Ingot54

It might be just a stray thought, but I was wondering why the fed needs to stimulate to the tune of billions ... if "earnings continue to improve"? If the stock market is bounding away to the tune of 1% for every $20bil of stimulus money ... why do we need stimulus at all? Since the average American beating heart is on the hook for around $50,000 for their share of the $16tril debt ... meaning the average taxpayer in on the hook for about 3 times that ... what will happen if the deficit rises to around $22tril ... as mooted by some? Is it fair that just because some poor unfortunate child happens to be accidentally born in the USA, he is immediately responsible for $50,000 of that sovereign nation's debt? Wouldn't it be better for all the mothers of America to give birth countries like Norway, Singapore etc, who don't have budget deficits, and have not for a decade or more? That would be the humane thing. Of course Singapore and Norway don't go around starting wars on other people's turf, which might explain why no one feels the need to take the piss out of them (hit back) ... and they manage to save money. These nations are actually have far more intelligent leaders than the average US political corrupt representative, placed in power by the corporate elites. Sorry ... "voted in... " Australia is no different from the USA - we are their lap dog ... and just a couple of years behind in the development to that level of corruption. No wonder there are a handful of secessionists wanting to get out of the Union! They made their bed with the rest - where was their voice when the attacks on Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan were going on? What did those wars cost, and who were the US corporations that benefited from those (Dunlop Rubber Company in Vietnam? ... Haliburton in the Middle East? ...) I guess the average citizen in the USA would like to have those war dollars back about right now! Americans really have no control over their "elected" representatives. If they think they do, they are deluded. One side is spending on social welfare like a drunken sailor, and the other side wants to spend on warfare like a drunken sailor. Let's hope these two sailors never decide to act together :rofl: Nice to get something off one's chest :missy:

Cheers mate - agree. If there is to be a recovery at all, it needs to be felt in the experiences of ordinary folks who are the driver of consumption. Sometimes I feel the politicians need to move aside and just let people do what they did long before lobbyists, influence groups and campaign donations (bribery) became the accepted modus opperandi. Are we being crushed by red tape and over-regulation? Is the nanny state now a part of our lives? Maybe big-brother paranoia is stifling production and business too? Maybe the terrorists have won - Americans are now too scared to blink, unless they have passed through every magnetic field and every scanner and x-ray machine available. It just adds cost to business ... wastes time ... paralyses and emasculates enterprise. Long ago the terrorists said: "Our work here is done. We move on now." Yet the world is still subjected to the knee-jerk affects of that terrible day, and business has been paying for it ever since.

Hmmm. Do you have a data source that supports that? All I have is the data released on the Forex Factory Calendar, and it doesn't look like that at all. The data leading up to the election has been positive ✓ Since the election there have been a string of shaky releases, but one swallow doth not a summer make! So this will take time to evolve, and hopefully you will be proven correct. We need both a recovery and a cleansing. Only a sadist would wish to see any form of collapse (and there are plenty of those!) .......................................................PREVIOUS .................... NOW Core Retail Sales m/m ................... +1.2% .......................... -0.0% x PPI m/m ......................................... +1.1% .......................... -0.2% x Retail Sales m/m ............................+1.3% ........................... -0.2%.x Core PPI m/m ............................... +0.0% ............................ -0.2% x Business Inventories m/m ............. +0.6% ............................+0.7% x Unemployment Claims ................... 361k .............................. 439k x Philly Fed Manufacturing Index ..... +5.7 ............................... -10.7 x TIC Long-Term Purchases ............ 90.38B ........................... 3.3B x Capacity Utilization Rate ............... 78.2% .............................77.8% x Industrial Production m/m ............. +0.2% ............................ -0.4% x There is certainly room for improvement - but there is a dangerous assumption here - that the numbers reflect the truth. Why wouldn't the numbers be truthful? To instil confidence that a recovery is imminent, and it just might work, if enough retail sales/exports can flow through to higher employment and increased demand. I mentioned that I am an armchair observer. I really have no idea what is going on here, but one has to be aware of sites like Shadow Government Statistics - Home Page when considering what might be going on. Does anyone really believe that prices have only risen by 2% lately??? The compounding effects of dickied figures can produce a vastly different number than the reality felt in the consumers pocket-book. Those on minimum wages could tell you a different story from the perception of the affluent, who are largely insulated from rises in the costs of accommodation, food, gasoline, fees and charges. Of course, no one regards themselves as "affluent" any more, so we should all be in agreement that yes, prices are rising faster than the official figures seem to indicate. Thoughts?

