gandalf33

My 2 cents on the original question about Felton Trading. Traders International - somebody here says Roger Felton was a former moderator there. Googling Traders International reveals a rather LARGE amount of scam warnings. Could be wannabe traders who didn't make it and blame everyone else, but I'd much more believe it's pure snake oil. They are charging $7000 per member. To me, a former employee going and creating a company on his own, doing the same things, means one thing only - he saw how easy is to make a sheetload of money while not knowing how to trade, just putting in some swings, some EMAs and talking about it all day long. He saw how easy this is and became greedy because he didn't want to see all the money go into the TI's head's pockets. So he created his own firm doing just the same, asking about the same amount of money (around $6500 I believe). This is not unusual for employees of ANY company - doesn't have to be trading related. To me, because of the reasons stated, Felton sounds like a heck of a snake oil and thus I'd rather stay away from it. Somebody mentioned here - there's no shortcuts, you've got to spend time with the charts (a LOT OF TIME). While there's so much more behind this one sentence, that by just reading it it won't help anyone, I believe it's true.

A quick comment to the "Know what you want" part. Firstly, I've read on numerous places/media that this should be your first thing regarding trading (e.g. Van Tharp's book, etc). After spending 2 years learning patterns, backtesting and reading about trading, I then realized that this is really the most important thing to do, realizing what you want might save you thousands of dollars and months of time. Then I've thoroughly pondered what I really want in life and it took me 2 whole days to figure it out and some hours occasionally to review that. I'm willing to bet, that 0.1% of people, even reading that knowing what you want (and pondering that to the bottom) is the first thing they should do, will actually do it, and not just do it, give these thoughts the time they need. 0.1% - or less. So much for the first point of the list.

BlowFish, I believe the way of trading you describe (higher %, lower RRR) has it's drawbacks too. You will still occasionally hit a losing string and those losses can be devastating (e.g. if you lose 2x or 3x more than your 1 winning trade size). But it's a personal choice - for me, higher win % and stability is more important than earning more money per contract thru lower win % and profit targets behind the horizon'.

Thanks to all of you guys, for the inspirational insights. I've spent the last 3 days rendering videos around the clock (except for trading), and I've come to a conclusion. I've tried CamStudio, recorded a 4m 45s session, realized it takes 229 MB, which resulted into an estimated 2.5 hours session size of 7 GB - unacceptable. I then realized CamStudio uses the default codec Microsoft Video 1 to encode the result, a codec built in year 1992. Then I've made extensive testing with all the available codecs using CamStudio, I've noted all the results down but none of them was what I was expecting - file size too large, the lowest one taking 1.8 GB. I went on testing the FlashDemo software - the result was slightly more satisfactory on low quality setting (FlashDemo has two options: high quality and low quality...) but the final file is a .swf file, where the current position is marked with the current segment played, e.g. 357 / 892, not minutes. Plus Camtasia says the limit for swf files is 16 000 frames, which for a 2.5 hour would result into less than 1 frame per second... I returned to Camtasia and played with it for two days. I'm gonna spare you all the million tests I did and just let you know the result: - when producing the file in Camtasia Studio 7, use the custom format - choose AVI - choose TechSmith Sceen Capture Codec - leave the key frame to be created every 80 frames - use frame rate 10 - click on codec configuration and slide the slider to the leftmost side - all the way to 'Fast Compression' - use High Color (16-bit) My result of today's trading session: length: 2h 31m resolution: 1920 x 1200 (!) quality: crystal clear file size: 115 MB (!!) rendering time: 1h 30m ...which is an absolutely stunning result. One of the lowest rendering times I had with the highest quality I had, combined with one of the lowest file sizes I had (and I've rendered A LOT of vids in the past two days). And here's why. Take these as hints when rendering your own tradin session vids: - don't use 256 colors. Dithering, trying to 'get close' to another color pixelates the whole picture, which then actually takes more space than when you use 16-bit color - don't use 24-bit color (True Color). 16-bit color (High Color) takes reasonably less space and there's absolutely no telling which one you are using by looking with your eyes - I've tried lower resolutions, even 1600x1000 made the video a bit "fuzzy" (still usable though), while the file size dropped just a bit (I went down to as low as half of the original res). Keeping 1920x1200, the recorded resolution, makes the vid beautiful to the eye (looking exactly as it happened) while there's no big raise in the file size - I wanted every single tick to be seen on the vid - I've observed the original action vs a 5 frames per second video very precisely for a long time next to each other, and I couldn't find the difference. Using 10 fps then is a safe bet to me, containing every tick change. - beware of switching windows. When you are recording the price changes in your trading software, try switching to other software/desktop/internet explorer/instang messaging to minimum, or don't use those while you are trading, at all. They have a horrible effect on the file size. The 2.5 hours taking 115 MB in 1920x1200 quality (which is more than FULL HD today) does not contain a single screen switch. If I would switch to Internet Explorer 15-20 times during my trading session, the size would go up to 300 MB That's all folks, thanks again and hope my findings will help somebody. Enjoy

