SIUYA

In this day and age with instant transfers and computing power you actually wonder why we need clearing firms. The exchange sets the margins, the platforms (broker) charges access to the exchange, and we as the customer should allow the exchanges to be able to debit and credit an account held with a bank which might actually be safer. That way you know exactly what margin is required - it goes directly to the exchange - if you day trade - you might need a minimum amount at the exchange that the broker can monitor. The only real difference is that you have instant access to your money and only require the minimum to trade. Now people might say you can keep the minimum at your broker - yes thats true and thats exactly what you should do, however if you trade larger size and hold positions transferring funds all over the place is not efficient. Plus this might only work effectively with exchange margined zero sum game products - in equities it already does as you can hold the equities in your own name, and you assume the equity risk..... (now obviously various jurisdictions and antiquated banking systems and other various regulatory reforms make this probably impossible, but as I see it the technology should not be an issue.)....just an idea. Regards what they can do - just the above - totally segregated accounts. If a company fails, equity holders and bond holders dont get bailed out - no problems, but client money should be segregated....totally - many say they have but in reality dont, and the reason for this is largely as they take the clips for funding that pays for the reduced brokerage and access to margin. (this is generally not needed when margins are set by the exchanges - unless the broker gives you extra leverage) One issue you will always have if fraud is involved is that only through internal processes can fraud usually be picked up - as by its very nature fruad is deliberately hidden. The speed with which MF revealed its problems and the collapse also highlights the issues in regulating compnaies such as this when fraud may/may not have occured....and thats why CEOs and others in charge of the firm should be held more liable for such events - in this case I think they might be.

my pleasure if it adds to the discussion.....and I think that is largely what gosu is also talking about. While as JohnW mentions the calm exterior may still hide fear, sometimes an issue might be nothing to do with fear (unless of course you subscribe to the idea that fear and love is the base to EVERYTHING ) Sometimes (Randes experience is 1 in 10) as you say it might be biology, it might be the extra chocolate bar, or beer at lunch..... regardless I appreciate that the mechanisms/process/solutions all seem to reside in similar methods to recognize and then temper the fear/impulse response. (much the same as taking a breather before replying instantly to a thread on a forum that gets us riled up..., or even feeling like we need to have the last word ....not sure if that is driven by fear, :haha: or impulse :doh:) thanks.

- value investing is still all about price and the right price. The problem with most people trying to value invest is time and skill to find value, time to sit and wait for the value to be revealed. Then the same principles apply for trading......you dont take every value trade, only the high probability ones.

Gaddafi was never elected, Hitler was.....so these blame games for who was elected or employed are irrelevant - he was employed period. That employment was to run the firm, but not into the ground with gambles. He also most likely has other fiduciary duties. While many might applaud business acumen - this is not business acumen - this is a massive speculative punt with other peoples money. He had the balls to bet with other peoples money with little personal economic downside to himself....as you say - "never knowing the extent of the risk he had assumed." Well like most traders who bet too big he has been found out. He was not a businessman, but a gambling politician. I think most of us can agree business should not require bailouts - better tell most of the subsidized businesses of all sorts around the world involving industries such as agriculture, chemicals, steel, automobiles..... Dont worry I dont think he is the only one, and there will be others.....but to defend him with quotes like "He had the balls to make the bet" is what is wrong with capitalism as it has become today - it has become too opaque, with little real accountability and a way to transfer wealth for failure, by just saying such things. You have worked in firms before, it makes me cringe when traders at firms say "its not my money".... These people in the great American tradition should be lambasted for being failures. Do you look at people on the street who might be homeless who gave it a go and lost, but you dont know their story. (if I misread your tone of email Steve I apologise, and have little more to say on the matter if it just devolves into a spat which is not the intention. )

that is why I asked the question....my fear only rises when the trade size rises largr than it should- or there is that uneasy feeling in the stomach every now and again when something smells wrong - and so it should. I am more interested if the processes used by Rande for re-mapping the brain for fear are the same....his response appears in part to say yes....as I agree with your two points...genius I rarely ever am (only after the fact ), complacency and impulsive would be my issue....but not fear. The problem with impulse is just that it is impulse..... often the button is hit before the thought! and does not occur all the time - just you know after the fact when its been done - often with enough experience it can be extremely helpful to be a bit impulsive in my own experience. A bit like taking a hunting dog on a hunt - you want it to act on its impulses, however you still want it to re-act with discipline when the master calls However....I still continue to follow the thread with interest, and apologies if you are more focused on fear Rande in this particular session....yet clearly you think the methods you teach are clearly able to be used for other issues as well. thanks.

