MadMarketScientist

I'd say it's a Christmas miracle but a little late for that....I did notice something wrong with search on another page so submitted that to our tech so maybe two birds with one stone......or back to the miracle.... MMS

MightyMouse, Hilarious. Well done.

Dollartrader, This is why most traders fail. They simply freak out at the first sign of anything negative. The expectations of perfection, and the moment that reality presents a different picture they crumble. Not wanting to be harsh but here's the reality. You can put 10 people in a room, teach them a quality system and I guarantee you at least 8 will still fail and blame the system, the broker, their neighbor, the dog, the cat, whatever. It's amazing how people find a way to fail especially when it comes to trading. The parameters mentioned on the system sound fine -- get realistic, trade it responsibly, follow the rules - sounds like you'll be fine. Don't be one of the panicky 8 out of 10. MMS

Good point - redundancy is something as traders we never think about. Is the internet up? Great. That's usually it. Until it goes down and we use every profanity in the book and panic. Small steps can even help. Always keep the phone number to your broker at your desk just in case. Seems basic right? Can't tell you how many times in 15 years when I've had an outage I have had no way to get the number easily - the internet was down after all. Keep the darn number in arms reach so you can get out if needed by calling. A back-up internet - these days with the 3G and now 4G networks you can easily do this for $30 - $40 a month with a wireless card -- get it and then you can also travel with it and get other use for it - -but a must have for an active trader. MMS

MightyMouse - totally agree -- we shouldn't completely lament the failure of others. It's the single reason why there will always be some who can profit. We absolutely have to have the continual failure of other traders, and a steady stream of new lambs for the slaughter. Just make sure you're not one of them! MMS

Good thread and thoughts. I'm with Siuya on the track records he shows. In another life when I did manage some funds it amazed me how often we'd talk in single digit monthly returns and we'd get laughed right on out of there. As if it was an insult if you weren't talking 10%+ monthly returns, 100%+ a year. Of course that tends to be your 98%. With crazy expectations. They want 100%+ a year, with 5% max drawdowns. It just doesn't happen. So I would definitely agree that more than likely the bigger group of successful traders are not the ones making 500% a year -- those are the outliers and exceptions and more than likely to implode anyway the following year. That 10% - 30% range though with modest drawdown I'd say is the bulk of those who are successful. Granted the far reaching majority will never cross the break-even threshold and I'd say one major reason is greed, another is the desire to always be right. Which you're going to get spanked by trading on a daily basis. No matter how hard you work. If I was to guess? I think if you are willing to really work hard and be committed with some good guidance 10% - 20% can definitely succeed. Maybe more. However, most will not work hard so if you look at the macro I'd bet it is 1% - 2%. MMS

Should be an interesting week -- especially the jobs data Friday... MMS

Great replies and feedback so far! I really think more traders would do far better if they really spent some time reflecting on their habits and trying to correct their mistakes. There's a whole lot of denial that goes on in trading. And blame. It's the broker. It's the system. It's the charting. It's all those people selling stuff how dare they. When in reality most of it rests on our shoulders. Take some responsibility and realize and even empower yourself knowing it is in your control. No, not the markets - I wish right - but your ultimately always the one pulling the lever and therefore you can make it happen. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it MMS

Tams Can you give me a bit more detail - wasn't sure I followed completely - want to get it to our tech team....thanks. MMS

And now, time to announce the winners. With much fanfare and an absolutely amazing prediction the winner and reigning champion (possibly psychic?) is: THALESTRADER Prediction? 15,469.47 Actual? 15,488.02 Ok, that is freakin incredible. Thalestrader, you "missed" by about 19 points total -- a fraction of a percent. I want you managing my portfolio! Great job, this might stand as the closest prediction ever -- hard to beat going forward. SECOND PLACE: "YUPPIE_MO" with another stirring set of predictions. Off just 89 points from the final total. Wow - great job. THIRD PLACE: DWG0 -- great job, tough competition above but you did well - and the key was being bullish. The bulls won out for sure. Remember, nice winnings....1st Place $500 Amazon Gift Card, 2nd Place $200 and 3rd Place $50 Gift Cards. See, that's why the rest of you observers should have posted! And, you have another chance -- see the new thread just above this one -- get your predictions in now. A special thanks to SIUYA for the great work on the Excel spreadsheet that made my life much easier. We'll certify these in the next day or so -- just wanted to put it out there in case anyone sees any errors I made but I think we're there. MMS