Greetings, I've recently tried to record my 2.5 hour trading session using Camtasia Studio 7, the resul was horrible - I had to scale down the framerate to 5 per second and then produce it, the video was being produced for 2 hours, and a 1.5 GB file of 1 trading day was spit out. I'm looking for the same thing - making a video of my trading screen for 2.5 hours - but with reasonable processing time and size (few 100 MBs max). Any other software recommended for this?

Thanks for the clarification Justaguy, sounds like playing swing breaks. There's something with the 'screamshot' however, as instead of it a red cross is present. I've given it a lot of pondering this weekend, and I took the advice of some truly great traders I know, and will spend the next weeks studying and observing price action. Filtering trades based on S/R bounces/reversals, etc., seems to be the another part of that artistic bit in trading.

MadMarketScientist, a very valuable post, valuable information. Thanks for that. You mention that 10% of your trading is not mechanical, and that you're yet to meet a consistently profitable mechanical trader. Seems that the 10% makes all the difference then! Perhaps another reason for me to imply the artistic approach to trading - we will see over time, as I have traded more. My comments to your advices: - backtesting; couldn't agree with you more. While testing a simple idea that can be programmed to see whether it has perspective or not is where automatic testing can have a certain value I think (although I have never done that), I absolutely agree that manual backtesting is a must. I have done many thousands of trades of many systems on historical data, thousands using the 'unleashing the historical chart bar after bar' method, where the 'historical future' is not seen, and thousands where I see the whole chart and just look for entries. Manual backtesting and 1000s of trades develop a feel for what the market can do; which is something you reap the fruit from later on, during live trading. I've actually backtested so much that I've developed a certain manual backtesting system that mentally prepares the trader's psyche for success, a method I've never seen anywhere before. Too long to describe but I can PM it to you if you'd be interested, although obviously you don't need it anymore. - adjusting entries around round numbers; I think I will put a note how my trades would have went if I was adjusting them using this rule, and then observe the long-term effect. I noticed that the market often bounces off exactly from round numbers on YM which I'm trading, and felt like I can put something discretional in place around those round numbers, but I didn't yet know what. Not sure how you do it, but you've nailed it again... - clear-cutting recent swings; I sincerely have no idea what this means. Can you shortly elaborate please.. Thanks again for the concrete & sound advices, and regards.

Justaguy, for traders on the crowded side of the barricade, psychology plays a role more important than the system, where 65% win ratio could make a world of difference to trading results, as compared to, let's say, 35% win ratio. Why? A long story. I myself am playing with the great DD technique in my options trading, where an approach accompanying impressive drawdowns also brings by far the most money in, over the long haul.. MadMarketScientist, you nailed it absolutely exactly. Before I wrote that post of mine, I even used the same words for myself (reading about discretionary elements in mechanical trading led me to think "Aha! So this is where trading becomes an art..."). Thanks for the insights, from your post, it seems to me, that the artistic part of 'overriding the rules' as you describe it, stems only from sheer experience / screen time... which is the bad news Nevertheless I believe it's worth pursuing. If there's any kind of what you think is an effective resource on the topic which you can point me to, can you please PM me about it - or perhaps post it here, hoping that it won't be off-topic that much. Thanks in advance.

