brownsfan019

Tor - I guess I view managing OPM on your conditions that you are still the boss. You are the boss of your biz. You can hire and fire clients at will. Of course if you are good at what you do, they will do just about anything to stay on board. Darth does bring up a valid point in managing just friends and family money as well. I know many would say just do it, get a letter of intent or something and be done, but if you want it done right, these additional ways to set up your biz should be a consideration. When it comes to money, esp friends and family, I am by the book no questions asked. I would argue that managing friends and family is worse than taking on strangers. Just be careful going this route. That's why a formal CTA, Hedge Fund, etc. is essential. Everything is laid out in black and white. This serves to cover YOUR butt. I guess it's all about where you want to take your biz. Many just trade their own money and that's fine. Some want to take it a step further and leverage their work hours with OPM. And some of us just have a scratch to WANT to run a business.... :o

When I go to http://traderslaboratory.com/forums/'>http://traderslaboratory.com/forums/ I get the upgrade page. When I go to http://traderslaboratory.com/forums I can get in. (no / at the end). Just an FYI b/c I had TL bookmarked with the / at the end of forums and just assumed TL was still in upgrade mode.

James - FYI - when I went to http://traderslaboratory.com/forums/'>http://traderslaboratory.com/forums/ or http://traderslaboratory.com I still get the we are upgrading message. How did I get in you ask? I clicked a link in a thread that I get announcements on and got right in.

I'm kinda surprised no one else chimed in here. Hasn't anyone else thought about the power available with OPM? I know there's more headaches and such, but if it can take you to your monetary goal in life much, much quicker, why not? At least that's my thought process. Of course the integral part here is being 100% confident in you, your system and the ability to work under pressure. That's essential when you bring OPM into the mix. But for futures traders, getting the CTA together is not a ton of work in my opinion and will require some monetary investment into your business but as the OP said, looking at some of the CTA numbers being reported to Barclays and such, I think it warrants strong consideration - either now or when you get to the point of being able to crank out some good trades consistently.

Nick - the headache aspect of this does not concern me if it betters my results. And that was the initial thought behind this. Again, I think it could warrant attention even if just trading a 2 lot. Since the majority of my trades are done with a reversal trade this not only is a headache, but the math behind it doesn't always work in my favor which was my goal to begin with.

Minimum requirements: http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia/systemreq.asp Obviously the more the better. You can get a 30 day trial, so test it out and see if your machine can handle it. Could make for a neat TL Members' Video Log Area...

After some sleep and playing out some of yesterday's trades, one item jumped out: If you are using your exits as a place to also initiate a new position (as I am) the math can get even more sketchy. Example - if short a full 3/3 and you get a reversal signal and get ticked in at ONE level, you stay short, but only for 1/3 of your contracts. Let's say you are short at 1520, 1519.75 and 1519.50. A full 1/3 at each level. You then take a reversal long at 1518.00. Only one level gets filled, but since this is a reversal long, your order should be resting for 2/3 of your contracts (you would need to have your orders lined up for 2/3 at each level). So you would stay short, but for only 1/3, which kind of defeats the purpose. From what I can see now, this seems like a very viable strategy if you do not flatten and reverse a position at a new entry level. Just depends on how you trade really. Looks like it's back to the simple method here. Just when I thought I might have found a way to complicate things. :o

I agree with Mark - Camtasia and/or SnagIt are great tools for your trading business. Using Camtasia as Mark does is a great idea and I use SnagIt to capture chart images and annotate them. You could then add those annotated charts into your Camtasia recording later if you wanted as well. SnagIt: http://www.techsmith.com/snagit.asp Camtasia: http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp Note - if you purchase both at the same time, you can save some money - http://www.techsmith.com/purchase/default.asp ** I also have no affiliation with techsmith, just a very happy user as well **

Walter - how do you define the 'already had a huge move' and how do you categorize when to keep taking the trades? Obviously on a nice trend day, you'd want to take them all day. Other days not so much.

OK, I figured out why some traders may not scale in - trying to do the math on how your trades play out at 12:30am is not easy. :o I'll have to come up with an Excel sheet or something on how to run this. Example: Short this AM with average price of 50.50 on the ES (short 3 levels as illustrated above) 1/3 of the contracts are taken out at 48.00 & reversed long here as well the other 2/3 to reverse long do not fill the new 1/3 at 48.00 stops out at 46.00 meanwhile still have 2/3 short from 50.50 initiate new short of 1/3 at 45.50 cover and go long 1/3 at 45.50, 1/3 at 45.75, 1/3 at 46.00 cover and short 1/3 at 45.00 cover and go long 1/3 at 47.00 meanwhile still long 2/3 with average at 45.75 Anyways... you see where this is going all day. Wed was a great example for me to look at this as a good handful of my losing trades would have never filled at 3 levels. Quite a few only filled 1/3. What I am seeing is: 1) Winners guaranteed to fill completely. 2) Losers may only fill partially. This accomplishes a few things: 1) Commissions are lowered 2) You may take some 'shake out' trades, but not on the full load. It's kind of like testing the water before diving in. 3) Winners can actually net quite abit more b/c the shake out trade only took out a portion of your contracts. So in my short example this AM, I was short at 50.50 with a full load. Had I exited fully on my next setup at 48.00, that's +2.5. Not bad. The catch is that at that entry where I covered my short, I also went long, which stopped out for -2.00. Now if I was fully out on my short (which I was) at +2.75 (not scaling in) and then getting fully stopped on the next trade for -2.00 your net is easily calculated at +.75 before 6 full round turns. See how the numbers can really change? Off to bed here but for our math whizzes on the board, any help on how to easily calculate this would be great and much appreciated.

