johnw

Quite right. A couple of decent cognacs and they all faded into oblivion. I have kept a signed copy of Welles Wilder's first book for it's nostalgic value and because I admire the man and his work completed during 1970's.

Hi Ingot54, My posts are aimed at nobody in particular. My writing style, which can easily be softened to any extent, is chosen because it is my belief that serious readers should feel the words rather than just read them. Everything I write is the result of my own evolution, which happens through the process of embedding questions in my mind at night and at sometime during the course of the next few days, thoughts emerge which I translate and act upon. I am a self taught Trader from years ago and my first positive act was to give away my library of trading books, turn off my PC, sit in the sun and think about what exactly was I trying to do..... the doors to my mind opened up, and my trading plan gradually took shape as my knowledge became more specific. Eventually, I came to a point where I must have accepted that the financial gains were the rewards for my calculated risks and not for my hard work ... and yet I had started my own Companies when I was young[ish] and built them up through sheer hard work. Obviously, I gave more credit to hard work whilst undervaluing Risk without realising it. When you do have "a light bulb moment" Ingot54, and I am sure that you will, it will effect a lot more than just your trading .... but I suspect that you suspect this already. As far as integrating trading into your future life plans, please let me pass onto you, that at 64 I still do not know what I want to do when I grow up .... therefore I have given away the silly notion of 'growing up" at all. I always insist on a 50 year guarantee on all dental work for instance. As for trading soaking up your valuable time, you can always trade more trending instruments that require attention once or maybe twice per day plus an hour or so in the weekend .... but all this will fall into place when you are ready. Goodluck and please bear in mind that if I didn't care, I would not bother posting.

Much as it probably reduces most of you to tears, those who do not cotton onto Steve46's description of supply-demand bands, might want to rethink their position. I cottoned onto this concept years ago. [before I discovered Trading forums thankfully] Must confess I have dropped all variations of MP, simply because it confirms what I already can see and at the gentle age of 64 I am not in the habit of wasting time on anything I neither want nor need. By applying the concept to longer frames first and then working your way down the food chain, I imagine you will be more than pleasantly surprised with the % accuracy, size of stop limit and of course the reward/ risk over your trades. The combination of these three numbers add up to consistency, which tells us how little risk we are enduring and allows us to move onto trading size, where all the lovely money lies. It never ceases to amaze me how straight forward this game is once you come to "discover" what everyone else takes for granted. Never pays to loose sight of the fact that this game is a contracts game played by Traders. Therefore it comes as no surprise that a small number of Traders control a very large number of contracts and they cannot place them at any one time. That is our advantage as Tiny Traders. With our rapier like minds, advantaged sense of logic and common sense, not to mention our tiny accounts, we can move at will through the big Boys on a trade by trade basis. All this reveals itself to me within the price as I have never ever meet a Real Trader let alone a Big Trader.

I would say that they are at an extreme disadvantage, but not all their "sight" has been stripped from them. They could trade a longer frame placing a greater emphasis on slower methodical analysis. All depends upon their open mindedness.

A curious response indeed. Any focused person, I imagine, will aim directly for the heart and build a plan from there. They achieve this by simply peeling back the layers to reveal the source of the information that support the layers. In the end "all roads lead to Rome" and the supports run out of steam and therefore become the base information. In the case of ES trading I believe they are HLOC, vol,OI, time. From this smorgasbord I use HLOC and of course time and leave the rest for others. In no way would I remotely suggest that other people follow, it is just what I do. If you believe that vol leads price then I believe you. If you believe that price can be traded without vol, then I believe you. I am only interested in what I do, but my curiosity is piqued by these head thingy threads and how quickly they and all other peripheral threads become derailed. If this is not living proof of what is and what isn't critical to successful trading, then we must all believe in the Tooth Fairy.

Every day one or more people mention "discipline" or "never give up" or "screen time" etc etc etc If you want to be a painter, a Sculptor, a Writer you start more or less with a blank canvas and an idea. If you want to become a Trader in the 21st century, you start with a PC, a trading program, a DOM and a google seach. Already you are screwed because you take for granted the only few pieces of hard information available to you and direct what attention span you have, upon the peripheral items. When you focus upon something, you become at one with it. Otherwise you are not focused ... you only think that you are because you have forgotten how to focus. That is why we read all these vague posts ..... they are the product of unfocused minds who think that they are focused.

Very wisely put. Am I to gather that you believe a Trader should know themselves sufficiently to know when they can apply FOCUS to trading ES and when they cannot. Oopps, I mentioned FOCUS again ... unforgivable of me.