Interesting quote from "The Daily Reckoning" today (Australian version) from Dan Denning: Our own view is that everyone is basically front running QE right now. If more easy money isn't promised soon, the stock market is going lower. The stock market isn't really a market anymore. It's been corrupted by the Federal Reserve. Ben Bernanke is now portfolio manager to the world. His prize for keeping the system afloat is that the public retains tepid confidence in the US dollar as the world's reserve currency. The markets have certainly changed - what with QE to the nth ... PPT ... algorithmic participation .... but the reality is ... they stay the same ... like human nature. And the players - still after the same things that attracted them to trading ever since the first farmer realised he had grown too much rice this year ... or the since the oldest profession was established so that demand could be met with supply!

I's the right thread ZDO - and thanks for your interest. Personally I will always be curious ... but sceptical-with-healthy-paranoia! Sometime one of these "next-big-things" will spark insight that will set someone on the road to trading satisfaction. However the trader is the only one to "get it' because of how we are all assembled in our heads. I found the shift from trading the 15M TF to the Dailies was my "aha! moment" and I have gone on from there. It's only natural that I would want to share that idea with others. Finally ... the trader needs to "own" his strategy. That is done by taking an idea, and "branding it" with some little thing that has earned its place in the scheme of trading, for him. It is what makes trading satisfying - having your unique strategy ... that really isn't too far different from the original ... just tweaked a tad, without tweaking the knobs right off the dial!

Ckait ... If you are willing to explore something possibly different from what you might be currently trying, and see if a sea-change can improve your bottom line ... have a read of this: A Daily Timeframe Strategy That Pulls 100-500+ Pips Per Trade : Forex Machines Even if you only make one third of the pips (and you would need to mess it about fairly heavily to not make pips) then you would have to agree that this strategy would be bread-and-butter for years to come. This is NOT a suggestion to buy anything - the strategy is free, and available on any MT4 platform. Have a go at it mate - and get back to us. I'd like to see you get a decent handle on your trading. Ignore all other links on the page - they will distract you, and keep you puddling around in the shallow,muddy waters of frustration. EDIT: Good strategies do not come any simpler than this.

This has got to be bumped immediately ... :rofl:

Thales - thank you for your well-reasoned debate. It would be too petty ... even for me ... to pick apart everything you said because there is a 50% chance that you are right, even though your bets seem to be hedged. I have sorted through all the qualifying conjunctions ... if/then ... either/or ... and so on ... and it just shows that no one really has any better chance at sorting this from our side of the ledger, other than a probability of this/that. Even then, the market will have its dog-leg moments to prove everyone wrong. The greatest indicator for traders, is to understand sentiment imho ...and I can't do that. Bernanke thinks he knows how to boost positive sentiment ... or the FOMC collectively is trying very hard to do that. History will show whether the committee was correct to bail out the big banks or whether it would have been wiser to simply let them go. I want to point to occasions in (recent) history where nations have defaulted on debt - I think from my readings of the Daily Reckoning Argentina has gone under once or twice, and is bobbing around now for their next default. Russia had some very serious defaults and currency devaluations near the end of 1980's. The sky did not fall in ... though these nations do not hold Reserve Currency status, and could not print their way out of their debts - a luxury the consumer state (USA) is enjoying at the expense of others. If the USA collapses, no one knows whether that would be good or otherwise - it wouldn't be nice in the short term Finally, what about Iceland? The people revolted: Max Keiser: Who Could Have Predicted Revolution in Iceland? It's not that straight forward, of course ... but the people are demanding their bankers be held to account. There may well be certain interests in the USA who hope that the Icelandic pox is not contagious. Imagine if justice were to be done? Who would do God's work then? Lloyd Blankfein Says He Is Doing "God's Work" - Business Insider

