gosu

You can start with these. There is a larger pdf that won't upload. But you can find it on the SEC site: http://www.sec.gov/news/studies/2010/marketevents-report.pdf gensler_statement_5.11.10.pdf Duffy052010Testimony.pdf

You assume too much.

Hi karoshiman, I parsed your post from earlier. Glad you enjoyed it. You can keep the change. I like your image of the speed boat and the large cruiser. I would just add that I don't consider what I do to be in direct competition with the larger participants. It is true that at the point of execution all participants access the same bid and ask, and since I am mostly a liquidity taker there is less liquidity available for others. However, the size that I run is relatively so small that it is like a flea bite on an elephant. Someone stated that individual traders are pikers in the market. Another term I've seen used is "parasitic." I think both are apt. If you read the congressional testimony and reports on the May 2010 flash crash, you may get a glimpse of where you fit into the picture. The largest of participants do not have as their goal anything resembling what I do. I responded to this previously.

Hi Roger, You are not describing traders. People who look for free indicators and free mentorship on a message board are your potential customers, who are not traders. As a self-proclaimed member of the fair and open minded group, I can tell you I don't give a shit about your free indicators or mentorship and that goes double for your altruism. On the other hand, I don't give a shit if you offer nothing and are here just looking for customers either. If your posts are mildly amusing to make me smile or even spectacularly insipid to make me shake my head, you will have my appreciation.

What millions of businesses? Most businesses in the world do not have dedicated tax departments that serve as revenue centers, nor do they hire major accounting/law/consulting firms to game the system because there just isn't much juice there to extract. Or maybe I should say that there isn't enough juice there to attract the interest of these firms in the first place. As a layperson, you really have no idea. There are legitimate reasons for moving boxes around, including tax avoidance. But what you are suggesting is the most obvious and quintessential scheme that any tax system would immediately rule out. You cannot compare your simple scheme to what multinationals do in organizing their actual business operations, financing, holding of intangible property, etc.

I don't check profiles so I did make the assumption you and Mouse were both in the U.S. and referring to U.S. tax law. I see now that you are in the U.K. Fair enough. I have a lot of experience in international tax law from the U.S. side but I am not an expert on U.K. tax law. However, I do know that tax regimes in developed countries use similar rules to address tax avoidance using controlled entities, and what you suggest is hardly novel. If it were so easy as you suggest to defer and/or escape taxation by simply running an account through a corporation in a low-tax jurisdiction whose ownership can be attributed to you, there would be little need for tax lawyers in the world. I would be surprised to find that what you suggest actually works in the U.K. when it would clearly fail under U.S. tax laws. With a little research I can find the answer to that question but I never worked for free when I was in practice. I would advise seeking competent counsel before you follow your own suggestion. Cheers.

In this era of hyperhypothecation, the days of parking money in a trading account are over. More leverage means less money needs to be in the account. It is a safety issue. The broker is far more likely to blow up, especially if it's publicly traded. Why would anyone hold an account with Penson right now?

Not everyone in the world is a U.S. citizen?? That's quite an insight. Uh, what's your point though?

I suggest a TL Celebrity Death Match to settle the issue between Logic and Mouse once and for all. In the meanwhile, I offer my 2 cents. The application of trading knowledge, skill and experience easily blows away any financial industry benchmark of performance. Why? Because the financial industry is not about performance but about aggregating immense capital pools from which fees and commissions can be collected. Spreading propaganda to create low expectations and even loss acceptance as natural on the part of the people who contribute to the pools helps with the aggregating. The financial industry has done such a thorough and complete job of inculcation that most people will never break out of their misbelief. Trading is a performance activity. What this means is whatever you extracted last week/month/year/decade does not guarantee shit about what you will extract tomorrow, this week or this month. People who make up spreadsheets compounding some modest return like 3% per month into the future over 10, 15, 20 years, etc. are merely revealing their lack of personal experience. Why do traders not end up owning the world? It has nothing to do with statistics. Personally I consider 3% a bad month. This is not to say I haven't done worse than 3%, but I know what the market offers and what I'm capable of extracting in terms of that offer. What do I consider a good month? Someone mentioned 38%, and I would consider that a good month and is around 100 points per contract ES. Points extracted is all that matters; the percentage return is unimportant as that depends on the use of leverage. I have rarely pushed the leverage and until recently was somewhere between 10K to 15K per contract. MF Global was a wake up call and I've reconsidered how much I trust with a broker. Conclusion: More leverage is good. In any case, I have no interest in calling trades or proving anything to anyone. I suspect there may be only a handful of people here who can relate. None of them are making spreadsheets that compound ad infinitum into the future.

