SIUYA

Ingot - "" Now I am happy to be proven wrong, but where - in what I have posted here, above, or elsewhere on the forum - is there any room for a psychologist to make any difference to a trader's trades? Can a psychologist give a trader an edge, a strategy, experience, enough capital, patience, a technique, a suitable trading environment and so on? He can certainly point out that such things are needed, but he cannot provide them.."" While i understand your sentiments and largely agree with them - especially about the idea of unscrupulous purveyors targeting new players....it seems that the real point you have with psychologists is that they dont offer VALUE FOR MONEY to you. (??????) because I think the answer to both of the questions you pose is yes - they can actually help some people who have all the discipline, methods etc; etc get through a road block or as johnw says , help reword something in the manner in which a person can really relate to. if this helps then great, but no it will not help everyone, nor is it a quick fix, or a cure all - as is often thought.

While I generally agree with your sentiment, where do you get from the article that pit oil traders are pissed with "new" tehcnical traders?

I know what you are saying Neg. My point is along the lines combining the bigger picture context, looking to get good entries, so that you can move to BE quickly - hence minimising the losses, yet when you actually get on something, you have to let it ride...... when it comes to stocks, there are often those things that are ten baggers that pay for lots of small losses. eg; apply this in simple maths to FX. Lets say you apply this and get it wrong 10 ten times, and loose .10 of a cent each time. You only need to get it right once to cover that - if you can get those 10 losses mainly to break even quickly then this increases your odds. However the next trick is to then run those winning trades. Admittedly this works best for me as I have multiple instruments, and enough money to run opens. This also requires a way in which to keep putting on trades, building positions and being able to keep taking the opps when they occur.....this has been a bug bear for ages and ages for me. Trying to cover too many positions, ideas and trades requires computers - or lots of focus. These methods all stem from my days as an option market maker who trades long volatility - every day you would have your time decay to cover, you would trade around trying to get this to break even (ie; covering your costs) and then every now and again trends would develop OR a big move would occur that made you money. But I think this also can apply to many who trade shorter term as well. It seems there is always that trade off between entry timing, missing opportunities and how big a stop should be......and then relating this to a target adds a whole other dimension, and my thoughts on the matter (and I think that its possibly also the fact that I am terrible at expressing these thoughts on paper) is that the best thing to control is your intitial entry and exit, and then why add the extra element of something you have no control over, is a best guess (possibly based on past stats maybe - or back testing). I would rather give myself the opportunity, than limit myself. (thats also not to say that you cant run profit taking systems in conjunction)

"The second argument against prevailing bubble theories comes from the function of gold (and to some extent silver) as possible stores of value and guards against inflation, i.e. inflation hedges." This works well - in certain times, but is basically a sales pitch by the gold bulls. If you notice this always gets trotted out, and it usually gets associated at the same time as - if gold catches up with its inflation adjusted price it will be around $5000. So - doesn't that mean that over the past 30 years its been a poor inflation hedge? my two cents gold is not in a bubble, but that does not mean it cannot go down.

you might need to use their ASCIL programing to do this - excel might not be able to handle this, or the best people to ask will be on the SC website

no you would likely owe the broker 120,000 * 20% = 24,000 - 5000 = 19,000 if you were closed out. OR the broker would ask you for this amount. It is kind of sobering.

appropriate to trading... " Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" - Sir Winston Churchill 1874-1965

A conservative person would say that when you buy something you own it, and if you cant afford it going to zero then dont buy it. for the questions - in their most simplistic form. 1) yes 2) yes 3) yes 4) depends on the contract - some are cash settled others physical delivery - assuming you mean settlement period as the expiry or deliverable date. Always understand the various dates for the contract you trade. Remember these are generally all leveraged products, the disclaimers are there for a reason. Markets do crash, stops can be missed, slippage can be huge. There is a difference between risk and exposure. Imagine waking up one day being long one contract in an instrument that is down 20% on a gap and the underlying value of the instrument is $125,000. your account only has $5,000 in it.....I would not want my broker wearing your risk....so you should owe the money.

