smmatrix

Hello, look at your charts. The proof is quite obvious. Traders sell tops and buy bottoms all the time. Check your time and sales record and see all those sells at the high tick. Seriously, those are NOT phantom trades. Still... impossible? Even with the proof in front of your eyes? That's the smart money.

Yes, correct. I'm Steve Indeed, I was referring to intra-day scalping, taking multiple trades per day off these S&R levels using tick charts. My apologies, I did not mean to suggest exact tick reversals on longer time frames. Up early, well not really. I'm usually up all night during the week as my primary market is the German Dax and into the first 2-3 hours of the U.S. session trading ES & CL.

It comes down to how you are identifying S&R levels. If you're using standard trendlines, recent highs/lows, then of course, you will only identify zones as you put it. However, there are more accurate methods in locating S&R levels via Impulse Wave and/or Fib Clusters and others which can be used to locate the reversal point at the exact tick. It can be so accurate, that you have to fade your entry by an extra tick just so that you can get filled as price will often come to the exact level and reverse. If you put your entry at that exact tick, you will miss the fill. How often are these methods accurate? During strong trending momentum moves, you'll have high failure rates, but markets only trade in this fashion about 15% of the time. The other 85% of price action is typically stair-stepping and ranging, and these are ideal conditions where pinpointing reversal points to the exact tick happen accurately 60-65% of the time.

Of all these markets, I prefer counter-trend scalping S&R levels on the ES. And trading, with-the-trend, trying to catch big moves on crude and gold.

That's an opinion, but S&R levels can often be pinpointed to exact levels. This is often proven by successful scalping of the S&P e-minis at S&R levels using limit orders and 4 tick stops losses. Placing a buy order under current market price is often akin to jumping in front of a train, but I know several traders, including myself, that do it successfully more often than not.

Is anyone making money with any autotrading brokers? If so, is it a managed account or are you running an EA or similar automated strategy?

Personally, I think candlestick patterns and formations are junk science, or voodoo theory... whatever! Now now everyone, I know most of you probably use candles, so don't beat me up. When I started trading, there were no candles, I learned on bar charts. Even today, if I had to start over, I would choose bar charts. I can read a bar easier than a candle, and with candles, they take up too much real estate screen space. I prefer to see much broader price history to gain a "feel" for the current trading environment. With candles, I just can't feel it. My typical chart attached.

What is all the fuss about? I'm a little surprised by the OP and the feedback I am seeing. What is the big deal about three losses? Get over it and keep trading. It should only be a problem if you're losses are too large or you are using too much leverage. If that is the case, then there are other problems to be discussed. I have been trading for well over two decades and I can assure you that three losses is nothing. Unfortunately, it is usually the newbie trader that is trying to figure out the problem when three losses occur. It is hard to believe that you have been profitably trading since last October. Are you suggesting that you have not had losing streaks previously since then? Losing trades are NOT mistakes. They happen to the best of traders. Don't try to over-analyze and figure out what went wrong. Trading is a business of probabilities, and we can only put the odds in our favor using our skills and tools, but still, nothing is assured. Not even close! It is not uncommon for me to have five, six, even seven consecutive losses. I friggin' hate the losing streaks, everybody does! But they happen to the best of traders. There was even a month a few years ago where I had 11 consecutive losses (my record), and I wanted to hide under my desk while slicing my wrists. My clients, me, and everyone thought I was the biggest loser of them all. Still my drawdown was only 18.4%. My maximum allowed drawdown is 15% so it was still an UGLY time. My point is, don't fret about your few losses, and especially don't try to tweak your trading system. No way! If you call this a losing streak and its your worse since October, I say you have a hella great trading system and I would love to know about it. Do you care to share? Sorry to be a little abrasive, but take it for a pro trader, your three losses don't mean a thing. Trading is VERY streaky! You will often go through periods of losing streaks. We all do! When you're on a losing streak, reduce your trade size. When you're on a winning streak, increase your size.

I'm not sure Zulutrade is such a good recommendation. I recently read this post on its forum, and I have to agree with everything its said: ZuluTrade Forum • View topic - how many of traders are making money in zulutrade? I have to totally agree with this statement: "of course zulutrade has good SPs BUT they are rank far below and very few people are following them." Only the cowboys appear on the leaderboards. nuf said.