and this is why people should be protesting at wall street. Here is a guy who takes a perfectly good company and through reckless bets with the firms money blows it all and more.....he is an embarrassment to capitalism. Any one who defends him should have his head read and its also why investment banks should be risking their own money of clients who invest in funds knowing what they are going in for, and not shareholder money (did they know he had these massive bets on...??) and definitely not client money. For my two cents if client accounts don't get paid back and have not been ring fenced he should go to jail. (and yes... I did have a MF account that I tried to close last week once I found out he was betting on Italy...I hope to get ALL the money back sooner rather than later and it reinforces why you keep a minimum amount with these people and with multiple brokers.) ....end of rant.

I dont have such a fear of pulling the trigger, more the impulse problem when I have it, and yet in no way am I a gambler - I have no regard for gambling/betting/horses/cards (it seems un-Australian to say that with the Melbourne cup on tomorrow)....and while not doing the webinar this time as I am not trading currently, would you think that the webinar you are currently conducting might have positive help for those with impulsive tendencies rather than fear based???? or are different methods/ideas/practices used.....or is impulsiveness just another disguised fear

at a guess it is - Paul Rotter - aka "the Eurex Flipper" if not he is interesting in itself.

Klotzki, I think the previous posts all still point out the problem with the strategy..... and the reasons you may disagree - and even if in theory it "may" work are still largely irrelevant as the issue still remains - deep, deep pockets are required I say this using your reasons as..... (1) your trading strategy has positive expectancy....over a period of time, this may be the case, however a string of losses - in a row - may mean you go broke unless you have unlimited capital. There is one thing you can guarantee in back testing, and that is that your biggest loser is yet to come. If you are completely discretionary, then this is also likely to occur (2) you start out risking a very small portion of your equity, ...again a string of losses - in a row - make the exponential nature of this strategy likely you will lose, unless you have deep pockets. what happens when margins go up and you have just had a string of losses? The equity has to be so, so small you would likely be better just using a stop loss and going again and even if you had a high win rate - you have to do a lot of trades to make any money as you would be unlikely to have any meaningful heat on the table. and (3) the win rate is high enough that you won't run the risk of losing all your equity before getting a positive trade.....the win rate can still be 90% but lets say you get 10 losers in a row.... your contract sizes are 1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512 a one lot trader is unlikely to have capital to trade 512 contracts. I am sure someone has tried, but I have not seen it as i usually avoid losers averaging losers, but I wonder if anyone has done variations of this and rather than doubling up used a geometric (?) progression of contracts sizes for each successive trade loser of....1,2,3,4,5,6.... you need less money and if you do have a really high win rate, it could work. ....or you work for a firm and just loose your job. regardless, unlimited capital is required to make the strategy work.

as in everything definitions are largely personal and there are exceptions to every rule! maybe the question should be - are you really a successfully profitable trader over a period of time and experience to show consistency of process and ability (or is it just luck) and yet even that cuts out people who might be very good bull/bear market traders and smart enough, or experienced enough to realise their limitations and so rather than banging the head against the wall (or the thumb with the hammer!) they manage to avoid those times that dont suit them. So the question could again be ...are you really a successfully profitable trader over a period of time and experience that suits your talents/abilities and smart enough to learn quickly from your own and others mistakes to show consistency of process and ability (or is it just luck) :haha: one thing that comes up time and time again when talking to many people who have been successful is that they learn from others and find people who are smarter/more talented than them and allow them to do what they do best......there might be something in that for all of us.

