brownsfan019

If you want to talk trading strategy, that is all over this forum. Start a thread, post screenshots and off you go. Again, the instrument being traded is not important. You can post screenshots of the stocks you are trading and others might post other instruments. But if you want to get it going, then you need to start it. PS The Browns suck this year which a quick look @ espn.com would tell you that. So if you're just looking to take a shot, then you can place me on ignore and I won't offer my suggestions.

Well your niche is being a local trading office so you have to market it locally. It all comes down to how you are going to form it - if you are going to train/prop type thing, then the marketing is straight forward. You are looking for new traders and people that want 'financial freedom'. If you are just creating a hangout/office then you have to reach established traders which could be harder IMO b/c this is a local thing. I'm not entirely sure how you find established traders locally that you could even market to, let alone invite in for a test drive. That's why I think targeting brand new people would be easier as long as you are willing to train them. And obviously that requires some profitable trading strategies to give them.

Here's a great example from today's ZS chart that I posted in the p/l thread. There's a gorgeous candlestick pattern there at the HOD. Now if you had some resistance there on your charts that could be a valid short.

I'll see what I can do dinero. If you search the p/l thread, there's been a few that have identified where I entered. From there, you could piece it together. I've said this often on this forum and I will repeat here - candlestick patterns by themselves are useless. You need some other confirmation to aid in using candlesticks. Also, the lower the timeframe the less reliable candlestick patterns are IMO. In other words, if you just buy any hammer you find, it will fail more than win. But give me a hammer @ strong support level(s) with maybe an oscillator or keltner channel, and we can talk. As for deciphering candlestick patterns, just about any candlestick could be a 'pattern'. Again, you need more stuff w/ it but on intraday charts you have to remain flexible in your definitions of candlestick patterns. Most of Nison's work on this area revolved around daily charts when he wasn't being a referral whore. There's a reason they seem to work easier/stronger on daily charts - the longer the timeframe, the stronger the candlestick pattern by itself.

The equipment is another great consideration - personally, I want my machine and my use only. If I joined your place and take a day off, is anyone able to just hop on my workstation? What if your specs don't meet my requirements? I don't want to be hauling my computers (yes, plural) and monitors (also plural). I think this could work if the niche is targeting brand new traders who need mentoring, teaching, etc. and also do not have a routine yet. You want to make your place the routine. So if I was to do this, that's how I would approach it - target those that want to learn about trading and need help... then provide it. Basically a quasi trading office / teaching office / networking office in one. While at it, you mind as well open up a prop and get a rip on all the trades. I guess I just suggested opening up a prop shop. That would accomplish what you seek out to do while attracting new and old talent. I know very little about prop, but have heard decent things about Bright Trading and SMB.

My profit target(s) are typically very achievable in my eyes - so I basically let the trade go and either it works or doesn't. I just don't like watching decent sized moves turn into losers and if you are swinging for the fences, that will happen a lot. If a trade has some profit but then retraces, then my entry was wrong and I have to move on to the next trade setup. Basically I view it as a failure. And I'm horrible at trailing exits (I love to lock in that profit) so that's not an option either for me.

I get what you are saying but I'm having trouble seeing why I would want to do this as a trader myself. Now if you used this as an avenue to offer new traders a place to work AND be taught, that could work. And then once they get comfortable there, it will become habitual to just 'go to work'. But I think it would be hard getting experienced traders to just up and leave what they know.

Right - I see what's in it for you. So what's in it for me? I get to pay someone's lease, pay for their internet, computers, etc.? All for the chance of socializing with others? And do I really want to be socializing when I'm trying to trade and make money? Just giving you the other side of the coin.

Forrest - I am right with you on this question. There are some posts around here talking about this very topic. My suggestion is to experiment with a few things but realize in the end that you will never get perfect exits. Some days you will want to hold for the huge move and others you will get killed doing that. You just have to decide what kind of trader are you: a) you want the big trending moves and will hold a trade for that big move b) you want regular profits even if that means you 'miss' out on some others I have opted for option b. I want to extract $ out of the market daily and to do that I realize that you have to be content with achievable profits and deal with it. It's easier said than done, but IMO the first thing you need to establish is what kind of trader do you want to be. From there, you can model profit targets that make sense from that information.