Clearly I lack the intelligence required to follow the mendacious happenings in high financial places, so please forgive me if I decline to address things I am not able to comprehend as clearly as you do. I look forward to your further enunciations of just how this will all play out ... and I will consider my investments accordingly ... a bear market was it? And silly me was thinking that for every $20 billion - puh ... mere change ... we were going to get a 1% rise in stocks - as measured by the SP500. Currently, we are down for the past 7 weeks ... how's that going now? Looks very close to 9% lower that the early September recent top to me. Let me see ... that represents a sheer wastage of about $180 billion, but I am using an old Canon calculator, so could be anything! That would have gotten a lot of American homeless (formerly mortgage owners) out of the parking lot camps! But I digress - a mere armchair observer can sometimes not see through what is happening behind the scenes, as the FOMC have it all under control. I hear what they say, but I see what is happening.

Fair bit of assumption there - can not debate assumption. I am not blessed with the gift of prophecy.

And what is happening to the SP500 today? And where is the $trillions = stock market "up by 1% for every $20bil" Under those guidelines TT, the stock market should be up by 50%. I'm not sure that it is. Yes, there are a lot of people who swallow that ... not necessarily idiots - they just believe what they are told by people who spend other people's money, and at the end of the day are not offering money-back guarantees that they know what they are doing. One thing is certain - the people who sold the derivatives that created much of this mess, get to keep their commissions and profits, while the taxpayer foots the bill. And even when corruption is blatantly obvious - ie in the case of GS selling against their own clients ... they are not held accountable That is not fair. Bernanke was a GWB appointee, wasn't he?

I think Grayson's questions were rhetorical, to get the issue on the record. Was it Einstein who gave one definition of insanity? “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" QEI... QEII... QEIII ... QEnext ... Now that's smart! Where exactly did the money go ... what has it achieved ... how do we measure the effects ... how will we know if it worked ... these are questions that should have been answered BEFORE QE-anything. But of course that was not possible ... they are winging it. As it stands, the average US citizen is on the hook for a fair bit of loot now, and bankers like Goldman Sachs et al are on the hook for nothing ... yet they were complicit in causing the derivatives collapse that brought on the domino effect and ensuing crisis. And even though GS have been shown to be short housing while selling long positions to their clients, the A-G has been unable to find fault with that! Are the policies of the Fed made for the likes of GS? Or for the benefit of the American people? Just curious - I don't live there and simply wouldn't know. If for the former, then it must be GS who pays Bernanke's salary. Is that so? Interfering with interest rates sets artificial prices in the marketplace, manipulates the savings of people who have worked diligently towards their financial security, reduces incentive to save, and plunges an economy into a Japan-like stagnation that has so far resisted all efforts to stimulate. These are not my beliefs - I am not an economist - they are things that many are saying, and in the absence of any green shoots in the economy as a result of any QE, it is hard to see Bernanke and his money printing behaviour as the solution. There seems to be enough inconsistencies in the world of finance and politics for me to keep away - I know enough not to interfere when something comes between a politician and his feeding trough!

If you liked the above, you might be interested in Grayson'e earlier clash with Elizabeth Coleman. "The Federal Reserve apparently can't account for $9 trillion in off-balance sheet transactions. When Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Orlando) asked Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman of the Federal Reserve some very basic questions about where the trillions of dollars that have come from the Fed's expanded balance sheet, the IG didn't know. Worse, nobody at the Fed seems to have any idea what the losses on its $2 trillion portfolio really are. "I am shocked to find out that nobody at the Federal Reserve is keeping track of anything," Grayson says. The Daily Bell - Is Anyone Minding the Store at the Federal Reserve? Has anything been done to rectify that yet?

Not certain how recent this video is - but the story from The Daily Bell - Confronting the Fed, Alan Grayson Returns ran today. A link in that story tells us The Daily Bell - Beginning of the End? Fed Cannot Account for $9 Trillion ... so where is that money. Had to laugh in the following video, where the Fed Reserve loaned $9 bil to NZ ... which equates to $3000 for every man, woman and child (and a few elite sheep) in that country! Grayson really has Bernanke in a corner, it seems. The amazing "gotcha" coupe de grace comes from 4:10 onwards in the video!