No problem, I don't mind at all... Here's how I'd answer that. IB isn't going to be the glossiest looking platform and they are not the most 100% user friendly. If you've ever seen their advertising vs. others it's the same with their platform. However, don't let that lack of gloss understate the effectiveness. I find though that some traders are used to really having total hand holding with other brokers and IB isn't that. You're not going to be calling them all the time, and you're not going to have beautiful walkthrough videos and help at every turn. However, that doesn't mean it doesn't do 100% of what is intended -- excellent executions across multiple markets for very affordable rates with excellent uptime (100% for me) Ninjatrader was similar for a long time but they've been going the extra mile to make everything more user friendly in recent years. Their newest version now has their own datafeed you can get - which I always felt was a limitation. This now has been taken care of. Of course you can connect Ninja to IB fairly easily -- again that might be something the first time you do it that confuses you a bit -- but they've gotten better at making this connections fewer steps and easily done. And, the first time you get the connect, the green light comes on - each time thereafter is cake. If it takes an extra day or two to get a handle on this vs. some other brokers that offer far less trust me it's well worth it. That's why we're pretty excited that Ninjatrader is one of our ad sponsors this month -- always nice to have one where I have lots of firsthand experience and can feel good about recommending. Good trading. MMS

Yep, I dig the EC as well and the overall CME package of choices. That's why I hope this move backfires on them and they have to backpedal - it's flat out greedy..... MMS

We just finished version 1.0 of this contest and we'll have three lucky winners of Amazon Gift Cards (top value: $500!) -- predicting the year end closes of the INDU, SPX and COMPX. So let's do it again. Starting right now predict the closing prices of the Down Jones (INDU), S&P 500 (SPX) and the Nasdaq Composite (COMPX) at the end of the first quarter -- March, 31st 2011. You simply reply to this thread with your predictions and if you feel like it tells us about the tea leaves or psychic powers you used to come up with your numbers, or maybe actual financial analysis (guess)..... This is Contest #1. The Contest #2 for the ultimate Market Grand Wizard is to predict the exact same indices closing prices -- but this time at December 31st, 2011. End of the year. You can enter one or both - just clarify in your forum reply which your numbers are for. Quarter end or year end. How about prizes you say? Contest #1 - Quarterly Close First Prize: $250 Amazon.com Gift Card Second Prize: $100 Amazon.com Gift Card Third Prize: $50 Amazon.com Gift Card Contest #2 - Yearly Close First Prize: $1,000 Amazon.com Gift Card This one it's all about being #1 -- so it's one mega grand prize. There are a few catches. Catch #1: We must have at least 30 entries for the quarterly contest. So get your TL buddies or other trading friends to post their submissions here. We have to have at least 30 and the contest is a go. And, the deadline to submit for the quarterly contest is Tuesday, January 11th. Catch #2: For the Annual contest we need at least 50 entries -- and those are due no later than January 31st. Catch #3: The winner will be determined by the suggestions of fell TL member Blowfish, by taking the closing price in each index, calculating the difference between your prediction and the close and then adding those up. The person with the lowest number(s) wins it. This way you are rewarded for being accurate across the board. Whomever is the closest when we add all three of these market indices closing prices will be crowned the TradersLaboratory.com Market Prediction Champion (TLMPC!!!) You can only enter one time per person and there are no "Editing" of your post allowed (nice try.) However, seek out your trading friends and have them enter and then demand a percentage when they win as your finder's fee. Remember we need enough entrants for us to just give away all that dough. Ready, set, predict! MMS