How can a forex broker fail?....."Jon Corzine had attempted to turn MF Global from a brokerage to a mid-tier investment bank. In doing so one of the cornerstones of his strategy was to take on more principal risk. ".... more questions should be raised by this statement.... "Jon Corzine stated, “The broker has “little principal risk” The short-term debt positions are “my personal responsibility and a prime focus of my attention,” said Corzine." doesn't the place have internal personal trading guidelines no wonder its going broke, he as CEO is trading rather than running the business. looks like they must be paying salaries that are too large. A lot of brokers are struggling at present, volumes are down, cut price brokers and DMA are eating their margins, and the rules regarding bonuses etc in Europe, the US have meant a lot of these guys are high cost overheads - always an issue in a quiet time.....but i am sure John will do just fine

never really played it from the point of view of only interest rates, but I guy I knew about two years ago put together a great model from a portfolio point of view and traded the carry spread. According to him it worked best from a portfolio point of view as there are always the shocks that carry you out, and you need to diversify a bit, and take the longer term view on it. Otherwise it something I have never really looked at, except from the point of view of understanding the big effect interest rates can have on such models.

Basically it boils down to what you want out of the game - there are clearly many ways to do this and each of them has a trade off between size, number of winners/losers and magnitude and time taken to analyse, put on and manage positions (this time element and as Steve puts in one of his threads the ability to keep at it, day after day after day is IMHO a tough one) Additionally, if you are only going to day trade, then you do limit your selection of styles....this whole game is about trade offs - and the more I think about it, the more I think its another psychological aspect of it that many of us dont take into consideration. You need to be aware and accept that each style has its various limitations, and advantages....too often we want a bit of everything and maybe thats not possible - without combining styles example; Steve46 - and not picking a fight (as I dont think you trade this way), this is just as a good illustration. "For those who might be willing to take a shot at breakouts in general, I would advise waiting for the break to "take out" the upper limit and then hook back and re-test...that is a higher probability trade (in my opinion)..." yes, you might be right/wrong about it being a higher prob trade, but there is one thing you can guarantee with such a strategy and you have to accept this to be the case.... such a strategy will ensure you get every loser, and will miss some winners, even if your comforted by the fact that you might be getting a better (more comfortable) entry for the winners you do get.... if you can accept this trade off then it can work for you. so i guess Spearpoint the best thing is to work out what you can and cannot accept and live with.

does this sort of fall into the category of - everybody makes easy money in a bull market. But until you have experienced a couple of cycles you have not had real trading experience. I think a lot really depends on how much you have a good base (reality not theoretically) from which to ground your experience - do you have a philosophy of the markets, have you enough depth of knowledge to really make the most of the experience you have (even if its a little) For the pilot example - cropdusters - one of the more interesting jobs you can get. a friend of mine became one, he said most crashes occur in the first 1000 hours of flying due to lack of experience, after that not much happens - until either luck catches up with you, OR you think you have enough experience because at about 5000 hours experience they all start to crash again.....make of that what you will

Supposed actual quote from protesters occupying the street of Toronto's stock exchange… "It's weird protesting on Bay Street. You get there at 9 a.m. and the rich bankers who you want to hurl insults at and change their world view have been at work for two hours already. And then when it's time to go, they're still there! I guess that's why they call them the one per cent. I mean, who wants to work those kinds of hours? That's the power of greed." - Jeremy, 38 and News from London.... Police say they are struggling to control "vast hordes" of bankers who have now filled the offices and streets of the City. "We got a tip-off from someone," said a Met spokesman. "They told us these bankers have been coming here in increasing numbers ever since the early 1600s." Police say the bankers are easily visible with their trademark "suits" and "shoes" and believe they could be occupying the City as part of an 'Occupy The City' event. "They started arriving early this morning," said an onlooker. "They poured out of all the local tube stations and you could tell by the looks on their faces that they were intent on going to work." The sudden influx of bankers, which began on Monday morning and is expected to last until Friday afternoon, has devastated the plans of a small group of unemployed students who had planned a camping trip outside St Paul's. "We were hoping to spend a few days camping out in the streets and irritating people," said a tw@t in a mask, "but all these people going to work and doing their jobs means we'll probably have to go back to Biffo's dad's house and skin up." The occupation by bankers is believed to be part of a "corporate need" movement in which people put on smart clothes and go to "work" in order to earn "money". "These people are just capitalists and it sickens me the way they spend all day in offices making a living rather than sitting outside on a wet mat wearing silly masks," said a local hypocrite.

