interesting to watch to see if price is further accepted at these levels. There are a couple pivot point cluster zones that I will be looking at. 12050: monthly pivot 12020: Thursdays high and Fridays close cluster. Will be an interesting level 12000: value high pivot, daily pivot, and pysch level. Ultra key. 11960: weekly pivot and Friday low cluster. Will act as key support 11940 Thursday low and open gap

Gap fills can act pivots. It's always a good level to exit a portion of your position. In this chart example, the gap fill acted as a pivot and price declined for 20-25 points. Not all gap fills will act this way but the probability is 60%+. (trading buddy stats... not mine) Whenever I fade the opening looking for a gap fill, I like to scale out at half a gap fill and the actual gap fill.

Very nicely said ant. Ive been receiving alot of critiscm in other forums everytime I mention how indicators are useless. I am 100% with you all the way. Indicators are USELESS. There I said it.... this is official. The fact that traders are able to trade with price only proves how useless indicators are. AMEN!

Thought I'de bring this topic up. This is a hard topic to brush on, similar to any religion based discussion. One discussion I had recently on a different forum was the debate between discretionary trading vs mechanical systems. As a pure discretionary trader, I have a hard time believing mechanical system traders can make money consistently in the long run. Yes, they can make money over the course of several years. But to me it seems like they are simply getting lucky. Test a ton of indicators and you will find several that will work efficiently with each other and make money. But to me this seems like pure luck. A poor baseball player can step up to the batter box against Randy Johnson enough times that he will eventually hit a homerun. Can mechanical system traders survive 5 years down the line? 10 years? 20 years? Have they really found a set of indicators that work? Or are they just getting lucky? Long Term Capital Management got their heard ripped off because they believed they had created a super system based on historical market behavior. The markets change everyday. Are mechanical system traders going to be able to find the right set of indicators each year? I just cant seem to understand why alot of traders flock towards systems. Disretionary is far more powerful. There is no need to spend countless hours tweaking your system. Discretionary traders are able to adjust naturally to changing market conditions. They rely on price and price only. Once you have built a solid foundation of discretionary trading, nothing can ever take that away from you. Am I wrong? Any opinion/comments are welcome. I know I may be wrong but I have put in alot of time thinking about this and still believe discretionary trading to be number one.

Great post ez When I was young... a wise man once told me. "There are no dumb people in this world. There are the educated and the uneducated." His statement had a big impact on my life as a teenager and I started viewing people differently from that day. Just because one has a PHD from Harvard does not make him a better trader than a guy with a BA. Like ez mentioned, the knowledge and education required in trading is not found by going to colllege or university. I truly believe one must step outside box.... self education is a better term. Do you have what it takes to do whatever you can to become a successful trader? Once you fall do you have the strength to get up? Developing traders will hit a big wall in their early stages. Whether you break this or not depends on your passion and motivation for the markets. If it wasnt for my passion, I would of never made it as a trader. I do not have a college degree. Does that intimidate me? NO. Is english my first language? NO. Street smart? YES (according to most ppl I know) Absolutely true. Probably one of the reasons I tend to short more than I go long. (roughly 65% compared to 35%) I was also told by a trading buddy of mine that locals like to short it since money is made faster. (not sure how true this is) Talking about questions... Asking yourself questions throughout the trading day is a must. If I can not answer my own question, I choose to stay flat. I am not trying to predict market behavior.. all I am trying to do is analyze and intepret market generated information. Couple questions that I like to ask myself are: 1. What is the market trying to do? 2. Is it doing a good job trying to do that? 3. Are they going to take it to the next line of S&R? 4. Is there price rejection above/below value? 5. Is there price acceptance above/below value? 6. Can the markets hold? 7. It's top of the hour (10am eastern), where will they take this market? 8. It's top of the hour (2pm eastern), where will they take this market? 9. Who's trading today? Locals, institutions, and private traders or just the locals? Just a few of the hundreds of questions you may ask yourself. Last thing I want to mention is that I am able to trade full-time because I chose to specialize in the YM for the time being. I know everything there is to know about the YM. This includes the ATR, personality, S&R levels, etc.. I know it usually respects the 00 level's. I know that it likes to go one way in the open and reverse. I know the pullbacks or retracements on a trend is usually 15-20 points. On a break of value, i know it likes to test the previous days high or low, etc.... Think of the financial instrument you trade as your gf. If you are not putting the time and effort to get to know her... she'll leave you in a heart beat. She may give you a hard time, may spend your money, and will never have it your way. Therefore its necessary to create rules... if she trades above and below the opening price, I'm not going to let her use my money until she breaks out of the opening range. Regards, James