What I'm experiencing in the past days, is that a day-trading system has going to generate an overwhelming amount of losses if the trading is done 100% according the plan, when the system is purely mechanical. Although profitable at the end of the month, these profits are gained by oscillating around the profit with many, many trades. It seems to me, like the signal from indicators should also be accompanied by a non-programmable setup (take these words as an illustration, I don't trade automatic systems). Perhaps the signal should also have a double top/bottom, maybe a breakout, or a divergence between the price and one of the indicators, or something else present AT THE TIME when the clear signal from the indicators is visible? The result of such a system, trading setups not just mere signals, might be the desired 65% win ratio, and a psychologically much better win-loss distribution than a pure mechanical system. This might be the hardest roadblock for me. Can anybody confirm this experience please?

MM, in life, and ESPECIALLY in trading, doing what works for one, and at the same time letting others do what works for them, is the greatness in people, as opposed to claiming that "my truth is the only truth in the world".

No. That was merely loud thinking about race's principles & foundations. I'm new to trading and recently realized I wouldn't join any kind of race for the next few years. Then, maybe. I see you have already joined, and what I wish you is surpassing your goal. Yes. The words 'more likely' are perfectly accurate here. In my opinion, and a humble one here, if 50 people will join such a race ($5k to $100k), and we point a finger to one single trader before it starts, whom we know about he's the best (perhaps by much larger gains each year than the 2nd best from those 50), then this trader would perhaps end in top 10 of 50 contestants. Someone would be celebrated as the winner, with the real winner being amongst the top, but not on the top by the luck of others. If this race is then repeated 20 times, maybe he would end on the first place once, and consistently wind up amongst the top 10-15 people, maybe top 5. That's a good trader to me, not the actual winners changing from race to race. However, the same person is more likely to arrive at a million over and over again if race's to be repeated - something that's "lost" by reducing the goal size, thus giving luck more room. But, perhaps wham I'm talking about here, would be more true for $5k into $20k, not $100k. Thus I really cannott know at the moment - one man's opinion here.

What about $5k to $100k? I know the word "million" is more appealing and $5k to $100k in 20 weeks even seems realistic, losing the absolute fascination of the original idea, but maybe the realism of it is the beauty of it, which would keep the contestants still going. And maybe not, since I did not see any contestant even shifting through the $5k in their accounts. I think that who has not made $1 mill in trading yet (which is perhaps 95-99% of SUCCESSFUL traders?) will not be able to withstand the pressure of trading $500k if they never had this amount in their accounts before, which is only half-way... (half-way in terms of money, but I admit, perhaps the last stage of trading $3k to a million). This fact alone greatly lowers the already tiny chances for the race to end successfully. But with $5k to $100k, we're perhaps talking more luck than skill and that race would become too common compared to others - that I really don't know.

rxs0005, in my opinion, if your system is earning money in backtest and you're not earning money in real trading (although not losing), you simply have to find out why - what you do differently in your backtest than in real trading. And if you find this reason, work on it. That's all.