In my ever pursuit of maximizing gains and minimizing losses (if possible) I'm wondering if anyone is currently trading with a scaling in and/or out methodology. As I've mentioned previously, I like to keep things simple (one entry, one exit) but I had a little idea today that if I scaled into my entries, perhaps losses could be kept smaller. I suppose it really comes down to the exact entry method you use, but for me, I typically enter with Buy Stop Limits or Sell Stop Limits. By using this type of entry, I'm wondering if I could keep losses smaller in cases where my full contract lot does not get filled. Let me explain... In this chart I am assuming that we have a long entry and put 1/3 of contracts at 3 levels (just one tick apart) on the ES: So in order for the trade to fully 'confirm' 3 price levels would need to be taken out to the upside. Obviously if going long, you'd like to see price moving up. The problem with this is that your overall net fill is going to be the average of all 3 (mid-point level in this example) and you could have your full boat riding at one tick better. But in my mind, that one tick better for the winners could be offset by taking much smaller losses. Let me explain further: In this chart I am assuming that my entry gets ticked in and 1/3 of my contracts get filled and then a stop loss occurs: The reasoning behind this is that I have seen trades where with a buy/sell stop order that price can just peak it's head through enough to trigger my order and then retreat. Since I am mainly trading the ES, it's realistic to consider that it can hit one level of my entries and then retreat. So why be exposed for the full amount at one level... That's the idea currently. The issue here is that on the winners you are going to wish that you got it all in at that one price level. But by spreading your orders in thirds over three levels, your net average is simply the middle price level. And assuming that you just go one tick above each previous tick on the ES, it doesn't appear to be a big sacrifice in consideration of the winners, but could result in considerably less in the losers. I'm going to have to examine this some more but thought I'd open it up for some discussion here.

Walter - I'm beginning to think that you need to get into the business of writing possible trading strategies. The band breakout/pullback is an interesting method. I never had much luck with bands - mainly Bollinger and Keltner - as I felt it was hard to really distinguish when to play the break and when to play the breakout. In other words, as price is approaching a band, do you play that it will bounce off or play that it will break through? With the indicator(s) that you have at the bottom of the chart, maybe that will help. I attached some screenshots of your charts for consideration. I'm wondering if there's a way to filter some of these possible entries out that do not work. Also, in the spirit of the forum, I think it would be good if you highlight trades that failed as well. Please don't misinterrupt this comment, but from some of the charts that you post, it appears that you are developing bullet proof strategies daily. Obviously that's not true, so it would probably be helpful to everyone, incl yourself, to point out areas of failure as well to get a full picture. Just a suggestion. I find that it's easy to look thru rose colored glasses when it's your hard work and ego on the line.

I agree Nick - have to watch this stuff closely during econ news. FX has always interested me but when you read about brokers widening spreads, 'running' stops, etc. it's hard to get motivated to want to trade there. I mean, trading is hard enough as it is, right? I much prefer the regulated world of futures but FX is always a tempting idea...

Interesting. It would be nice to know how that info is pulled and from where. I don't know much about FX so not sure who to email and ask that question to. Not sure if that's a broker specific question or something to the makers of MetaTrader. Any ideas? Edit: Got on the metatrader site and there appears to be a volume function in it. From the user guide: Volumes  show/hide volumes in the chart. The same actions can be performed by the chart context menu command of the same name or by pressing of accelerating keys of Ctrl+L; Just not sure where that volume info is coming from.

Great looking inverted hammer that touched your trend line Don!

Wow, nice gravestone doji @ pullback to red hull and a nice looking hammer @ blue hull.

No prob Walter. I enjoy the discussions. Here's an FX question - is it possible to include volume into your analysis? I realize there's no central trading spot like in futures, so I'm wondering how someone like myself that utilizes volume to transfer that into FX, if at all possible.

It's all about the benjamins baby. I wonder what the Russell 'company' gets from this kind of stuff. The exchange is buying a license basically and you know the CME probably fought hard to keep it there.

I know there are some ER2 traders here, so make sure you follow how this progresses and what changes you need to make in order to keep trading the ER2 when it's at the ICE. Coincidentally, the CME had an announcement as well: CME and S&P Announce New E-mini Small Cap Stock Index Futures Contracts Chicago Mercantile Exchange MediaRoom - News Releases Hmmmm.... A small cap E-mini... why would they do that? My guess is that this new E-mini coupled with a S&P 400 E-mini push, the CME is hoping to keep ER2 traders there. Problem is that the new e-mini is just that, new, and the S&P 400 has yet to get some good volume. Time will tell.

