darthtrader

hey brownsfan, i take you post on elitetrader under the same name? i think i ran across you in a thread today. as far as dumb money goes... take it as an omen that i'm even talking to you here. i started out 2 years ago as a silver/gold bug. Still have my silver bullion i bought then, yet i found my way here and talking to you guys with real experience.....

i also wonder at this point how much money is flowing in to US mutual funds from people that can change their own 401k mix. I finally convinced my father to go to a financial advisor as his "strategy" in his 401k was basically to chase whatever was up alot. I know if he had not done that he would be shifting his mix to US funds right now without question. Seems like everyone i know at this point can tinker with their own 401k mix and i'm sure 90% of people that do that are going to be chasers.

great advice to us newbs bakrob. Thats something ive just recently realized after spending 2 years jumping around to different styles and having easily read 100 books, 99.5% being completely useless. I have no question that the hardest thing starting out is simply filtering out all the noise as far as information goes. Its pretty interesting to me that if i go to my local barnes and noble or borders, i dont believe there is a single title of any of the books reviewed on this website.

walterw, you should check out the think or swim demo, it has really nice options tools, i would think it can do what you need. i'm sure option station for TS could do this. any of you TS guys use option station?

dalby thats a fantastic idea i have never thought about before. I will have to explore that in the future as far as accumulating stock. I was actually messing around yesterday with the TOS paper trader selling naked calls on aapl. Thats the only time i could see actually selling naked calls with real money. The june 130s were at 1.90 last thursday, today they are at .05. They were still at a buck yesterday when aapl broke support. Has anyone ever looked for situations like that with liquid options? I assume dumb money retail gamblers were just gambling on options, it would seem in situations like that you could crowd the exit and sell naked calls.

waveslider, you might want to check out Jim Leitner's interview in Inside The House of Money. He has some interesting ideas on buying options and as he puts it "paying someone else to do your risk management for you". He uses a much longer time frame though than a week. I'm not there are many valid strategies for buying options on that time vs the stock as i would think any benefits you would gain from diversification you would lose on the spread and eating theta on the overall portfolio. I would think you would be much better off going with strategies that are short theta.

i found what i read, it was a link dr. brett gave to the trad2win board. "Before electronic exchanges there was an actual 'opening range' that was published on some exchanges to give 'off the floor' an idea of the 'moods' at the opening. Wide opening range could portend wilder days, narrow range could signal not much happening. The size of trades at the open were watched closely also. Since the advent of electronic and 24 X 7 markets, each trader is pretty much left to create his own 'Open'. and I don't believe that first few official minutes are as telling anymore because traders can now truly act 'before the bell' and enter many small orders to implement large trades 'around' the open etc. So, for Crabel, etc kinds of Breakout work, the Open can now just be the one first tick. (that unfortunately you must now disignate). For example, I use times that are on average 1 1/2 hour earlier than the official opening for US indexes, bonds, and currencies for some techniques. You could do all kinds of work on how markets are 'passed off' internationally, (rolling openings?). because there is no true opening anymore and the remnants of the old openings will most likely fade even more in the coming years as the 'globe' gets more involved."

ahh now i'm confused, i started reading toby crabel's book the other day and ran across dr. Brett's blog post about ORB tonight also. Surfing around i found some mention that Crabel's orb strategies worked better when the pitt use to call out the opening range? I was assuming they didnt do that anymore, are these basically 2 different things? The old opening range that was a specific time frame to now its just a few ticks?

anyone listen to Jason Stratton's video? that was some interesting stuff that i need to listen to again. sounds like he basically tries to arb the index cash market vs the futures. Maybe arb isnt the exact idea, basically use the difference to setup better risk reward on the futures. linda raschke has one that should be on here soon.

I do agree, this is by far the slowest read of a trading book i've ever ran across. I think alot of that has to do though that there is no filler or redundant information in this book, pretty amazing considering almost every other book seems to repeat at least some of another book. I've gotten into the "competent" section but stopped and i'm just going to reread the beginner and advanced beginner chapters until i know the info cold. That seems to be to me what Dalton had in mind if new to market profile. again 10 stars, worth every penny.

haha what???? this board is total madness learning wise, what is going on here?? David, i'm sold on your product as a newb trader, the bottom line is all that matters though. One time fee would be great, monthly fee has to be quite economic. James, you already got 20 bucks a month from me if you want to charge for this board. this place is insane.