johnw - no problems - context is king. I think we are all talking the same thing....for me what you are talking about is ways of working out how to get the most out of our experiences and our responses to these. I used to develop tricks for myself (my anti virus solution as you say). They work for me and maybe not for others. eg; When I was younger I used to get disappointed and angry when people did not reply to party invites in a timely manner, or used to say yes - then not turn up, or drop out at the last minute (we used to have a lot of parties). It should not have bothered me as much as it did but it did. I also knew I could not change their behaviour, nor could I bottle up and change my response (maybe I could). So my answer became a simple trick/method/process for myself. I developed a strategy of three strikes you are out. Those folks who pissed me off three times just never got invited again, and it turns out that over a short period of time you end up being surrounded by reliable, dependable and enjoyable people.....plus your social circle expands as you are forced to find new friends. . Nowdays - I dont get pissed off with people, I just cut and move on. Much the same as the markets.

actually - I try not to relate my stops too much to my targets. I try and look more at the bigger picture context, get the timing right with tight stops and then manage the trade after that. for me the whole 1r:4r risk to target mindset is merely historical measurement. In short, maybe its against the grain but by focusing on my bigger context allows me to run tight stops without worrying too much about the targets - I let the market decide those.

perfectly said Zdo and Neg (this thread is clearly the mutual appreciation society) There are two things that I could add to this.....speech is not a great measure, only as it has been shown that all humans have an ability to produce a wide range of sounds, and this diminishes very quickly with age...which is why its hard as adults to learn certain languages. Though I still think the idea of hothousing children would make for an interesting study in the rearing of super traders. (personally I think it would have similar success rates as real life - lets ask Thales in a few years) 2ndly Neg - i have to go with Zdo on this one, breakthroughs are generally more a combination of sheer luck, persistence, risk taking (and hence survivorship bias) and group effort. there are very few truly inspirational individual breakthroughs in any field. This is definitely where being able to capitalise on luck does separate the wheat from the chaff. Read the Malcolm Gladwell books - they can be done in a day and are definitely good thought fodder

the unfortunate thing is that in reality we are designed to prefer spin. We learn as children that honesty is not the best policy. As a strategy its actually advantageous to be able to spin things to the way we want - not just for own comfort of mind but also in order to appease/please/win over/manipulate others. This is what can make trading hard - as Rande says - changing what we know already. as an aside - IMO - there has been one thing that has done more damage and caused more problems than many others for this similar reason - creative accounting....... what please explain to me is meant to be creative about accounting! It actually encourages CEOs, governments, business people, housewives - everyone to put a spin on the numbers.......it even gives people a supposed regulatory safe and secure uniform measure that we can all rely on. (apologies to the accountants who truly love their jobs ) and yes Ingot - I agree, a question i ask people sometimes is whats the difference between stealing a 50c chocolate bar, stealing $50,000 from a bank, evading $500,000 in taxes, or running a $50m ponzi scheme......its interesting the responses you get from people. I can draw no implications about peoples responses, but to me, they are first and foremost all stealing, and then its the degree (and intent as Ingot says) that varies. Often people dont want to even recognize this, and the excuses vary, the defenses many. if nothing else its interesting

As I read it the problem is if you a true believer in the black swans and unforeseen events (as an ex option market maker who loved being long volatility and making money out of disaster I do), then you might fall into the purists view of markets are unpredictable and therefore technical analysis is voodoo. Yet, I still think there is value in following the road map, and at the same time allowing for the black swans....through such things as stops, money management, options, diversification. Interestingly enough depending on which black swan event, some I have seen argue that via technical analysis these actually happen with the major trends already having been in the direction of the black swan event movement. (I have no opinion on this as everyones trend definition is different)

ditto to whats said above....combination. I would say a good coach/mentor/teacher can help so long as you have the other two, otherwise forget it

along with zdo, reducing my losses has helped saved me money, but definitely for me, I know the thing that costs me the most money when I break it is not having enough patience. Going too early on a trade, (or not sitting in a winner long enough - though this is not about saving money) I would have to say lack of patience is my biggest killer. When I wait, for just the right setup it seems so much easier.