Take trading ES for example .... What can possibly "start to go wrong"

I wasn't going to continue with this thread, because all that needed to be said had been said. But now it is turning into an objective view of why people cannot trade. People have allowed their minds to stray away from the essence of trading .... in fact it wouldn't surprise me to read a recipe for NC BBQ ribs in tomorrows postings. On another thread a Poster said that he would not try to trade if he had plenty of money and could afford not to do so. Someone else states that they want to learn to trade but not to make a great wade of money from it. Try this one ..."what is a good online game to play while I am waiting for my setup" Take this one for a test drive ..."I have 16 setups, ranging in probability" I ask you .... where on earth has all the focus gone. All I see is half arsed convoluted trials that lead to nowhere. FOCUS dear readers FOCUS ... trading is only about FOCUS The ART of trading provides us with very few hard facts and challenges us to draw a road map that includes a couple of bus stops ... one to enter the bus and another to exit the bus. While the hard facts may appear few in number, they are sufficient to complete the task. I can tell you this until hell freezes over and you will all eventually agree. And then what happens .... Well for a start, you immediately forget our conversation and your fertile minds take over and go hunting for more information....yum yum more info must be good for me. Never mind that there is no more hard information. Your glorious little minds begin to create 1st, 2nd 3rd derivations of HLOC, Vol, OI, Time.....your uncontrollable minds regress back to bed wetting, eating stale bread, learning to swim ... you name it and your fertile little minds will conjure it out of thin air. That is what happens.... In no time at all you have created a complete new world for yourselves, centred around a brand new subject that you know nothing about ... and are not likely to within your newly created bubble. Why on earth do you do this. Oopps, here comes another bubble in the making on why you do what you do when you are threatening yourself with learn to trade. Back to business ..... why is it just not possible for most people to learn to take the scant but sufficient information and turn it into a successful trading road map. Perhaps it is the pain of the sudden brutality of being "right or wrong" with a trade. This is a far cry from western world living. Or perhaps you are too childish to stand by your own decisions. Or perhaps it is none of the above and you DECIDE to push ahead, always focusing ONLY on the few hard facts you know that you can rely upon, until the big variable, that is YOU we are talking about, drops into place.

Hi Ingot54, After reading some of your posts, I have to say that you have an amazingly tight grip upon yourself. Judging by the number of "thank you" many others have a very real appreciation for all your efforts in bringing discipline into trading, so you are in the right place here at TL. I have been to Hervey Bay many years ago. Went out to Fraser Island and went Whale cruising ... interesting place. We rented a car in Port Douglas and drove to Brisbane in lazy style ..eat some of the best food ever at Noosa.

That is part of the fun. People pay 1000's for unfiltered data and you are giving it away for 50 bucks.

$50 per month for unfiltered data This thread should be fun

If a doobie is what I think it is, I tried it once years ago and didn't care for it. I much prefer a couple of drinks. I have watched people with a bent for pharmaceutical products and doobies and while it may suit them, it doesn't suit me... each to their own If you ever travel in the Andes, the locals will give you coca leaves to chew, to help combat the altitude ... it really works. Coca tea after dinner settles your stomach and thereby allows you a good nights sleep. It prevents tooth decay and has many other natural properties ....nothing about coca is additive ... probably habit forming, but then good habits are essential to good fun filled living. All this is denied to the "1st" world population, but you are permitted prescription drugs If you looking up the foods and medicines of Incas and Mayans you will come across several food and extract groups that will have you jumping out of your skin if you can access them in their natural form. Try looking up Quinoa and Maca for a start .... take them for a test drive, you will not be disappointed. Try reading the history of these two rather than just the usual rubbish posted on the net. Remember, if you are a big drinker or you are a substance user, you are wasting your time and money trying anything new and beneficial.

"That is why so few are prepared to die (or therefore live fully)." Profoundly accurate Rande ... I tip my hat to you Before we can start living , we must al first accept our own mortality. I deliberately wrote you a very open question to see what how you would reply. Your reply is perfect in every way. Thank you and good bye, it is time for me to move on. kindest regards

hello Rande, In your professional opinion, why do so many people have trouble handling the uncertainty of life when death is a certainty.