... because that was a government enterprise :rofl: I would pass on ... that the higher TF rules all. Had I known that 8 years ago, and learned to view at least 4 different TF using this principle, then ... who knows how much smoother my ride might have been! A Ferrari is a good, smooth ride, btw

Just as an addendum, Ckait - it is quite possible that Mystic Forex's strategy would also suit you. There are many ways to kill a cat. This one is workable I believe, though I didn't have the time to become involved in the thread at that time: http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/forex-trading-laboratory/12563-lets-create-simple-system-beginners.html (He trades the 5M TF in this strat.) Then Mystic has a few other threads, where he shows trades using his famous "Radar Screen" - have a look at this one - it has a 2 min video (sound doesn't come on for around 20sec, where he explains the set up - a 2 min video. http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/forex-trading-laboratory/9367-gbp-chf.html Then, on this thread, Mystic has shown a similar strat and posts the links to where all of the indicators can be found: http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/forex-trading-laboratory/13296-trading-1-trend-line-another-what.html ... and theindicators: http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/trading-indicators/9336-mt4-indicators.html The first few posts contain Mystics basic indicator set, and you can learn a lot more at these links, about how he applies the strat: http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/forex-trading-laboratory/13253-gbp-jpy.html http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/forex-trading-laboratory/13093-simple-trend-trade.html http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/forex-trading-laboratory/9356-eur-usd-intra-inter-day-analysis.html and lastly ... Mystic discusses how he uses his system here: http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/forex-trading-laboratory/9011-does-anyone-use-standard-deviation-thigh.html You could pm him for further details - I have found him very helpful in the past, and an all-round great bloke. This is how HE trades. And he IS successful. A half hour browsing these links would pay off in spades for you.

Ckait - this is exactly the reason I suggested OptionTimers system. You check it ONCE a day. And it being a DAILY system, it really does not matter whether you get in at 0430 am, 7am or 4pm. There is always, or usually going to be some small draw-down.There really isn't any excuse NOT to trade it just as it is - it is proven over decades to be an excellent approach. The whole trading community is NOT full of anything. It is what it is, and we choose to be a part of it or walk. I agree there are a lot of crooks raking money off the newbies and those who won't learn for themselves, but that is always going to be there until traders take responsibility for their own trading. When traders stop what they are doing long enough to look at their approach, they would realise they do not need a different system ... an automated system ... a better entry ... What they do need is to master the strategy they already have. If I gave you a good strategy, would you come back tomorrow to explain to me why it won't work, or why it isn't working for you? I have already done that - it is now up to you to read OptionTimers excellent thread, and understand the strategy - it is not hard. most people who have been there are too impatient, or run at the first loss. Traders mostly want action - they want excitement, and they want money. But they deny themselves all three by chasing the very thing that can NOT give it to them. They persist in the lower TF with stressful trades that meander around noisily, while the real trend is quietly setting up in the background, and making the real dollars. Take my advice - understand the bones of Stanley Krolls strategy, as explained in clear terms by Optiontimer. Then take the small, courageous steps and flesh it out for yourself, using the clear guidelines. My part of the dare has been met - I provided a workable system for you. Now be strong, and be willing to change, and use what OptionTimer has spent many hours giving this forum freely. He isn't selling anything, and is not asking anything. It's all goodwill, and he has a situation that takes him on the road for days at a time I believe, making it even harder to contribute of his time. I do not dare you - I encourage you and support you - together traders can indeed find success. I understand the pain of where you are coming from, and so do others. Take the advice of someone who has nothing to gain by leading you astray because good people would never do that to you.