Thanks zdo for the inspirations of how to overcome this pain that I internally believe, is the source of failure for the majority of traders, whether they admit it or not (as in trading, the tree of consequences of feeling pain from losses is just huge). But not for once have I given up the idea that I can master it. The goal is to become independent from personal feelings when seeing a trade come to an end, whether it ends with a gain or with a loss. At this point in my life I believe this goal is achieved by embracing the naked fact of the slope of the equity curve. Does it go steadily up? Not by far. Does it yield a nice profit every month? Yes, it does. So? I have to accept it - my backtest shows this clearly and dearly - I might get 7, even 10 losers in a row, and most of my trading will be small losses accompanied by small wins with an occasional larger win, which does the profits. If I can't accept this then I'm not fit trading my strategy. I have to fully accept this fact, or not trade. Once again as 'repetition is the mother of knowledge' as they say in my country: I have to know exactly, what I can expect from my pattern setups and trading rules (exit strategies meant primarily here). Knowledge of this is so powerful, it alleviates trading a bit immediately. If I study trade after trade of my historical trades and see with my own eyes again and again that small losses followed by small wins come in great numbers, with some mid-sized and a few larger wins somewhere in between, making a perfect month in terms of profits, then what the hell is my problem seeing small wins and small losses come in days after days in sim/live? The problem is simple - the common knowledge that "to achieve, one has to build by adding more and more to it" (this is contrary to seeing chips fall off the equity curve) and that "if you do something and the result is not good, fix it", are too much ingrained in me. Can I be blamed for it? Abso-freaking-lutely not, as every sane person in the world who first approaches trading, provided he's more than 10 years old, has to have those already ingrained or else there's something wrong with him! The matter in my eyes is simple - in terms of trading, overcoming the feelings resulting from those two ingrained statements, seeing adverse effects of those in real-time and perceiving them good. And how to overcome an ingrained thing? By constant repetition. In other words, the more trading you do, seeing your success, the less impact losses have on you. This immediately means one thing - the beginnings is what matters. You have to force yourself into trades and exit according your rules and not according fears resulting from those ingrained. Sounds familiar with a general advice "follow your plan"? ... Also, how many people from 100 in real life are able to willingly overcome a habit they've been rehearsing since their early childhood, now being second nature to them? Perhaps 5-10%? Does this amount ring any bells? Understanding why one feels what he feels counts for sooo much. That's one of the reasons why I will make it in trading, whatever the odds or obstacles. In other terms, it's exactly what you wrote too zdo - poker = learn to lose, Larry's slot machines = learn to lose, preparing ahead of time, in my perception this equals studying your historical trades one by one for months and months and seeing a lot of losing streaks while being profitable month after month = learn to lose.... so thanks for your post once again. You are right with it, it's just that the aspiring traders have to see the reasons for what and why is happening to them.

While I agree with that - this definitely is a reason for trader's gravestones, I personally don't think this is the main one - undercapitalization and making expectations realistic is rather 'easy to spot' before you even begin trading, so you can prepare. I believe the inability to perceive losses as part of trading is the #1 (something you can't prepare for) - this single reason causes hope, changing the system (re-working it and starting anew while the previous one was profitable), taking trades out of plan, etc.

Isn't adding to a losing position one of the major issues why a traders fail in the long run? ..

Thanks for all posts of the posting posters here. As I've read more and more about selling trading methodologies to "savvy investors" to quote one of the sales letters for free webinars, I've come to my personal conclusion that the best an aspiring trader can do is investing time into creating his own trading method, instead of giving away a considerable amount of money in the beginning to absolutely ANY trading service. With all the tools already available (books with general advices + basic indicators/oscillators/methods (e.g. market profile, etc.)) basically on any trading-related topic for absolutely free or for a nominal price of a book, a beginning trader has a much greater chance to succeed by creating his own method rather than risking paying a fraudulent vendor. I don't know how they do it - how they make me so enthusiastic about joining them, after reading their sales e-mail or visiting their webinar. Perhaps it's something innate to human nature that's in me which I subconsciously respond to? A desire to put the responsibility of my success onto someone else's shoulders, wanting to safely ride the rollercoaster of trading for sure profits? It might as well be the greed in me, responding to daily $2000 profit claims. Well, seeing myself in this light and understanding that those are perfectly normal reactions, puts me in a state of an 'observer' of those reactions, avoiding me acting on them without thinking. I've spent the last week reading hundreds and hundreds of posts/forums/reviews/complaint-gathering-sites, and I've realized that buying a trading education service of any kind, in the world where the majority of them is but a snake-oil selling scam, that's after getting the money from you instead of giving money to you in the value of education, now seems to me like a trade with a risk-reward ratio slanted to the wrong side, big way. Such a trade is not worth taking - any vendor I am choosing, chances that he's a fraud are (much) bigger than that he will make me consistently profitable. Plus as an added bonus, creating your own system has advantages - one of them is, it fits your personal style, which as I'm reading lately, however improbable that may seem, is one of the core foundations of the future success in one's trading. The best thing about that realization is the relief I'm feeling - knowing that I will not waste any money feels very good and I'm surprised by that. I'm glad that I've started this thread. With what has been said above, I don't think there's anything more I can add to this discussion. If anyone else can, please do, otherwise this thread might be closed.

You have a very high probability of being right with that, from the stuff I've been noticing lately.

MMS, it almost sounds like you're describing me.