What i thought a good summary and assessment from a broker report that was sent to me....(I no affiliation with who it was, it was just someones assessment sent to me by a friend) """"""""""""""""""""""""" Springtime for the euro, then reality The nice thing about 4AM press conferences is that no one expects or wants them to be long. The agreement eurozone leaders reached with each other and the banks contain the following points: 1) Nominal write-down of 50% (EUR 100bn) of Greek debt in private hands; Greek debt owned by official lenders not touched 2) Remaining Greek debt will be refinanced at preferential rates 3) Bond swap to be done by end-January 4) Closer supervision of Greek adherence to the program 5) EFSF to be levered 4-5 times 6) No ECB involvement in EFSF; but EU officials were hopeful that they would decide to remain supportive 7) President Sarkozy will speak with China on EFSF involvement 8) EFSF will have both a direct insurance and SPV element; looking for EM/IMF support for the SPV 9) Estimates of EFSF firepower ranged from EUR1.0-1.4tn 10) Italy to deliver specific budget and deficit reduction program 11) Banks must meet minimum capital requirements, seek private capital to cover shortfall 12) If private capital raising insufficient, national governments and then EFSF to meet banking sector needs The full text of the EU Summit statement can be found here: http://consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/ec/125644.pdf Overall there was very little that had not been discussed earlier. The euro rallied but the rally did not seem based on much new information since there are very few details and the agreements are to be finalized in the next few months. We would expect the next 24 hours to be driven by how the Sarkozy call to China President Hu Jintao goes, how investors analyze the sustainability of Greek debt under this program, and the reception that the EFSF proposal will get. We are a bit surprised by the enthusiasm given the lack of detail and lack of surprise. We are also wondering how seriously investors will take the EFSF guarantees (which only apply in the event of a default), given that the banks were strongly encouraged to declare the current restructuring voluntary. Investors may fear that the EFSF guaranteeing governments will similarly contrive to avoid paying out on their first-loss guarantees. For FX, we see this as broadly positive for risk, since the package seems adequate to avoid any euro zone driven financial market catastrophe for the next year or possibly longer, but it is probably not enough to improve euro zone growth prospects a lot and there are a lot of loose ends that could unravel. We continue to prefer small G10 currencies with good fundamentals (CAD, AUD, NOK, SEK, NZD). We think they will be supported by macro policies in the US, UK, Japan and China (if needed). We also note with satisfaction that investors have forgiven CAD and AUD for dovish central banks and weak CPIs -- we think that they will continue to be bought more on risk than off rate differentials. We doubt that this package can bring long-term support to the euro, even as we note that there are a lot of committed USD sellers out there. There is a risk of running stops to the upside, as positions still seem somewhat short EUR, but we don't think this package can sustain major gains unless outside money is more enthusiastic about backing euro zone debt than either the ECB or euro zone governments seem to be, and we are not sure why this should be the case...

Isn't this the holy grail. As everything in trading is really a trade off between what you can have and what you cant have, another solution that might suit you is to have more trades, that break even BUT an extra step that allows you to get back onto trades. eg; you move your stop to BE quickly, if its stopped out, you need another entry solution to reenter....you broker may like you (so find the cheapest most reliable one around), but if it makes you money then it is all good. This trade off between the number of trades that are losers and winners should be a trade off between the amount lost or gained. In simple terms..... eg; In FX - If I had a system that lost 99 times in a 100 but my AVERAGE loss was only 1-2 ticks, then I know I only need 1 trade to trend and for me to run that trade to make money......look at any long term FX chart and tell me - how many of them stay in a 100-200 tick range.