Mystic - you may be thinking the mountain is the 4H ... but I think it is just a hill. The mountain you could be looking at is the 5M from your post. I hope my post/chart clarifies what happened - the trade is 5 1/2 days old now ... and I can see that I have been disqualified. Nevertheless, I remain in that trade, until the end. as mentioned Kuokam, I remain in that trade. It is a legit setup and risk for me, but I blew my opportunity in the contest by the cowboy tactic of not using position sizing, and going all-in. I will be back into this in my own live trading this coming week, when the parameters for entry align. Ingot ... no longer king! :rofl:

Why not define the principles of trading, and create your own strategy? Here on TL there are ample profitable strategies and systems to orgasmify even the most frigid of traders! You could start here: http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/trading-psychology/10158-optiontimers-project.html No need to "double dare" anyone, unless it is me double daring you to walk the talk. There is your system ... now trade it as promised. I await your results.

1. The trade is waaay over-leveraged 2. The trade is still open 3. Traders who can make pips as opposed to making $$$ will win this contest 4. Traders who can make pips will make the money in the long run If the contest was designed around showing who can make the most pips over time, the outcome might be different. Regardless, a point is coming where I believe my trade will came back with a vengeance, and we have the time this month for that to occur ... or not. As far as the contest goes, my trading is nothing short of cowboy style. But when trading the daily TF ... you need to define your point at which the trade fails. My pockets are not deep enough to sustain the kind of losses you see here in the contest, in live trading. I am trading the EURAUD, which is showing a pullback. My latest entry is at 1.2185 (short) My point of failure for this trade is 1.2440 And I will have dipped out on draw-down rules before that happens For what it's worth, I take the same trades in my live trading @ $5/pip, but with 60-pip SL and manage them on the 1H or 4H TF as a rule. I closed my live trade with a $300 loss, and will not trade live until I see the conditions I need once again. The EURAUD could be close to a setup again for a short - I won't know for another 10 or 15 hours, but it should be another nice trade if it eventuates. Let's see. On Wednesday the market did a strange thing ... the EURAD - EURUSD - AUDUSD all rallied at once. Clearly this could not continue for long, if you know anything about correlation, and it was the Aussie that got the wobbly knees first. Couldn't find anything fundamental for the pullback in the AUD, but there is was. A nice bit of arbitrage if anyone spotted that occurrence. Remember what I said in post #16 above:

Are you saying that a system can not take advantage of a technical setup that the system defines? The whole point of using a system - in particular a mechanical system - is that we can not KNOW with certainty where price is going next. But we can DEFINE an edge ... a higher probability of what the market has done under similar circumstances in the past. I appreciate your motives here in the thread, but have to disagree with your hypothesis. I don't think systems are flawed, regardless of "the context of the day." But while I do believe there are profitable systems on the market, I also believe there are vendors who take advantage of the desire of traders to arrive quickly at their objective. I wouldn't paint all with the same brush.

It's upside down, and the visage of Obama is dominant. Clearly neither man is smiling. There is a certain ambience, and the feng shui is is in need of attendance. This is one of the earlier works, previously undiscovered, but should usher in a new period of surrealism.

But you would have to concur that the post-modern interruption of the new renaissance would have occurred despite the emergence of the ostensible affluence of the aging bourgeoisie? Certainly the opulent and neo-picassoist approach to the use of oils, has been surpassed by the new epoch - that of the Wall Street nouveau riche whose self-indulgence in the finer arts is surpassed only by their reliance on the recycling of the old masters, and the use of British Paints on their weatherboards. Pablo himself would have alluded to that approach as "using a broad brush" and I would say that this conversation is akin to a dog chasing its tail. Are we any clearer on this matter? I would not have the temerity to suggest that you have to condescend to agree with me, but loquacious elegance of the former correspondent has been surpassed by the silence of the Dalai Lama only in substance, and by default, due to the addressing of the issue in a less confronting, but more encompassing manner than previously thought possible by those on the extreme left.

You noticed Work on that. Not much to add - you already know ONE problem. If you are trading the daily TF, then why are you looking at the trade other than at the daily candle close? Same goes for all other TF. Turn the charts and trading platform off, and do something else. Let the trade develop and breathe as intended. You quoted Livermore ... if you are "right" ... then "sit tight." Often it is not the trade that beats us - we beat ourselves by talking ourselves out of the trade, because of a simple, natural pullback in price. You found that yourself - "Now out and watching the first idea develop as planned."

To pay for the tuition to allow you to use it successfully?