It could work for those that want to socialize w/ other traders. So what's in it for you? That's the question - what would it cost me, a trader, to trade there?

Also - do not hold into scheduled econ releases on markets that you are learning about. To my knowledge there wasn't anything scheduled that caused this soy drop, but I could be wrong. For example, every Wed @ 1030am EST is oil inventory. If you hold a trade through that you are asking for a massive hit quickly - not only does price jump multiple levels at a time, but it could blow past your stop like it was non-existent. You can plan for this event and trade accordingly. But for unexpected moves, you just have to place your stop and let it do it's job. There could be times where something happens and you take some slippage but that is a rare occurrence IMO. It's just part of the business.

If you get caught into a swift move, you might see some slippage. For example, if someone was long into that move I posted, your initial stop might have jumped a few ticks as I was watching the DOM jump 2-4 levels at a time. Keep in mind that I posted a 5 min chart so that giant red candle is encompassing 5 mins. This is why I always recommend people watch new markets, learn about them, sim trade them and then consider putting real $ on the line. Here's what the 1 min chart during that time looked like:

Brian - someone might argue that trading is trading, regardless of what market it is performed on. If that's the case, then the entire forum is at your disposal. If you want to talk UK specific stocks, I don't think you'll find much of that around here at this point.

Neat idea James. Just make sure on your end the legalities/liabilities are checked and double-checked. You don't want an unhappy transaction coming back to bite you in the butt.

10-23-09: +$495.00 Better day here but got out of ZS just before the massive drop... thanks ZS guys. Just had to wait for me to exit and then drop it. I exited literally about 15 seconds before the big push down came.

I learned a long time ago James that my intuition was most definitely not the way for me to trade... In order to eliminate those 'feelings' I must trade w/in a rule set. For those that have it though, that's a great weapon in your arsenal.

First, are these two trading parties dissimilar enough to distinguish them as 2 separate entities? B/c I think you could argue that institutions utilize high frequency trading in order to establish positions and that high frequency traders trade enough size to be called an institution. If you assume that institutions and high frequency traders need to push big size, then I would assume they are using bots to do this. The more bots on one side (buy or sell) will win. Look at the daily volume as the big boys make up the majority of it. When that volume is down on the day, some entity dialed back on that particular day. It's competition at it's finest. You have these huge, well funded bots going after other well funded bots and then you have the little guys like us just trying to tag along since we know we can only react to what they do. So far, the system works.

10-22-09: +$20.00 Hell yeah! 20 bucks. Missed a gorgeous sell on the Russell. Slower day overall after yesterday's big moves, to be expected.

On certain markets, for sure. No doubt. Where you see high volume = many bots playing the game. This is part of the reason I have incorporated other markets into my trading where it appears/feels like there are a minimal amount of bots playing their games. While most gravitate towards the highest volume contracts, that may not be the 'easiest' option to go. I'll dive into this some other time as I've been meaning to do a little write up on it.

In terms of $, it is wider. And for me, that's all that I care about - $. And going the path of least resistance.

mini - I am no programmer by any means, but here's what I've seen w/ OEC -- 1) it can handle most EL type functions/indicators (but not all) 2) I'm not sure if it's w/in the OEC framework to do what you've described here - take data from a sub-daily chart and input it to a daily chart. I believe there's a few more functions needed for that and not sure OEC can do it. If you can find this in EL, you can put it into OEC and see if it works.

Well, that's your opinion and you are entitled to it. Doesn't mean it's right.

10-21-09: $420.00 What a day all over the place. I really missed some nice setups and that p/l is not where it should be. Note - was long on oil but had to flatten into inventory... bad choice in hindsight. lol

Are you sure you are watching the Russell 2000 mini? To compare: Oct 20 high to low Russell 2000 mini: 16.6 pts = $1660 ES: 17 pts = $850 NQ: 30 pts = $600 So on Oct 20th, the BIGGEST range was found on the Russell due to a tick there is $10 and a point there is $100. Not sure how you are getting a .5 spread... here's a dom snapshot from 12:10pm EST:

Grey - how often do you trade? Only see the occasional blotter so just wondering what your trading style is.