4EverMaAT

Ingot, What you say is so profound it should be made a sticky. And I'm glad you had the maturity to do this, instead of gloat in the limelight. I mentioned earlier in the contest thread about Varengold bank implementing a transparent Risk-Adjusted ROI to encourage traders to trade just as they would on a live account, and not just aim for the highest gross ROI. (Post 222-230 discusses the concept. The formula is linked to in post #225) MyFxBook has actually acknowledged the need for some additional rules to prevent the free-for-all / all in approaches that many traders are using to win (luck). They would never trade real money that way. These type of transformations will encourage the retail forex industry to have a more professional approach. Because the ignorant are attracted to large gains instead of implementing [complete] systematic approaches to extracting profits from the markets (which does require taking some risks), they develop this loser mentality where they practice "wanting" to make money in the markets. So it is no surprise that they end up with only wanting, never actually finding the strategies necessary for consistent profits. These losers are particularly fond of ambiguous advice, black box systems, and other predictive (mystical) approaches to winning in the forex markets. Taking responsibility and risks in a structured format is hardly ever given any serious consideration. When it is, all kinds of excuses are made to NOT go forward and practice the real strategy. There is also a different type of loser; one who does not want to be successful and also goes around trolling hoping to discourage others from being successful. Comments like "What, do you want to be spoon-fed?" are usually codewords for "I don't know what really works myself, but I don't want to admit it." They probably been burned a few times by some strategies that they thought would work and make assumptions about the whole industry. You hardly ever see these people jump on or congratulate a genuine strategy when it is available, because they too are afraid to take the risk. In regards to sharing a strategy for free, I think it is honorable. I've done so already, and revealed a true price action measurement tool. But the most interesting thing I noticed is that there is a clear distinction between those who do pay for your time vs those who are freebies. The ones who pay tend to be the ones that will make productive use of their own time and yours. I noticed a disproportionate amount of freeloaders consuming most of the time I was spending in the day. So one piece of advice would be to make sure you structure your schedule and information layout so that when you do offer something for free, it will also add value automatically. Like youtube videos and screenshots to illustrate how you lay out your strategy. But back to the discarding the loser mentality. The key is to see things the way they really are (clearly defined price action), and systematically make a choice (take risks).

Oh, ok. i guess April can be 1 month. But I think he can or you can create 2 months . I thought you can assign more than 1 administrator.

I think it makes sense to just do it for 2 months.

You could say that. Kemet, or the land commonly known today as Egypt, had a concept of Maat as a means to describe all of existence. But so did many aboriginal cultures. Maa = truth. Maa-maaticos --> Maatematics --> Mathematics

I agree. The 2 month one is ok. You could even do overlapping 2 month ones, every month if you wanted to, except december. Always combine Dec/Jan or Nov/Dec. Did you post the new contest yet? And does a trader have to use a new demo account, or can they use an existing account, even if there have been trades on it?

2 things 1) I wanted to know where I can find the short url version of some of my threads (or any thread). For example: http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/showthread.php?p=157574 vs http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/forex-trading-laboratory/13909-implementing-successful-systems-part-1-anatomy.html and http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/showthread.php?p=160470 vs http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/automated-trading/14249-why-automation-next-logical-step-system.html I think i might have figured it out, but i need to be sure. 2) I tried submitting a new thread under the support forum, but I get a comment that i do not have sufficient permissions to do this. i thought it was open to all who wanted support.

yes, for me it doesn't look like it works ever. if you could show me a screenshot of where this button is, that would be fantastic.

Price action seems to be quite an overused term these days, and there was even a recent rant about it that attempted to bring some honest discussion about the ambiguity of the term. Unfortunately, no agreement could be made on the definition, other than something along the lines of 'movement of ticks up or down in the market'. :crap: What is needed is an indicator that does not repaint, and can provide clear direction what the market is doing now. (not to be confused with predicting what the market will do later). The basic definition of trending prices: Uptrend - series of higher highs and higher lows Downtrend - series of lower lows and lower highs. lacks a starting point and an end point to determine the low or high. Often times these are done in hindsight, but what if the trend measurement could be drawn concurrently with the current price action?:idea: Similar to planning a roadtrip, if the user knew in advance how many ticks/pips they wanted to measure (the end point), and could agree on where the start point is, then a qualification process could be used to determine if the "price action" can in fact create a 'series of higher highs, lower lows, etc' between the two points. APAMI does exactly this, dynamically:thumbs up: This video overview of the technical details of how apami functions should bring you up to speed. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VOv-Jqn8gk&list=PLAeDv9ZS_kDMAQa_behuCobmIPyEEPFj6]Zero lag, automatic trend detection indicator for mt4/mt5 explained (APAMI 1/3) - YouTube[/ame] The implementations you are being provided are for metatrader 4 and 5, but conceptually it can be implemented on any decent charting platform that supports a real-time price feed and custom programming language. I have been referring to this indicator for quite some time on previous threads, and it took a while to put some things together. I use it in my own mechanical trading systems as a first part of the trade lifecycle: detect entry condition. the tradecycle article has one example of how you could implement apami, but the possibilities are technically endless. I suppose using moving averages are somewhat endless also. The full whitepaper covers more technical information about how the indicator is calculated. TBA. But for 99% of you, just watch the videos and throw apami on a chart to see how it works. pay close attention to what happens after the moves "complete" !APAMI_3.0_FREE_MT4.zip !APAMI_3.0_FREE_MT5.zip APAMI_Whitepaper_Abstract.zip APAMI_3.0_instruction_manual.zip

suggestion: The buttons next to "last poster" should link to the latest unread post in that thread, not the last post of the thread. This is more practical, as a user interested in that thread would want to pick up where he last left off.