Yep, great ideas. I need to announce the winners which I'll work on in the next day or so. And then, definitely we should do it again. I think a quarterly and a year-end. I'm going to post a new thread to kick it off so check in this same forum - Market Analysis -- Thanks. MMS

It's that time of year again where we all ponder our lives, goals, successes and failure. Usually it's the "lose weight", "work out more", "spend more time with family", "curse less while driving" and so no.....but what are your resolutions for your trading in 2011? For me I have a few -- probably some of the same I try and have every year, and maybe some particular to recent experiences. 1. Follow the damn system. Everytime I try to outsmart and out-think the system I follow I pay the price. Stupid. Last week I decided I'd try to sneak in a trade ahead of the Crude and Natural Gas weekly report days. Most weeks you can actually grab a quick winner, but on occasion it's about the worst trading you've ever seen. That happened this week -- and once again a broken rule is costly. 2. Swing trade more. I have focused so much on day trading and have been watching others I know do quite well, and working far less swing trading. This will be a pursuit of mine this year. 3. Continue to reduce time in market -- I do not think you make more money the more you trade. More automation, focusing on just the very best minutes of the day, getting in and getting done as fast as possible. That's my mantra for the year. 4. Push it. What I mean by this is sometimes I have a tendency to book a finish a pretty good day but shy of my real objectives. It feels good. Until the next day is above average on the loss and if I would have followed my plan on the prior day I'd be fine. Instead I'm fighting uphill. When things are trading well, go to completion -- avoid the satisfaction of the win. How about you? MMS

Let's raise the level on the discussion a bit -- I don't want to waste my time moderating nor I'm sure does everyone want to feel like they can't speak freely. Cool. A question I do have on the e-Mini Russell with the big price increase in the exchange fees that is being passed along to everyone -- no more introductory price I guess, do we expect that to impact TF trading at all? Seems like it took a while for it to make a transition of volume from the CME to the ICE -- and now the exchange fees have gone way up. Thoughts? No effect or will effect it? MMS

The way it basically works is this....You connect Tradestation to Ninja Trader. With the new version 7 it's easier than before. However, the data doesn't flow through - so this connection isn't so you can chart in Ninja with TS data. It's simply a connection that if you're running an Easy Language strategy in Tradestation that fires a trade - you can send that trade to Ninja Trader. Ninja Trader can then be connected to any broker it's compatible with and fire off the trade in that broker. Such as IB. So this is a solution for when you wanted to use a strategy inside Tradestation, but want to have your trades executed somewhere else besides Tradestation brokerage. Thanks. MMS

Yes, we will be at the Traders show in NYC as one of the media sponsors and will be represented there. Come by and say hello! MMS

I think I just got that resolved - please let me know if it seems to be working now - going forwards anyways. Thanks. MMS

Just a few days left to go.... Barring a surprise, which might be unlikely given all the snowed in traders it would be appear the bulls on the board are in the running, those of you who were bearish, not so much. Let's see what happens to close the week and get the final numbers soon! MMS

Thanks for the writeup on Oanda -- They've been the most consistently positive forex broker with reviews I've seen. I know some people as well who swear by them for the exact reasons you mention. I think the newbies and ultra speculators sometimes don't like the restrictions or fewer features but it's interesting that in the last report released by the regulators Oanda traders had the highest success rate of what was reported. Interesting anyway. Would agree that the platform is limited but nothing says you can't analyze on another platform and then place your trade there. Thanks for the feedback. MMS

I really couldn't agree more on the TF vs. ES. I think people think it's best/easier to trade the ES due to volumes but the 0.25 ticks are a pain and the volume can also be a real issue when it comes to not getting filled when the market hits a price and turns - whereas the TF you virtually always get the fill. MMS

Fantastic license plate - love it! Actually was asking where you trade as in broker that you are receiving the nice spreads..... Thanks. MMS

Thalestrader -- I was not aware that was an issue but now that I am will have that looked into. Thanks for the heads up. MMS

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