1. How do you identify a slow, choppy market? This might seem too obvious, but I'm interested to see your thought process. I look at basic higher high and lower low analysis - nothing fancy, but once you get some cross overs here - eg; a bull market - seeing low swings getting taken out, this helps change my mindset. Its crude, but without hindsight its the best i have come up with. This helps me switch from bull to nothing to either bull or bear later. 2. How do you trade them? Do you simply avoid them and wait for volatility to pick back up? Try and avoid them, but if the mindset can switch successfully enough, then they are places to avoid. I try and stick by the adage that its easy making money and hard to hang on to it, and so areas of chop are best avoided. 3. Do you raise your size? What is your money management like? See 2.....reduce, reduce, reduce, avoid. This is more obviously a context and relative thing - 1 hour of chop on a 5 min chart can still do a lot of damage, while weekly chop can provide opps. I look at a longer time frame of chop in order to try and change the mindset, as this might give me more an indication of when chop (or more unpredictable reversals) can occur. All basic, simple and more about looking at a chart and working out when to avoid the obvious.

from the article "“There are hundreds and hundreds of systems that you can trade,” said the 56-year-old Chicagoan. “Ultimately, if God wants those to work, they work. If He doesn’t, they don’t." the holy grail ? usually when you see people praying about their positions there is blood in the water already - another biblical story maybe.

I often have to ask my self the question - Do i need to be here, is my money better invested elsewhere - even in cash? I even sometimes just get out of a number of trades clear the mind and know that if with no positions I can very easily put them back on again (often at a better price). Clearing everything out can work wonders - I probably do it three to four times a year. In your case MMS, as a suggestion the simplest tool for the silver.....exit the trade, and then enter two orders that will force you to watch it - or at least keep in on your watch page.... 1st trade a buy limit below the current price at a level you would be happy with, 2nd a stop limit buy order above the current price (this can be trailed down if the market falls)

Its the checks and balances that are often missing (I dont have experience with violent offenders but the financial industry definitely throws up life in fast forward and the temptations to many brings out the best and the worst in people... often these people should be in jail...so my experience comes from this microcosm) You're right there is no black and white and while trying to avoid any moral discussions, often those folks who dont develop a self check (I guess this is part of my description for "self deception", and JohnW of "not knowing yourself") - either through others help, or their own tricks, either become self destructive, or destructive to others. If in doubt you need to err on the side of any high moral ground, and too often people dont - they justify it with excuses such as - everyone else is doing it. (this is very often trotted out as an excuse in the world of finance) Usually these folks have other red flags in their daily dealings (all generalised of course) - eg; they skip shouts at the pub, they cheat on their partner, they think its ok to evade (as opposed to avoiding/minimising) tax, they expand on their achievements, and trivialise their shortcomings (good if you are a salesman) When it comes to trading, when ever you hear excuses, hopes, or denials you know there is trouble. The biggest check is the PL it does not lie.....it often also does not meet our expectations

I am not sure if we agree or disagree here I actually was trying to add to your comment, and was trying to make the point that really close stops are often underestimated if watching a market closely - stops are all part of the structure you are looking at, the market does not know or care what you are thinking, but it becomes semantics about stops being in the right place or not.....maybe the question is of weather the stop was poorly placed. Stops are designed to minimise losses. period. They cannot really be in the wrong place. Where you place them should be based on the structure/timeframe/mindset/plan you are trading......otherwise you may as well flip coins. I would say the only time a stop is wrong is when it is not kept. (end of mindless ramble for the afternoon)

"What is a wrongly placed stop? Is it one that is too close or one that is too far?" Often its not close enough, plus for my two cents - if you are going for pin point stops, what is often more important is that you make sure you have a good way of ensuring you get on the move you were looking for even after a few quick losses. Taking three 5 tick losses, to then miss the 50 tick move can hurt. Ideally you wont take a loss while trying to get on, but this is not the case in reality.