Greetings. Has anybody any experience with eminitickfactory.com mentorship services? The man behind it is Michael P Kanuika. A webinar with him has just finished and his talking made absolute sense. Which doesn't mean anything - user reviews is what I count on - helped me avoid Traders International and opened my eyes for futuresfx.ca - which rings all the scam bells out there. EminiTickFactory.com facts: - membership: $6000 - the guy said the Inner Circle, special group which is allowed to communicate with him directly, ask him advices, call his phone, etc. has only 18 posts left. Once this is filled, others will only be allowed to 'observe him trade' and chat while doing that..."hurry, super opportunity, not much time left"... rings the scam bells - special price of around $3000 (or $2000, not sure), if registered til tomorrow 9:30 am... rings the scam bells - an absolutely, totally overloaded chart. 5 indicators below the chart and approx 10-15 on it, looks like a complete mess. Rings the ultimate scam bells. Although I have to admit he spoke of all of those indicators and their usage without hesitation - which can be but well prepared - eminitickfactory.com, created 28-jan-2010, is registered by zentradersystem.com - zentradersystem.com, registered 15-jun-2009 by Michael Kanuika - zentradersystem.com contains the links for eminitickfactory.com and 4xpipfactory.com - 4xpipfactory.com created 25-dec-2009, registrator hidden (Domain Discreet) - the guy has shown a presentation that contained the 4xpipfactory.com URL in it Hearing him talking was a bliss - very good and powerful words exactly nailing the trading business. Should I decide based on his words only, I would join. But all the other facts ring many bells here. The guy appears to be new in the trading mentoring business (whereas he might not be new to the business of trading overall) and I understand all those websites are very new. So if anyone has any experience with these, i.e. with Mr. Kanuika, please let us know. Thanks in advance.

I have one challenge only: I can't face losses. Losses are killing me, a losing trade feels to me like a stab with a knife in the heart, while I have no problem losing at conventional games, e.g. chess, a single losing trade is something that puts me down. It's causing me so much pain that it's hard to express. I feel clouds darkening the sky of my mind after a losing trade. Like facing a huge block that you know will be almost impossible to get thru. That thing is having a bazillion effects on me, all of them adverse: 1) my mood goes downhill, affecting my own and others' personal life 2) I have a great urge to find a flaw in the system after a losing trade, and correct it 3) after a streak of losing trades, just 2-3 are enough, or a month of trading where I'm +/- 0 on balance, or slightly below 0, I immediately seek a new system I've been thinking about the remedy - perhaps quality mentorship putting me in the right mindset is what I'm lacking. I'll keep pursuing the topic.

I don't know you guys, but based on what I know about trading, reading your posts makes me believe you are 'behind the water' as we say here, making enough money for a living by trading, enabling you setting < $3k aside for this "little" sideplay. From you, whom trading levels I hope to reach one day, reading comments about your losing days and basic mistakes like chasing trades, etc. is incredibly alleviating, inspiring, and it gives me personally the ultimate signal that I can conquer my trading emotions - it can be done, seeing with my own eyes that pros encounter them as well and are still profitable. This looks like this will be an incredibly inspiring thread to me, so keep going, good luck to you all as I believe luck is involved here in a certain degree, and I acknowledge the only limitations are in our heads (referring to the 30%-ish annual gain Mouse mentioned here). Regards.