How timely was this post. The good news is that there are several legit brokers in well-regulated environments in which to achieve this. Nothing wrong with trying out a broker who you think might have potential, even if they may not meet your grade-a criteria. Multi-broker diversification is a wise idea. Not only for safety of funds, but the ability to test different execution models, spreads, etc with your expert advisor or strategy.

I felt compelled to comment on this as I meant to make a similar comment earlier on in the thread. One of the things that made the original turtle trader experiment so interesting was that not all of the turtles were successful, even though: - the group selected to be turtles went through a fairly rigorous selection process. - they all had direct access to the master trader's strategy, in a clearly laid out form. - they were supervised at different levels of advancement in the program; all had the ability to ask questions, seek direct guidance whenever they had problems. - it wasn't even their money that was being traded [so financially they had nothing to 'lose'] - not sure, but I think they even got some minimum compensation for their efforts. But Curtis summed it up nicely: ......"In fact, I knew that most of those who spent thousands to learn these heretofore secret [turtle] rules would end up disappointed, for three reasons: • The rules wouldn’t be clear, since the people selling them didn’t know how to trade. • Even if they were clearly presented, the buyers probably wouldn’t be able to follow the rules. • Most of the Turtles are now trading even better rules....... " In addition to the link above, i decided to just attach the rules here for easy reference. I take a different stance on sharing "the secret" with others, so I don't know what to say about the folks trying to keep up this mystique about trading successfully. Seems to just be adding or rehashing the superstitions to managing risk, and those wanting safety and security are drawn to these mysterious methods. I commend Curtis for bringing not just the strategy, but the overall mindset of a successful strategy to light; this is how you counter the falsehoods. Kind of like the internet marketing thing. If you help your clients get to, or closer to, their goal, wouldn't they just naturally pay you to do this? turtlerules.pdf

zulutrade makes their money off of commissions per trade. They hook up to the broker's trading servers via api and copy trades directly from the signal provider's account to the zulutrade / follower's account. The follower either has to get a new account from the broker via their Introducing Broker partnership, or if you do not want to sign up for a new account, you have to sign an agreement to add an additional commission in order to accept the trades via zulutrade. You are ranked based on your performance while you are connected to zulutrade, and they are pretty good about showing you actual performance, to prevent people from trying to earn commissions only based on making a lot of senseless trades. MyFxBook is going to introduce a copy trades solution, but they will only pay for winning trades, not all trades to prevent the commission hunters. Rapa is more of a traditional fund broker who links up fund managers/traders with those with capital. They split a 2% management / 20% performance fee with the trader. You have to have live performance, and then you only get paid when you increase the account beyond the original balance and there may be other "hurdle" performance restrictions, to prevent traders from having a large drawdown, then increasing the balance, then getting paid on the increase-after-drawdown.

Many people do not consider this aspect. Trading for a living is much more about managing risk, not trying to re-invent the wheel. And nowadays, with things like zulutrade and Rapa Capital, you can get a clearer idea of how to create a 'winning' system. It's not complicated; but it requires that you take structured risks until you are consistent.

[emphasis added] That's a fine quote here. It take a lot of confidence in your system to play it consistently no matter what. This is why systems are important, and the more you automate, the 'easier' it becomes as your focus is much less likely to drift. When you work out the expected drawdowns ahead of time, you can also use equity-based stop loss in case of a tsunami, which no one really has control over anyway. One of the original turtles commented on the mechanical approach they used. There were times where there were lots of small losses that added up while going after the larger trend, and psychologically it can be difficult (even with a mechanical strategy, written by and under the guidance of a master trader) to exercise patience to wait for the turnaround to bigger profits. Keeping all other variables constant, and depending on your aggression levels, your overall capital risk decreases as you increase the repetitions of your strategy. Your overall equity goes up, and risk of ruin or risk of loss is less and less as you now play with "the market's" money.

No problem sharing the strategy. The key is risk management, not so much the signal entries strategy. With only two different directions the market can go, how many ways can one really trade to get a positive expectancy? The myth of the exotic trading system has hooked tons of people, including myself at some points, into pouring a lot of time and money in some cases chasing our tails. But once you get past the emotionalism, you see that trading profitably isn't that hard (mechanically). it's overcoming the fear you need to take risks. The idea that a predictive model that is highly accurate and would thus 'remove' the risks associated with being on the 'wrong' side of the trade attracts a lot of people, particularly newbies.