You should stick to trading and hope your knowledge of the market you trade is not as poor as your knowledge of tax law. If you're interested in researching, I can suggest looking up (1) Subpart F income, CFCs, PFICs, FPHCs, etc.; (2) Taxation of worldwide income on U.S. citizens and residents; and (3) The Immigration and Nationality Act provisions on renouncing U.S. citizenship for the purpose of avoiding U.S. taxation. However, I suggest you save yourself a lot of time, headache, and possible criminal prosecution and just leave it to experts.

Who cares about personalities really? I don't know joshdance from joshsquarepants and the same for him about me. My response was about conventional thinking leading to conventional results which was triggered by his comments regarding my reply to someone else's question to me. Whether or not anyone on a message board is "good" is not my concern. As it goes, a lot of people are not good, and the vast majority simply suck. It is not difficult to observe the commonalities among these people. I don't know what "egoless" means but in any case it was not my intention to be disruptive in this thread. I am always unhappy to do work that has little purpose. What goes on here is of little consequence to anyone's ultimate success or failure in his trading venture. My usual way of participating is to make comments and reply to questions others ask of me. I do make an attempt to be responsive to honest questions and that is the amount of work that is tolerable. I'm with you totally on getting back to the business of trading. After 3 days of nonstop socializing, eating and drinking, I'm all for quickly recovering from jetlag and resuming a healthier lifestyle in front of the screens. However, I disagree with you that trading is what we're here for. For me, all trading occurs outside of this message board.

joshdance, I have no intention of arguing with anyone on a message board. I'm glad you had a good day. I had a good day as well spending time with friends completely outside the market. The market is there for me to extract resources from it, I do not concern myself at all about what others do, and I would say for you to not concern yourself at all about what I do. All the best to you.

I don't concern myself too much with what other people are doing with their charts. I don't ask if the lines I draw are how others would draw them. My decisions are based on how I draw them and what I KNOW is that every line I put on a chart is dictated by the elements on the chart. What you "KNOW" is what the herd knows, which is why you talk conventionally about "objective" and "subjective" lines. You think like most people do, you get the result that most people get. I'm traveling and away from my trading rig, so I cannot meet your request for a chart. No matter, it's not that important. We both know already you are incapable of understanding what I say. Most of the terms I use are adopted from the Hershey lexicon. You already know that. You also know the places where the Hershey people talk about their terms, but you are unwilling to do the work to find out for yourself, and call what they do "black hole nonsense." I would think they are the people in the best position to assist you. In any case, I don't know of any concise collection available that shows how they are applied.

Excuse the late response - currently traveling and away from the market.

You can't trade in hindsight but you can always learn for the next time or the time after that or after that, etc. The market operating points always come around again. For example, look at the formation on the ES as of right now - 30m, 60m, 90m - take your pick. This is a pennant forming, a flat bottom pennant (FBP). It is indicative of consolidation/centering. What else does the market do after a large move? The transitions are also always repeating. On Monday night I watched for the p3 on the ST. There's too much time to kill in AS trading but I always look to play the ST p3 regardless of RTH or AS. In any case, I thought I might get an entry above the RTH high in the overnight session. The 10m container was the place to be. I got 66.5 on the FBO of the RTL and set a stop at 68.25 once price resumed into the container. This was a little after my last post on TL and I left the screens as I was getting a bit cranky. Around London open I checked the market and saw the trade was working nicely. There had been another FBO on the fanned RTL and the sentiment was still short. I moved the stop to a wash+ at 66.25 and went to sleep. I felt pretty good that the p3 was in at that point. Glad to hear that you had a nice profit on the short. Yes, you have to watch out for the obvious horizontals that everyone is watching. I call horizontals "dummy lines" because they are the only lines dummies use. When everyone expects something to happen in the market, it's unlikely to happen. The fast and direct move to S was a warning to me that AM was gonna end early. 8:50 is the usual time I watch for. Keep learning. You'll get the feel for it after you notice it a hundred times. Thanks for the compliments. Cheers.

Hey, don't sell a degree in Market Profile short! If trading doesn't work out for you, you can use it to hold yourself out as a Market Profile guru and make a living off teaching the fish. Who knows, you could write your own book and become well known and give sold-out seminars in exotic locales and never have to grind in front of the screens again!