Yea I agree with you.. the stands cost way too much. One of the best deals I found was to look for Korean brand stands. I am located in Japan, and we get a fairly decent amount of Korean electronic products. They are often 30-50% cheaper than any Japanese brand good. Thanks for the link David. Im sure it will help traders out here. I personally like to custom build everything. I custom built my computer as well... I find it alot cheaper this way with good specs. Built mine for around $800 USD... plus $200 for each monitor. I use 3 cheap video cards so I basically built mine from scratch for under $2,000. Ive had no problems with it for over 2 years now. Nowadays all anti-virus/firewall programs are free as well.

Hi David, Wow... you have 8 monitors? I am jealous. I have a pretty stable computer. Pentium 4, 3.40ghz, over 1 gb in ram, wireless keyboard & mouse, and four 17 inch monitors. Im considering adding one 32 inch monitor just for the stock indexes and sectors... might consider posting it on my wall. I have a mic to record videos and a nice set of speakers for my music. I DO NOT have a TV. I never have it on while I trade, and I hardly ever watch it even when Im not trading. I also need to get a backup internet connection as I rely on one only right now. But Japan has one of the fastest internet connections in the world... so Im pretty satisfied. Imagine trading in Iran where the best home connection is considered ISDN.

Amazing ez. Now THAT is a great POST! New traders beware.. print this out and read it everyday. As a matter of fact tape it on your monitor. This post is going to save you thousands of dollars. If you don't get it don't trade until you do. I wish I had read this when I was a losing trader.

Gotta love the trend Just reflecting back at my trading when I was struggling... all I can do is laugh at my foolishness. I used to short because the RSI was overbought. Or short because price had advanced too much. I love the journey

I absolutely love your posts ez. I admire the charity work.. its something I have been doing on a small scale but one of the things I look forward to doing in the future. Helping others is the most rewarding feeling for me. One of the plans I have in the future is to provide a public computer facility for the children in the ghetto. It's something that struck me when I lived in Boston. The gap between the poor and the rich was unbelievable compared to my hometown Tokyo. (Sorry... this is irrelevant) As much as I love to trade, I know at some point in my career I will get burnt. I am also never satisfied with doing just one thing. Which is why I often have multiple projects at the same time. I will always be trading but I look forward to balancing my time with other ventures as well. Trading is in our blood. My blood type is 60% poker/ 40% trading. A very hard combination for most people to understand. I think those who have accepted the challenge and have accomplished things that they never thought they could, appreciate life a little more than those who never try. The sense of accomplishment is definitely a natural high. Perhaps this is because I hold an entreprenuer like mindset. "Nothing is impossible" - Adidas - I like their slogan very much

One of the things I am working on right now is to have a better understanding of money flow and sector strength analysis. Your comments are going to save me alot of money. Thank you Raul. Ive been a big fan of John Murphy's work with intermarket anaylsis but always felt that past cycles are not repetitive. With new technology and the ever changing supply and demand of natural resources, I feel there is always some new sector that I need to be updated on. Still trying to understand this better. Your comments on crude and the retail sector adding weight to the markets inspired me on a new breakout/breakout failure strategy. This information will add further confirmation on S&R/market profile strategies that I currently use. I highly doubt the YM will ever become a "popular" contract. I dont think its necessary to apply too much weight on it either. The ES usually leads the YM.... and its rare to see the YM lead the ES. I use a similar analysis method by watching my scanner. I have about 80+ sectors, futures, and stocks that I place on my scanner and anytime I see mixed signals of green and red, this is a warning sign. Hence, I try to apply a rangebound strategy and aim for singles and not homeruns. I also like to analyze overnight action as well as any pre-market volume on the SSF's. The opening play is probably my most profitable and favorite setup. The opening price can act as the dead low/high for the day and offers an excellent entry point. And yes.. indicators are useless. Im always shocked to see new traders being in love with them and asking indicator questions. They are asking the wrong questions without even knowing it. Regards, James Lee