People are frustrated, humility seen with confidence in one character is a rare thing, with the result being threads filled with accusations, hate and spitting on each other, instead of sharing information we all can profit from. 8368838293 was right in a certain way, the acceptance-seeking attitude he wrote about makes sense, but, he should have acknowledged that there's a *lot* of fake in today's trading world in terms of snake oil salesmen promoting their indicators/mentorship/trading systems on forums to make profit from selling those rather than trading, not to mention whole websites selling the newest indicators and similar, trying to convince the losing trader that this is his salvation. And when the losing trading jumps for this salvation - there's no wonder he's losing. 8XXXX should have acknowledged that and take everything with a calm head, instead of writing novels about how frustrated he is... a honest, human attitude accepting others whatever their reactions are, because there's a reason for them, works miracles. Anyway, I wanted to bring the 'To Sim Or Not To Sim' question into light again by sharing my 2 cents about it... I'm an aspiring trader, who has read a freaking lot about trading, recognized his former life where everything he touched turned to an exceptional success as a handicap in trading, has spent around 1000 hours studying the market, done many thousands of historical trades during backtesting, and written a lot, lot of pages describing his trading systems, and from my humble perspective, in the worst nightmare there can be, I cannot imagine risking a single cent of my hard-earned money with not being profitable on SIM first. Yes, I acknowledge the emotions step in big way when people trade live. Yes, I know it's much different from SIM, perhaps even far from it. Yes I'm aware of the fact that I can go and trade 1 contract live and learn. But why the hell would I do that if I have the option to get on the SIM first? To me, it's all about the personal choice of how an aspiring trader builds his learning curve. SIM is a phase for me, like studying the markets was a phase, trying out most of what's out there (indicators, price action, pivots, markets, timeframes, alternative charts, ....) was a phase, choosing what suits best was a phase, rough backtesting was a phase, finetuning the system was a phase, precise backtesting was a phase, final nuances to the memorized trading plan was and is a phase, a SIM is a phase that I choose to go through, with going to live while I'm consistently profitable a few weeks in a row on it will be a phase, then trading 1 contract in live before going to multicontracts is a phase, with many more phases to come... SIM is a huge step towards trading reality from backtesting on historical data. SIM is a place where the base foundation for successfully executing your system can be laid. SIM is the place which allows you to catch and correct flaws that no trader *should* make but they happen - you suddenly realize the difference between LIMIT and STOP LIMIT orders etc. etc. etc. you get used to the fact that you cannot scroll the market price to the right, you just don't know what's going to happen, you see the price ticking up and down constantly within 1 bar, SIM basically prepares you for 99% of what the real trading environment will look like - please notice I'm talking about the looks only. Emotions is a different thing - although I am absolutely certain that SIM will show you the emotional side of you and your trading to a certain degree - perhaps far from live trading, but also far from doing backtests. To me, going straight to live is like being sat in a Ferrarri after finishing the driving school tests without practice, instead of trying to master driving an 20-year old $300 car first. Of course, you can start with very slow driving in that Ferrarri and eventually master it - but I see absolutely NO SANE REASON not to do it, so-called, risk-free first (risk free with SIM, the car analogy fits 90% here, not 100% . I am absolutely convinced that SIM helps. SIM helps big. I'm rather willing to take two transitions, one level 4 and one level 6, than one transition of level 10 difficulty. By the next sentence I'm not massaging my ego or trying anyone to convince about anything - you always have to use your judgement - but I believe anyone who'd try to disprove me of the first three sentences of this paragraph is simply wrong. I won't change my opinion. Of course I'm always open for that, I just don't expect it in my lifetime in this one thing about SIM. The stuff said here about SIM - traders work 18 months in it, then go live, screw up big in two days and return to SIM for another 6 months - it's like blaming the internet for porn on it. Internet is a great thing - it's people who put porn on it, it's not the fault of the internet. In case of trading, I see nothing else in the mentioned SIM behavior than a poorly designed trading plan, improper analysis, trying to work with a system with a negative expectancy without realizing it, or any other "logical or mental error" aspiring traders make which puts them into the 97% category of failed ones mentioned here earlier. It's the fault of traders, not the SIM. You know, some traders here mentioned that they turned profitable with going to live directly, which I never mentioned is impossible, in fact, I believe it's possible as much as with going to SIM first - just covering the possible responses that people might jump into without fully understanding my perspective. Do what works for you, by any means - if going trading live with 1 lot without sim will do it for you, then by all means, do it - it's just that I personally perceive spending a few weeks on SIM first, a much better choice. I don't know how other aspiring traders, but I've sweat blood for my money and I'm willing to raise the percentage probability of my success to the maximum possible before risking my first cent in live trading. That can not be achieved without SIM trading first. I had to share my opinion so newbie traders don't get discouraged to use SIM - it's a great thing if you know what to use it for.

Uli, this actually perfectly copes with the theory I have why some people claim affirmations don't work - until today, it was just my idea that while repeating an affirmation, you actually have to experience what you want to achieve in your mind, not just hum-drumming some words blindly, you basically confirmed it... Thanks

Agreed with the fancy Uli Schmuli name. Is it true vice versa as well? Before the manifestation of losing trading came, the thought of losing trading came?