Still doing your correlation trading Eric? When are you coming back to thailand? Thanks again for the screenshot. I'll put some credit for you in the upcoming whitepaper on the APAMI indicator.

Price is exact. But how do you test a method that is inconsistent? Especially when the inconsistent parts are not equally applicable in each repetition of the method? It is difficult to share a method or strategy with someone if it requires a unique point of view.

I took a look at the screenshot. Can these exact rules be applied consistently?

It is ok to allow 2 months, but I think you should keep the sign up period open for 10-15 days into the first month. I missed the last one because I went too late to try to register.

The short answer is absolutely yes. The default is 25-29fps (29 for NTSC and 25 for PAL). This is the same frame rate that your consumer camcorder (regular or HD) uses to record live video footage. I suppose you could increase the FPS if you really needed to....not sure what the maximum is. I think the default of 25-29 fps is PLENTY for any recording enthusiasts, unless you are doing some very specialized hollywood film or are trying to film lightning (1000fps to see the flash only (in slow motion), about 7000fps to see the lightning flash path from the sky to the ground, 100k+ fps for a meteorologist or ecologist to map an exact path at every turn. Animation is usually done in 12 fps. I've never paid attention too much except when I am looking live during a news annoucement or volatile period. I've seen several changes per second at times, but never counted. 10 frames per second would give you 1 snapshot every 100ms. 20 would be 1 snapshot every 50ms. 30 would be 1 every 33.3 ms, etc. You may get 12 ticks of the same price in 1 second, but the chart wouldn't move. It is only when a change in price occurs there is movement. But how often does current bid/ask price change in one second? Even for the eMinis. If you are using a broker or private datafeed subscription (e.g. eSignal) that is giving you true tick-by-tick datafeed, and you want to guarantee that you can see each individual tick price information, The best thing might be if you want to track historical changes is to open a separate 1 tick chart, time/sales, tape window, and/or DoM for each symbol that you want to record and compare it to your other compression charts you normally use for the SAME symbol and verify during heavy trading that the recording is picking up all of the movements. To put it in perspective, Interactive Brokers sends "compressed" or summary ticks every 200-400ms or so, not true tick-by-tick data. It's free, much less likely to crash their data servers, and takes much less hard drive space to store, similar 60000ms (1 min) bars;) I mostly use it on forex, and the majority of retail brokers tend to throttle their tick data to bypass metatrader and client internet limitations, but it is unnoticeable to most traders. I think some people got thrown off with the fps thing. It's just like recording your monitor with a camcorder, but without having to buy camcorder.

you are referring to the PLAYBACK of the recording. Not the recording itself, which will be 12-29 fps. Depending on the codec you use (BSR uses Xvid by default which is universal), you use vlc player which you can adjust the playback speed of the video clip. Also, if you want to actually produce your own videos, you import the video into the production suite (Movie Lab, Camtasia Studio, etc) and you can speed up or slow down the video that way. This is more advanced and not necessary unless you are doing tutorials or how-to videos.

I have to agree with RoBiK here. Hindsight is a funny thing. This is why I recommend counter-trend trading. By the time the market has gone in a particular direction, it is much more likely to head in the opposite direction. We just don't know when, so you have to stay with a series of trades until the reversal occurs.

I didnt realize there was such an expat community here. Especially for a single trader, i think thailand has a good mix of internet options, cheap living arrangements, and beautiful, friendly women to make this worth your while. In retrospect, i wish i'd known about this option earlier. Sure the infrastructure wasnt exactly the same 10 years ago, but i think i would have enjoyed it anyway. Especially for the beginner trader, it's difficult to trade when you know that if you lose, you may have a problem paying the rent next month. So by reducing that large expense (rent), and being able to scale your other utilities allows the budget tader to focus on strategy/position sizing. Your not living trade-by-trade hoping that your losses are not too large. But you' have to either automate your strategy or live off of saving while you get your manual setup going (entirely doable depending on your wants). Seems difficult to find work out here that would pay a worthy salary, unless you teach english. Better to have a freelance work or other types of flexible workig conditions like seasonal work and do "split shift living" similar to how people will go to hawaii for 6 months out of the year and then stay on thh mainland usa for the other 6. the airfare is comparible to that of an intl airfare, and the cost of living wasnt much lower. Your dollar goes much further in thailand.

It's even better when you want to spend your profits after trading hours :o.

I have to agree with Savant to an extent. With forex trading, there tends to be a 'detached' mindset that comes with it; you have to let go to get the maximum benefit from your trades. If you trade without fear, that's one thing. But if you find yourself unable to sleep at night, you are trading with too much risk! One way to reduce the stress also is to reduce your living expenses. Usually rent and food are the two largest reoccurring expenses for a trader. This may not work for everyone, but going to a lower-cost country will significantly. Expat's choices would be thailand or Columbia, although you might find comfort in different places.