first get that out of the head or it it mess you up regardless of how good your system is. A lot of this is mental - preparation and then revision, and with that goal in your head it wont help. (We all understand what you mean.....but it wont help mentally) Do as others say....narrow it down first And the crux of your problem is this.....if you really have a plan to trade, and you have really thought about how you expect to make money from an underlying philosophy of the markets and how they work and how you can make money from them, then you should then know which stocks best suit that plan If you have something that is so robust that diversification will work, then trade it as a portfolio. Then you have issues of selection, elimination of stocks, screening and the various techinical and data issues associated with that My point is...not to dissuade you is that the horse seems before the cart. Otherwise...cross your fingers you get a mentor, then cross your fingers they are good, and then expect to wait to be paid, etc; etc;.... Good luck on the start of your journey.

for a good laugh.... Bradley Walsh - Fanny Chmelar laugh. - YouTube I wonder if we can have a new TL participant with this name.

not sure if this is the best place for this post..... I watch TED and get weekly emails to interesting discussions....this was came in and was topical. Iain McGilchrist: The divided brain | Video on TED.com Especially the last part, that we often forget that the brain is made up of two parts - the logical and the intuitive. (feel free to ignore this - I just thought the post might be topical - and plus, TED is a great resource for those with inquisitive minds and spare time )

to be honest, while it feels good to have less losers and lower drawdowns, a lot will depend on how big your account is, how big you wish to grow it, how much time you have, how much patience and concentration, or computer knowledge and power you have and what you are trying to achieve. By staying short term and going for many small gains, you are effectively entering the world of the high frequency trader......yes you can make money, but how big can you grow this without computing limitations, or how tied to a computer do you wish to be. There is no right and wrong - so long as you understand the limitation/expectations of each system and where you want to get to. So in answer to your question....as more of a trend follower myself....I dont focus so much on limiting the number of losing trades but more on maximizing the winners, and trying to minimise the damage the losers do (note its not their number, but their magnitude). In your quest I think if you are playing for momentum, then you should have a very quick move to BE, a time based stop and realise the intensity and frustrations this style can have....then it is all fine. Your focus is on great entries and protecting that.

1...ask your broker or platform 2....do a dummy trade 3....google However your question - the pricing for FTSE index data.....is not very precise. Are you looking for the cost per tick, the mechanism for building the index. Are you looking at a swap/spreadbet or the actual future or the underlying index. The price is the index - if it is at 5000 then the price is 5000.....

I think this also highlights the issue with waiting to short rallies or buy dips.....The extent of the retracement can never be known. All you can do is watch and wait and at some stage be prepared to pounce, OR place your levels and hope you get hit. This is the major difference between selling/buying breaks IMHO - you should get every break as the level of the break is clearly defined beforehand and the nature of the break to be a break means it has to be a break (if that makes any sense).....but how do you define a retracement.....30%, 50%, 61.2%. While defining ideas and thoughts is great, dont get too caught up in the jargon of supply zones, support zones, rally base rally etc....it is precisely this which can be so hard to define.

as suggested by others - using any system to keep up to date with whats happening during the day will work, so long as its quick. When it comes to doing research, then this should be done prior to the day happening - the newspapers merely report history and opinion....the markets report live.

thanks tradewinds.... Given many of the mental aspects discussed here at TL I thought it topical the New Yorker article has this.... He added, “I believe that the biggest problem that humanity faces is an ego sensitivity to finding out whether one is right or wrong and identifying what one’s strengths and weaknesses are.” and while there were the accusations of this being a criticism of his firm being like a cult - so long as there are enough checks and balances to avoid group think - it appears there have been from the results they get..... "“Is it a better way to run a company? From a results perspective, probably so. Could a large portion of the working population be comfortable in that environment? Probably not." and yet ultimately they actually still say the Ray is the key person, and that even with all the systems and principles he has in place - without him the firm would not be as good at trading.....of course he disagrees, his principles would not have much value if he didn't believe them....I guess only time will tell. Additionally what I thought is most interesting is his ideas that you need to have a basic underlying philosophy/idea of how something works, before the application of all the disciplines.....this is often missing in many trading plans.