MadMarketScientist

Thanks for the other comments from the rest of you. Tl will always be a work in progress. It wont be perfect but we will keep working on it. We do appreciate the loyalty and maybe we can all get back to talking trading

Urma So what there are some ads. They all over the Internet, magazines, tv, newspapers. It isn't stopping you from complaining clearly. Nor do I recall an offer from you to pay to use tl. It isn't free to run and last I checked there isn't any government sponsored bailouts for forums. Again if you don't like the ads or don't like an occasional tech issue then go elsewhere. MMS

Urma Tell you what. As much as I welcome feedback and good suggestions you just gripe. So if you'd like to buy the site take out your checkbook and make an offer. Since you know it all I'm sure it will be great. Or just find another forum to complain about. We will be just fine. MMS

A couple other suggestions. Run a wired connection not wireless on your trading computer. Also I find windows xp the best to trade on. Not vista or win 7.

You bet. Thanks for letting us know. MMS

MK, Thanks much for the sentiments - couldn't have said it better myself. The good news is we believe this is now fixed. If there are still any lingering issues let me know. The joke around here is we're basically putting our tech team's kids through college, maybe grad school these days keeping them busy. Understand that I'm not personally a programmer or a techie -- we are traders as are the moderators/ownership. So we rely on other experts to fix these occasional glitches. I know they're frustrating but I promise when they occur, and you let us know we'll be on it. Thanks. MMS

"docx" should now be available to select as an attachment. Should be all set with the requests on these. Thanks for the suggestions.

It seems like one of the videos someone uploaded there had an issue or was tagged potentially with a problem. We've since removed it - just need to get Google to revist the page and then remove the warning message. Thanks.

Tough crowd, tough crowd. I might end up going all "Steven Slater" on all of you We're on it but we upgraded all the software this weekend since it was a soon to be unsupported version and while most everything worked seamless when it came back on there's been a few glitches - this image resizing being one and the most critical. We've got the tech people on it and told them it's critical -- since we've been spending enough on the website these days to put their children through college and grad school I'm optimistic that it will be resolved quickly. Now, where are those beers......

Thanks for the heads up on this guys. We'll get it taken care of shortly.

Hilarious. Not for you if profanity offends as you'll find out shortly after "Play"

As a follow-up I should ask...."What's the dumbest thing you've ever done after a losing trade?" I would personally have to say my all-time is always my revenge trades. These are my classic trades to get back to even, etc... after a particularly frustrating loss. Usually that losing trade is one that gets just entered on a high tick, which feels bad enough then plunges past a stop. Or a trade that I manage really poorly, or get into by mistake. Then my "revenge trade" mentality kicks in. Which usually means if I was trading 3 contracts, I double it to 6 contracts and say "if this one works out - I'll be ahead and where I should have been if it wasn't for that last trade" and then of course blame the conspiracy for causing this pain. And, you know what happens next - does that trade ever work? Almost never. I'd say my win/loss on revenge trades is about 10%. Why do I do it? Well, thankfully it's rare that I do it anymore, but I'm going to be honest and say I didn't learn my lesson after 1 or 2 of these trades - it took a lot more. The need to be right and be competitive where I seek revenge was hard to overcome. How about you? I can say I don't recall ever actually doing any physical harm to my computer, monitor, overturn a desk, etc... but I'm sure I have used some colorful language and maybe tossed something

Ciao, Yes, I am the main moderator (we have several) and an owner of TL. To see who has been online you can go to the "Forum" link above and scroll down the bottom, shows you who has been online during the day and now. And, best way to get involved is to read the threads, and participate - ask questions, provide answers. Thanks and welcome to TL.

We were updating some of the back office over the weekend so some of the moderation was put on hold until we got the update completed which it now is. Normally your posts will show up fairly quickly, and as long as you build up a decent reputation without doing any spamming of URLs they will eventually appear immediately. Sorry there is a brief delay but hit helps us keep the board much cleaner from the URL stuffers that are out there (who would post 25 times at once promoting junk)

Would agree, Lightspeed and Velocity Futures are two to consider -- not to mention that they help make Traders Laboratory possible with their sponsorship here. Someone has to pay the server and bandwidth charges Anytime we can support the vendors in the TL family it helps us keep it going and expand TL further and keep it all free for all of us. Broker choice is always an interesting topic - you have so many to choose from, in many ways you get very similar things from each so it usually comes down to a few core differences for comparison. And, I've found many times you ask one person who they like, then another and you get totally opposite answers. I just remind everyone when I'm asked that once you choose don't forget - it's easy to change. Never feel locked in unless your getting the total service, fees, executions you feel you deserve - if not, you can change in just a day or two. Never be locked in.

