mj_07_nc

I had a pretty good day today. There were several areas that confused me and I was wondering if anyone might comment. I have circled the two areas on the chart and inserted some commentary as to what I was thinking at the time. Happy Friday and have a good weekend.

I'm still learning how to post in TL and just saw a typo in my last response. See the bolded item above...should be 3rd FTT, not 2nd. I guess we only have 1 hour to edit our post before the edit button disappears. Sorry for so many posts today.

Also, thanks Vienna for the chart from yesterday. This is the first recent chart that I have seen since I started learning this method. It's great to compare your notes to mine from yesterday. I'm excited to see that most of my channels matched yours. Have a good day!

Thanks for all the comments everyone. Ivob, I appreciate your feedback and agree with many of your points. My philosophy on trading is that everyone has to adopt a methodology that is unique to them and that works based on their own specific psychology, long terms goals and personality. So, my idea is to take bits and pieces from others and put it into a system that works for me. Vienna, thanks for the heads up...that is very sad to hear. SKO, I have located the two threads that you mentioned in your message and will dive into those ASAP. Attached is my ES chart through lunchtime today. You will see that my Gaussians are there for the first part of the day but I accidentally erased the others when I was going to print my chart. I traded the second FTT (in gold) and exited with 2.5 points. I hesitated to pull the trigger on the 2nd FTT long (purple) and, once it had moved up significantly, I decided not to chase. Bad decision. I watched the market move up without me the rest of the morning without me and stayed on the sidelines. On a side note, I find it hard to continue to trade once I have an early winner. I have a big fear of giving back gains. Anybody else have this problem? I look forward to continued dialogue. Thanks again!

Good Afternoon Traders, I Just wanted to take a minute and introduce myself. I've been trading part time for about 4 years and have been following the Sypdertrader threads on EliteTrader for the past few months. I just finished going through the enitre 1500 page thread about trading futures with this method. The work has transformed my trading to say the least. I now have a framework for how the market operates and not just mechanial rules for entry and exit. I was curious if Spyder or Mak post here regularley anymore? The one hard thing for me in trying to learn the method was not having realtime support from traders posting recent charts and examples on the ES and YM. I was able to learn a great deal from reviewing the old charts but it would be fantastic to post my current annotated charts and be able to review other traders charts as well. IVOB, I see that you were part of that original thread on ET and are still posting here. Looks like you are focusing solely on the FOREX market currently? Let me know if anyone has some ideas about how I might further my education and skills and how to connect with other SCT traders. Thanks! Wolf

The best bet, in my opinion, for getting up and running with futures is ThinkorSwim (TOS) which is now owned by TDAmeritrade. I don't think that ThinkorSwim is the best platform for an experienced futures trader who is profitable but you can't beat it to get started. What makes it so great for a beginner is the following: 1) It's free, including all data for all of the futures exchanges. This would cost you up to $200 a month if you had to set up a datafeed with another broker. 2) You can set up an account at TDAmeritrade online in 5 minutes and get access to the TOS platform without funding your account. They give you the ability to demo the software for as long as you like...without having to deposit a dime. 3) The TOS platform has all the bells and whistles of the best futures trading platforms inlcuding sophisticated charting and a DOM for order entry. Take a look and see what you think. Paper trade with TOS for awhile and get a feel for the market. If you are making money then I would consider looking at the following combination for a futures trading platform: 1) Market Delta or IRT Charting software (these two charting platforms are identical except that MarketDelta gives you something called a footprint chart which is just an added feature. IRT costs $50 to $70 a month and MarektDelta is anywhere from $100 to $200 depending on the features you want. 2) IQFeed for your historical data. Futures data costs $83 per month and you avoid exchange data fees if you set up an account with one of IQFeeds partner brokers. 3) Infinity Futures for your broker. They have low margins ($500 per Emini contract, although I don't recommend using anywhere near that amount of margin) and a good DOM order entry system. Also, their commissions are reasonable on the retail side...about $5.00 per round turn. I currently use the above setup...MarketDelta for my charting, data from IQFeed and brokerage services with Infinity. I love it. However, if I was just starting to learn the market, there is no way I would go with anything other than ThinkorSwim. All in I pay $225per month for my setup. You can do the same thing at ThinkorSwim for free and don't even need to fund an account to demo their software and papertrade. Let me know if you have any questions. Mike