Interesting response. First you get my point: and then having said that, you move on to disagree. Does your concept of "The Game" conjure thoughts of fun, stimulation, something that is definitely "not work" ......that is how you appear in your post. The Game" to me requires a highly professional approach to a challenge, but requires no staff and none of the usual organisation that owning and operating a business demands. To give you an incredibly simple example .... take a public holiday ... the Business Owner is paying holiday pay, insurances, rents, in fact all his fixed costs are flowing out of the coffers . yes I know that you may call this the cost of doing business and indeed you are correct. The Day Trader meanwhile is relaxing for the day ... nothing earned and nothing spent. That is how I see "The Game" In fact just to jolt your senses even further, I see life as "The Game" Please bear in mind that society does not raise you to see life in this context. Rather, Society wants you "attached" in several directions simultaneously, and there you stay unless to can unravel the puzzle of your life for yourself. "The Game" is to be taken seriously if you are going to be a Player

Money and trading do not mix in my book. Certainly, over the weekend you could count your spoils if that sort of thing is of interest to you, but if you have more than you need and you know that there will be even more next week, the whole concept of money changes shape gradually as other more interesting things fill your life. Trading is a game in my mind, or at least that is how I configure it, because it suits me. I cannot accept it as a business, because my experience of business is based upon persuading other people to follow my structure and the level of interactivity is always very high. Profits are made largely through the efforts of others in business In trading, I find a purity and a great ongoing challenge. kind regards

Good work Pip, you are the first person to grasp the intent of the question. But in answer to the question, the answer is relatively simple. Firstly, assuming all week days are equal, and they are not, 50K represents 10K per day after brokerage, which is not excessive at this level. 10K is 800 tics. Now, let us take Steve's figure of 30 lots. Firstly is it realistic for a 30 lot ES trade ... absolutely, ES will carry a great deal more than 30 lots. 30 lots needs 27 tics per day to meet the total of 800 total tics. Is this realistic ... of course it is.... you just need a structure to do it with. But ...What happens when we have "no trend" days Frankly the shape of the day does not matter... you just trade the day as it comes. Imagine the price is a piece of string of a certain length. Drag it along the desk and it straightens into a trend day. Push on the piece of string and it folds in upon itself like a "no trend day" Trading is a job for clear thinking people with unencumbered minds. There is no place for delusive or cognitive dissonance thinking. Think big and then take baby steps towards your goals. Do not be drawn into thinking " I take what the market offers. Do not think that confidence only comes from success ... how do you possibly think that you are every going to get started holding this belief. There is no split between technical and physiological... we are talking of you in the singular, not as two people. You are a seamless well oiled trading machine that attacks the market with great cunning and stealth whilst always protecting your capital. Remember to always break things down into digestible bits before reassembling them. Build good daily habits if you don't care for the word "discipline" and create a trading structure within which you can trade. They say that if you want to see God laugh then just make a plan. I believe there is truth in this saying. Trading requires both fluidity and rigidity and a plan tends to be rigid only. Therefore think towards creating a structure within which you trade. I believe the daily mood of the ES has far more to do with the outcome, than anything that a rigid TA plan can every be expected to yield ... but each has it's place and it is up to you the Trader, to assign weighting to your beliefs. For example, I use a relatively crude alarm to alert me to a possible setup. The only purpose of the alarm is to return me to the screen and within a few seconds I can determine whether it is a "no go" or I can play out my strategy. I never sit continuously in front of the screen ... that is "deer in the headlights" thinking, and we all know the outcome of that scenario. Bear in mind that price move diagonally across the screen and your traps are set at horizontal lines. This applies equally to entries and exits. If you can feel any of this post coursing through your veins. If you can actually feel the excitement of the challenge that trading offers,as a physical change to your body then you are in this game with a good chance. If any of this rolls around the front end of your brain without stirring any physical reaction whatsoever, then find another job.

Golly, that must be confusing for you.

Any other Traders care to have a go at this question. kind regards

Interesting thread. Personally I cannot see the consistently successful Trader as being anything but the sum of the parts [psychological and technical] But I do think that the posts are a revealing insight into the Posters. Probably the best thread I have read. Has any Trader here set their sights on $50K+ consistently per trading week. It would be interesting to read your thoughts on your plan that has/ will get you there. kind regards

Interesting point of view "Nothing changes"

I have read that Traders should stick to their Trading Plan and at all times keep an open mind to the ever changing state of the markets. I would be interested to know, how do you reconcile these two contrary states of mind.

Thanks BF What sort of slippage are you getting from "Stop- Market" What has been your biggest slippage

Hi there, I am interested to know what types of stops people are using to intraday trade ES. For example would a stop limit order (held on your broker's server) be fast enough to catch the limit on cme or is a stop market order much safer. If it is to be a stop market order, what sort of slippage if any is incurred thanks john