This should be resolved. If we missed any please let me know and I'll get it added. Thanks.

Curious if anyone has tried: stocktickr.com There is a free trial though it's limited on features and the monthly fee is more than just a few bucks. It does seem to have a decent selection of broker connections including Lightspeed, Think or Swim, Interactive Brokers, TD Ameritrade, eTrade, etc...and journaling without having to enter your trades due to the direct connection. Any thoughts? Always felt a cloud-based solution would be best and one that makes the data entry part a non-issue - I think that keeps many away from keeping a journal - the work involved on the bookkeeping.

When I look at it I don't seen any extraordinary volatility that you sometimes see in the leveraged ETFs. It looks very much like an index tracking ETF -- of course the markets it invests in are definitely more of the "new" frontier. "The top four country holdings in FRN, as of March 31st, are Chile, Colombia, Egypt, and Poland, which account for just under two-thirds of the fund’s holdings. As it happens, both Chile and Colombia are among the top-performing stock markets in the world this year." A quote I found online. Chile as you may know has been on fire for a while. The other 3 in their way are doing well especially compared to the global market. It has definitely well outpaced the larger country indices especially in the last few months - as volume seems to have picked up a lot. I would bet it has a place in a well diversified allocation -- not sure I'd be betting the ranch but if someone came in at 10% - 20% into these markets it probably should be considered.

Great points. Swing trading can be a great style for the beginning trader in particular since without a doubt there will be many mistakes made when you're just getting going. They even happen when you have tons of experience - I know firsthand I would also suggest reading the Mark Douglas books you mention. Both very good reads and many of the successful traders I know have read at least one of those, and usually multiple times.

Yep, solid point and even I forget about those alternatives at times. But I'm with you, I know some who trade Soybeans and do quite well, plus usually end their plan for the day fairly quickly. Wheat and Corn as well can be good -- in particular if someone is interested in swing trading over day trading. I think the bottom-line is virtually everyone rushes into the few major, high volume, must well known markets but many times the real opportunities are somewhere else. Which probably explains at least in some part, why failure rate can be high for new traders. The put themselves right in the middle of some of the best traders in the world and have to compete on the majors.

This is a great thread with really a tremendous debate going back and forth. It's quite valuable what each of you say -- many could learn quite a bit just from reading this thread. However, please let's not get personal with the attacks. I see some of the emotions and attacks creeping in here -- keep it on point, argue strong but let's try to keep it friendly. Thanks guys/gals!

youngestrader, A few comments from me. Personally I have never quite understood "reading the tape" at least as an off the floor trader --- I can understand perhaps how it can be done in a pit with others. Not sure it's something I see someone being able to do really well from the off the floor but I'm sure that's a matter of debate -- and also defining what we all mean by reading the tape -- maybe it's just something technical such as volume. I'm not sure you can take a lot of meaning from watching the bid/ask and order flow on the ES. I would also suggest you think long and hard what is changing in your behavior and trading practices that seems like you trade one way when down, and another way when back to even or slightly ahead. I would almost bet your action/reaction to the markets is completely different in those different stages of equity. Maybe when you finally get back to even you get too aggressive wanting the profits, or maybe you even do the opposite and suddenly stop taking controlled risks or miss out because of fear to be back in the same hole. I would try to journal, document or anything you can to try and get to the bottom of what changes as your equity changes. I think you'll find you are trading differently.

Thanks to the others above for the answers. The policy on links is it has to be non-promotional. If it is a link that provides good information, and fits the discussion then we can and have allowed it. Just as policy though it cannot be something where someone is just looking to promote their URLs. If you see those please report them -- we try to read as many as we can but will never catch them all. The community does a great job alerting us. Thanks - let us know if we can do anything else for you.

I'm told we are all set and this is resolved. If there are any further questions or concerns on the search please let me know. Thanks for the patience.

Amcan definitely three great choices. Hard for me to argue against any of them. Tthey all seem to be steadily good not just a few days here and there which is important.