Johnw - sorry if i extrapolated further on what your point was, while they are different points, I actually find for many people its much the same - they deceive themselves because they are unaware of themselves. Also Rande I have to agree with MM (not to be deliberately argumentative - more for the discussion ) - anyone who runs a ponzi scheme, who could even let themselves fall into this, who does not understand the checks and balances required and the upholding of ethical boundaries - is not a good guy. All the Christian (or what ever religious beliefs) charitable work does not make them a good guy. Often they do this as a guilt trip for themselves. I am sure you are aware - as you say that "if you have ever been around people, power, and money -- you discover this is more common than you would imagine.." ----- this is so true, and often if you see these people throughout their career they have always been the same. They will look the other way, they will do back room deals and they will then always claim they made a mistake...... Rubbish - people do not suddenly start ponzi schemes, they dont suddenly steal. They have either been doing it in some form or another for many years, or its a cold calculated scheme. These are not crimes of passion. Here is a story that I am sure you could relate to Rande, there was a guy in our office many years ago who front ran an order by dumping stock on another firm just before information was widely known to the rest of the market as it happened just after the close - it was a fine line between real insider trading and just plain crappy behaviour. After a few serious complaints from the buyer, our firm made him cancel the trade - most of us other traders saw all this and knew exactly what he was doing and told him he was wrong.... A few days later he was recounting HIS VERSION of events to a friend - how he was sorely done by, how he did not have insider info, how he should have been able to keep the trade. Well 8 others of us all turned and said to him, that his version of events were wrong - he stood up, and said to us "you are all wrong I am right" - sat down and never spoke about it again. This guy is a raving Christian always talking about values, giving money to this and that. He is a thief pure and simple, he self deceives, he is amoral and requires a formalised set of values as he clearly does not know right from wrong, he also did it all the time. I have many stories like this from this fellow and from others - both good and bad - the finance industry definitely brings out the best and the worst in people, and I have never once seen an individual who suddenly became a criminal - they all think they can get away with it as they have been doing it for years. Now self deception on behalf of trading is something different - surely related in many ways, but self deception, and the deliberate deception of others are two different matters in terms of the end results. Even if they may stem from the same place.

as i am not a developer, I dont know exactly how these would work, but I would imagine that first yes you have to have the data. It is available...Esignal is a data provider that comes to mind. then you would need to be able to first filter out the instruments into sub sectors first....then ideally you would run the scan over less instruments.... Bloomberg has a sorting process like this. Or alternatively you might have to run a long and slow scan initially to be able to work out your subsectors then build from there. You could theoretically do this in excel - but doing it over many many instruments is not what excel is built for.

it is a good point - the lure of the win can suck many in and make them think its an easy game. The lure of the big win, of easy money. We used to joke on the trading floor that the best trade a new trader could make was one that gave them a loss. It made them realise that losses occur, they are not the worst thing in the world, and if properly managed are part of the game. When a trader starts their journey can also have a big impact on their mindset. Traders who start in a bullish market or bearish market can be perrenial bulls or bears - sometimes to their detriment. Always looking to buy dips in the wrong market can be fatal - if this is your mindset, turn the chart upside down it might give a different perspective

I trade a lot of stocks, and a few futures and FX (trying to automate these a bit more) there is also an essential element that you have to aware of and I would say guard against. If trying to cover a lot of instruments, you need a filter to only take the best of the best when the trade arises, and limit yourself to how many new and open positions you have. Too often I have woken up and found I have 30-40 positions on, and thats usually when you loose. A friend (and something I should theoretically do more of) just limits himself to a maximum of 6-7. The difference in PL shows whats happens - when times are good, I make more money as I have more positions, more exposure and less individual instrument risk, when times are bad I give more of it back usually due to high correlation of stocks, while he is far more consistent. 2-3 months ago was great .....Presently I wish I had more consistency... (I know where this mentality for me comes from - as a market maker you might have done 100-200 trades a day of varying sizes, and other days you would struggle to stay awake....so I prefer to be either on or off - I am with Zdo - accept who or what you are and work with it)