On the chart with the 2 arrows, you went long on the retrace after the switch and then before the BO of FTP. Nice entries. On the more "important" chart you bought 2 contracts well after the BO in mid traverse at 54.5 with a stop loss 6 ticks away at 53 and a couple of arbitrary targets at 58.75 and 69.25. So what makes the pattern on the second chart more important to you? Evidently I am missing something. PS. Nevermind, I read your posts from earlier today and see what you meant. You are saying the more important chart is contemporaneous with your trade (like making a "call") and the chart with 2 arrows is after the fact so less worthy. Don't mean to nitpick, Josh, but they are both after the fact. Personally I like your 2 arrow chart better but both charts are equally useful (or useless) to me. They are rather bare of any indications of how you arrived at your decisions. Of course that's from my own view of things, as I am drawing lines constantly. Moreover, you place a lot of emphasis on making "calls" on a message board as if they have any instructional value. If you say you get something out of them, I am certainly not one to argue. Cheers.

All good points except for number 9. If you need a buddy to provide you psychological support and be accountable to, trading is probably not for you. Being amongst peers is fine but never seek a following. If you work at an office, it's especially important to keep at a distance the losers who are always looking to follow someone. Do not discuss your current positions with others as this clouds clear judgment. The best way to deal with frustration and disappointment is through exercise and sexual activity, not by crying on your buddy's shoulder. As for analyzing your performance with a buddy, that's no one's business but yours.

You deserve a degree in Market Profile.

Not much Hershey action to see from me this morning because the way I handle trend AMs is an "invention" that got me kicked out of the Hershey Order. Or more accurately, I kicked myself out. You will not find the term "trend AM" in the Hershey lexicon. I cheated a bit and entered p3 last night. This morning's move is the third leg of the resumption. I didn't add after the cash open. Thought about it but was too complacent from the built in gains. I don't go for the homerun the way I used to. Getting old I guess. I can't remember the last time May has had as many nice moves. It's barely past the first week yet. I made plans for a short vacation to New York starting tomorrow and I already know I'll be wondering what's happening in the market during the day. Hard to really get away from it. It's an occupational hazard.

Ending AM early today. Went to S fast so no point getting greedy. Everyone and his brother sees the horizontal at 1342.50 as a target.

Two words come to mind after reading your post: CANNON FODDER

I had no idea you were privy to his deficiency or disadvantage. He came across perfectly fine to me. You are a good man for speaking out for the less fortunate. My apologies. BTW, what's wrong with him? Feel free to PM if his condition is embarrassing.

Hi Tom, I see the goal of your preparation (I want to know where we are, where are we trying to go and how well are we doing it...) is essentially the same as what I want to know: Where is the position of the market in its cycle? What's coming up next? How fast is it getting there? Regarding the next trade being 50/50, our viewpoints are not aligned. My response to karoshiman was in reference to his reading my "p2 or NOT p2" as a 50/50 proposition which was not my intended meaning. Since I do not trade based on distributions or sample sizes I cannot relate to that part your approach. In any case, thanks for clarifying.

Hi SIUYA, I've parsed your post below. This means you don't agree 100%. Not that you should or that I care whether or not you do. We are all human, we have bad days, I have bad days. Sometimes I have bad weeks. That doesn't mean I have or am developing "issues." I've been doing this long enough to know that when I'm well rested and my mind is clear, my body fit, and have minimal distractions, extracting from the market is effortless. I call it being in the groove, and the results are "unbelievable" to people. On the other extreme, when I'm tired, physically ill, weighed down by personal or family problems, etc., my trading becomes shit and I'll do idiotic things I would never otherwise do. In between those extremes, there is the day to day momentary lapses in judgment, laziness, plain stubbornness, etc., but these are usually not frequent enough to put me out of the green on most days and very rarely in a week. In any case, trading is a performance activity and I accept my results and don't look to blame people, circumstances, or psychological issues for lousy performance. In the big picture, trading is just a neat game to extract resources from and not that serious. There is nothing inherent about me or trading that can't be addressed with exercise, good nutrition, healing time, and getting my head straight, which is really a matter of aligning myself with life's true priorities. I sometimes use analogies to describe how I do things, but only in very limited ways, and I consider trading on its own terms when considered as a whole because it is so unlike other activities. I like to improve how I do things; sometimes I don't see much improvement. I'm open to learning. Seeking the expertise of others certainly falls in line with that; I cannot be an expert in all fields. I have knowledge, skill, and many years of successful experience in three areas, trading being one of them. Whether or not I am truly expert, I know enough to separate the wheat from the chaff in those areas. I don't wear their clothes but I am not turned off by their image or marketing. I accept that the fashion industry is all about hype and not substance. Thus I don't get your analogy between choice of clothing and using volume analysis, unless you are saying trading is also about hype and not substance. Everyone is free to form and state their own opinions. Everyone who has posted here has done that. In the end, we all must think for ourselves and make our own choices. Who is the underdog?