CHART ONE outside observation: at yellow arrow #1 there are 2 hammers, at yellow arrow #2 you have a giant engulfing followed up by a hammer to retest that area. CHART THREE: bullish harami type line at your yellow line. Didn't see much in chart two in terms of candles. Just chiming in with some ideas Walter and others. Perhaps there's something there... if nothing else, maybe the candle line/pattern can provide the additional confirmation you may want/need.

Walter - FYI - You have a nice gravestone doji in the direction of your SMA or whatever the red line is at the 'robust setup' trade.... something to think about.... HINT.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-tue_ice0619jun19,1,5526876.story?ctrack=1&cset=true Merc loses futures to ICE Russell move may affect CBOT battle By Robert Manor Tribune staff reporter Published June 19, 2007 The IntercontinentalExchange Inc., which is attempting a merger with the Chicago Board of Trade, said Monday it had won the exclusive right to trade a well-known group of equity index futures previously traded mainly on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a move that could weaken the Merc's competing merger bid for CBOT. The ICE announcement involves the Russell Investment Group's two popular stock indexes of large and smaller capitalization stocks. Such index futures products have grown increasingly popular in recent years. Patrick O'Shaughnessy, an equity analyst with Morningstar, said ICE's win of the contracts will serve two purposes. One is to diversify its offerings, which now are mainly energy and commodities such as sugar and cocoa, to include the increasingly fast-growing universe of financial futures. It is also to strengthen ICE's bid to merge with the CBOT, a merger also sought by the Merc. "The ICE platform will offer investors worldwide exclusive access to Russell's unparalleled group of equity indexes," said Jeffrey Sprecher, the chief executive of ICE. "They want people to see that they are here to stay and that they are a big player," O'Shaughnessy said. "It certainly brings ICE some credibility." Russell equity indexes have been trading with the Merc since 1992, the company said, although some Russell products trade on the New York Board of Trade, which was recently acquired by ICE. A spokesman for the Merc played down the loss of the Russell indexes. "Russell products make up only 1.5 percent of the total CME equity standard products, which means out of the 6 million contracts we do each day it's below half a percent of total volume," said Allan Schoenberg, director of corporate communications for the Merc. Even backers of the Merc's bid for CBOT said the loss of the Russell indexes will have some impact on CBOT shareholders, who are to vote on the merger issue July 9. "It will have a lot of shock value," to the Merc, said Alan Palmer, an independent trader at the CBOT. But he said that, in the long run, Merc's offer for CBOT is still more attractive than that of ICE. The Russell Investment Group has developed a number of stock indexes intended to measure how different types of stocks are performing. Russell licenses the use of the name for the indexes. Kelly Haughton, strategic director for Tacoma, Wash.-based-Russell, could not give an exact timetable for when trading in the index futures would migrate from the Merc to ICE.But Haughton said ICE could win the right to trade other Russell equity indexes.

Coot - I'll see what I can find out. You also did say he was running a private hedge fund trading the bonds. That's simply not true at all. That's kind of important to point out as well - that information, however you obtained it, is completely inaccurate.

rock - it's hard to work from home, esp if you can't get your own 'office' w/o interruptions. I find that working from home somehow implies that you are always available, regardless if you are working. It's not easy to get around that. I've often debated about just renting a little professional office space for this reason and others - more professional, none of these little interruptions, feel like you are going to a 'job' and need to act like you are at a 'job'. While we all like the freedom trading provides, it also can provide very easy access to you from spouses, children, etc. I guess I look at it like this - if I was at my own office, would the interruptions happen? Maybe, but not as often and probably just over the phone (easy to hang up). Would I miss these trades you talk about? More often than not, no. Would these golden trades pay for the office and then some? It should. I think it's a great question/dilemma you bring up. I know some will say that some can't afford the office and the expenses, but I would ask you Rock - can you afford to miss many of those trades you were waiting for? What opportunity 'cost' did you just miss out on? There's no right answer, but it is one that every trader needs to answer. A simple solution such as getting your own 'real office' could be the answer. And not only that Rock, you start to resent your spouse and/or child(ren) b/c they just 'cost' you $$$$. That's a slippery slope to go down...

In summary, I don't see any reason to not consider doing business with OEC and/or Rick Tomsic. As far as the NFA files are concerned, they look perfectly clean to me. I don't think you can say that a firm that Rick was once an AP at that had issues SEVEN YEARS later is a problem. Maybe there's more that meets the eye and Cooter will share some items that I am not aware of. If nothing else, this stressed the importance of doing your own due diligence, going directly to the source with questions and using a message board as a guide for some ideas. Now, a clean bill of health will not be enough if the platform is slow in real-time or any other issues that Cooter mentioned. I do not need their software for charting, so that's not a concern for me. But if this platform is too slow in real-time, I will be the first to post here to let you know. I will not compromise on speed and I am being told by OEC that their platform is fast. I don't know what 'fast' means but I will be comparing it to my T4 platform that's for sure.