Hello Paul, Are you mainly a swing trader? I would like to ask what kind of stop you apply when swing trading. Do you base it on a fix amount of points/dollars, S&R levels, or do you exit through indicator signals? I am a day trader and I use a fairly tight stop on every trade. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks

Im looking forward to trading crude in the future. I think Im going to stick with futures for some time... just never was attracted to stocks or Forex. The ES does indeed lead the YM but a few seconds. Not always but fairly common. For example, when the YM is testing the low but the ES has broken its low... I will anticipate a break in the YM as well. For YM traders this is a small edge. I was completely mistaken with the futs not the cash. Im the new breed in day trading so I still need to catch up with the lingo

Thanks ant.. hope you caught that also. It was all there in your ES analysis

I thought the BIG DOW futures is relatively new? The Dow has been definitely the index to watch breaking above key resistance points and now testing the critical 12000 mark. Technically I am still bullish with the Dow. Watching the $RLX makes alot of sense now... I always had trouble identifying which sector money was flowing into and which index to watch. I usually watch the bank/brokerage indexes as well as crude and gold. Will add $RLX to my scanner. Thanks for the info Raul. What have you been trading lately? From what I recall you also trade the futs?

Thanks Raul. Very interesting, I treated the ES when trading the YM just like you treat the DOW. This will be a new addition on my scanner and will see how handy it will be. Is liquidiy still low on the DOW? I completely agree with this comment. Since I trade futures mainly, I can never go back to trading stocks. I feel like futures is the only fair playing field for traders like myself.

Hi namstrader, Always look at the market from the bigger picture. Once you grasp the bigger picture, then narrow it down to your setups. I had one trade only yesterday and caught most of the trend. Yesterday the markets gapped out of the consolidation range and we saw price acceptance. This information alone would of told you to stay on the long side. So its always important to have a bird eyes vision or else your mind will tend to get distracted by the daily fluctuations. As long as you learn from your mistakes namstrader and stick with it you will succeed in this business. Always have a trading plan and follow it. Perhaps this was the hardest thing for me to do in the beginning. I feel like at some point traders know what they need to do to win. But most can not seem to do just that. Good luck namstrader.

As a professional no-limit holdem poker player prior to my trading career, I find that both professions share many similarities. Poker and trading are both a game of probabilities. Individual psychological makeup is also important to control emotions during times of tilt and euphoria. In poker, a player can choose the stake he is willing to play. In the futures markets the stakes are chosen by the size of the trade. However, one of the biggest differences I found is as follows: 1. In poker, you are automatically offered the option to play a hand that you are dealt. For example, in no-limit holdem this can be a Q10, KK, 10J, 2-7, etc.... Each starting hand begins with a probability. For example, pocket 9's has a 52.4% favorite against an AK suited. The odds of getting dealt a pocket pair are 5.88%. 2. In trading, you are not automatically dealt starting hands. Starting hands in poker equals setups in trading. In order to hold a pocket pair, you must find a trading setup. Each setup has its own set of probabilities. A setup that offers a 80% winning probability should be ranked higher than a setup that offers a 50% winning probability. The more setups a trader has the more ammunition or hands he has to play with. If a trader only trades moving average crosses, this is like playing only a KQ in poker. In poker, waiting for pocket AA's will slowly drain your capital with blinds and is definitely not the way to get rich. However, a poker player who is flexible to play a variety of hands with a variety of styles is the better player. A trader needs to have different entry/exit and risk parameters for each setup. If one of your setups involves moving average crosses, make sure you apply different entry/exit and risk parameters from a scalping setup. I like to consider my trading freestyle. I am very flexible with the different setups I have. Trading requires creativity. Novice traders apply too much science into trading and not enough art. Trading should be compared to a game of limit holdem. No trade is worth all your chips so do not hold a no-limit mentality. When in doubt, stay flat. As long as you play the right hands and control your losses, a trader should come out ahead. Good luck and best of trading.

Has anyone traded the Big Dow? The tick increments are 5 times the YM but is anyone familiar with the price movements of the BIG DOW?