bakrob, thats very interesting. could you go into some of Linda's exits if you know them? please no one here take anything i post as if i know anything, i'm a blank slate looking to be molded. i'm not here to make the quick buck though. hell, i have seriously considered that since most newb traders blow up, why not pay a relative to go in and randomly alter my entry system to the negation of my trade 85% of the time. obviously though, thats not exactly the point here, just making money as a newb.

bakrob99, I will certainly be scaling at some point. I really can't see though putting on 2 or 3 contracts with a 5k account risk wise. Dalton really has my head swimming now. There was some quote from Mind Over Markets about trading logic only coming from putting on trades, something like that. So what you guys think about this. Instead of trying to make money on this first 5k YM account, set a goal of trying to put on 100 trades and break even? Use a 10 point stop and an automatic 10 point profit target. Then keep putting on 100 trade blocks with the same 10/10 stop/profit until i have made money over the 100 trades? Basically like setup batting practice. That would seem alot more logical than backtesting to try to see if you actually have positive expectancy.

anyone ever try this software out? TraderDNA Brett Steenbarger mentioned it in his CBOT webinar. It looks quite interesting, metrics to keep track of what your doing as far as trading. If no one has used it i'm going to give them a call this week and see about the price. looks like a great tool, especially for a newbie like myself.

oh yea, don't worry Tin. I might even be ordering it in the next few days so I dont have to wait once done with Mind over Markets. I'm blown away by Dalton. with those 2 books is there anything of value as far as reading Steidlmayer on Markets? another MP book on amazon i found was Dynamic Trading Indicators: Winning with Value Charts and Price Action Profile. anyone ever check that out? only 11 bucks used.

i just got Dalton's Mind Over Markets saturday and read the first 3 chapters tonight. I think it came to 21 bucks with shipping on amazon. Already the MP stuff on here makes way more sense. Totally worth 21 bucks.

mike, i had that problem when i started on scottrade. i think you just need to get a margin account with them. it will still be 3 days for settlement but one of the sides will go into margin, pretty much gets rid of that problem. also you can buy stocks with unsettled funds but you cant sell until everything is settled or you will get a "free ride" and either have to come up with the cash or if you do it too many times they will freaze your account. not recommended to buy with unsettled funds.

thanks for the Elitetrader link. In all honesty since finding this board elite has become quite hard to read. so much garbage to sift through and seemingly angry responses, like "go flip burgers" in that thread posted. I was actually look at the ninja trader the other day. something that looked interesting is the replay function. is it possible say replay the day and paper trade at 10pm for practice? I'm sure I will paper trade for a bit when i get going but I didnt really get much from paper trading stocks. also, have any of you backtested your setups with different stops? that is something i will be interested in checking out once i get going.

excellent, thanks guys. It's far too pricey for me but wasn't sure if there was something there i would be missing out on. Last thing I need right now is information overkill.

also everyone should check out his reading list The Speculator's Reading List I also pitty the poor soul that ever has my children 2_vic_template

dalby, "You will either love this book or hate it." To me Niederhoffer is a genious, you can gain from this book if you see that his weakness is that he speculates like hes playing squash. he wants to win and beat everyone no matter what. I want my equity curve to be nice and smooth but i'm under no delusion ill ever be as rich as Vic. If i had his brain i would do the same thing, but since i don't you can still learn from him as long as you see what his downside is.

ehh..like i said in the intro section i found this forum trying to find a cheaper version of marketdelta.com/Brett Steenbarger's MP/MD ideas. does anyone here actually pay for market delta? The market profile on the cheap thread i made should have really been "market delta on the cheap". market delta looks fantastic, you guys seem to be quite profitable to be able to afford 300 bucks a month. if you don't use marketdelta.com is it just because the TS tools proxy it close enough to not bother with the fee? damn Mind Over Markets is stuck in the next state, i'm so hungry for this info, its driving me nuts.

its like a work of art i can't wait to watch the tape in real time.

thanks guys, good food for thought. i'm certainly not a get rich quick type, i actually read books for a year before i felt i could even place my first stock trade. i guess i will have to see how it goes with a 10 point stop. with this first 5k account i will be looking to get max screen time as opposed to making money. i'm kind of hoping the 10 point stop forces me to only take the best entry point and then 20 points and out will force me from giving things back on a winning trade. I will explore 15 though. i guess market orders must really suck on TS. would it make more sense to open an account with another broker along with TS? turn 10 trips a month on TS then use the other broker after? is it really that bad on TS? I have heard so much negative stuff about TS as a broker.

thanks guys, great to hear 20 points is a reasonable goal. Cant say how much I love this board already. Other boards ive been on it feels like I know more than the posters, on here I know absolutely nothing.....