I don't think there's a real technical method in recognizing a bull or bear trap, but I think its a traders intuition that matters the most in identifying the traps. Gut feeling anyone? Even still, traps like these will happen during choppy markets and/or counter-trend setups. If you're mostly trading with-the-trend, you don't have much to be concerned with generally.

Great idea. I'll like to attend that webinar too!

Hi Robin- Yes, it is true the industry is full of teachers, coaches, trainers that can't perform on their own. If they were profitable traders, they would not be teaching and hounding you for your money? Why not just make it in the markets? They're rare, but they're are some good trainers out there. Look for one that actually trades themselves and won't be afraid to show you their broker statements. Learn from these guys slowly, trade-by-trade, NOT in an afternoon seminar. They will let you see all their trades, good and bad. You'll learn the reason behind each trade with repetition. You will witness their losing and their winning streaks. It's the nature of the business and don't run off because you see a losing string of trades. Losing is part of the business. I've been trading for a long long time and I average two or three losing months every year with one of those months usually disastrous. Disaster to me is 15-20% draw downs and this is when clients start dropping like flies. Many new traders seem to think a losing trade is a mistake. Untrue, sometimes I take losing trades purposely to hedge my other trades in case he unexpected happens. Anyway, best of success to you. Trade small for awhile, don't swing for the fences. Be consistent with your trading rules. Cheers!

Thanks for the link to the piracy website... NOT. I'm a bit taken back that TL would allow such a thing. Pity. I thought I found a respectable forum.

Are they really a bank? Under who's authority?

There's no future with those automated trading systems. They are made by marketers to grab your money, not by traders. Trading is hard work. Trading is an art which must be mastered over time. In all my trading years, I have seen many automated systems. They all crash and burn at some point, however, there were two systems that showed promise... They had huge drawdowns which exceeded 45%. That's a deal killer for me as my maximum allowed DD is 15%. It's best to learn how to trade "manually" first, as a profitable trader for several years, before you consider automation. Just sayin' My two centavos.

Interesting and somewhat overwhelming. I've been trading for over two decades, and currently managing a fund, and I still don't "get" half the list of required skills. So, don't be intimidated.

Hello All, I've been a lurker on this forum for about a year and I must admit this is one of the more informative "and friendly" sites I've seen. I hope to become more active than merely lurking in the months ahead. A little about myself... I'm a 46-year old full-time trader. Made my first own trade 26 years ago and have been at it mostly ever since, besides a 4-yr stint in the US Marines followed by five and half years at AT&T, but even still, I traded part-time during those years. I grew up around trading, got my first job when I was 12 years old as a floor runner of paper tickets at the CBOT. Was mentored by Welles Wilder himself a few years later. This is before computers. We would receive our charts on newsprint every Saturday morning, and actually hand draw our indicators on those paper charts. We would plot out moving averages, Fib ratios, and ADX levels all painstakingly by yellow legal pad and pencil, and then transferred to the paper charts. Whew! Those were the days! I've always been a Tradestation user. I was actually sold my first copy by Bull Cruz himself back in 1989. It was called SystemWriter back then. Later changed to SuperCharts, and now Tradestation. It was expensive in those days. Yes, about $900 per month with data and all the associated fees. This is before broadband so it required the big ugly satellite dish on the roof and very buggy software that would crash multiple times everyday. Still, we had to call our brokers to place trades. These days I trade for Green Rock Capital which is a small private equity hedge fund out of Hong Kong. I'm am trading Forex, Equities, the German DAX and the S&P E-Mini's currently, but may soon start trading crude and metals. I have two trade assistants which help to alert to new opportunities and monitor existing positions. My current desk image below: On a personal note, I have been living here in Asia for the past three years and I just got married days ago February 4th (pic below) to a wonderful lady that is also my best friend. She makes me a very happy man and I'll do everything I can to make it last forever. We're moving back to the U.S. by May-June. I am not interested in promoting any brokers/services here or giving personal advice, but feel free to ask if you have any generic trading related questions. I'm always happy to help. I would like to be a long term helpful member on this board. Thank you for the opportunity. Cheers!

So that's why everything went to hell around 2002-2003. My emini scalping system, not trending, radically changed due to market dynamics.