Vince50

Mistagear, 5 or 6 yrs ago I would have really bit into what you posted and started backtesting and observing live to view this phenomena you speak of first hand. But we all know(?lol) now, that what you are saying can be done for a few small time frame bars but more than a few minutes and market equilibrium always steps back in. In fact I am totally blown away how in the Forex market in the last few months I am seeing on every time frame from 15-60 and daily that many times a big sell off of 4 or 5 bars will occur on small-medium volume, and then a big rally will occur for 2 or 3 bars on higher volume and the price doesnt even make it back to where it was at the first bar. So I would assume "Oh wow, its a fake sell off as the "real money" is buying, and then you know what.....50% of the time it goes up from there, and 50% of the time it goes down. Ive actually seen tiny volume control a currency pair on the daily charts for 2-3 weeks and then huge volume comes in higher in total than all the down bars for 2-3 bars and it never even gets 60% of the prior move back. And then, as you try to figure out, "where is the angle" on this?" the pair just floats sideways on brisk volume for days at a time, showing that both sides still want control!!! And this phenomena to me, is why spot currency trading is not the way to make a living as a trader. I will bet you many years a pair will end so close to ehere it was at the beginning of the year, you wonder why they bothered trading it at all!!! The traders just wasted time looking at a screen for a year. Now the question arises.......do you want those bars to have huge wicks and tails as some pairs do while winding up back in the same place 2 weeks later or do you want a slow almost riskless grind. Or as I feel, I will pass altogether as big wicks on the daily shows there is too much nonsense and game playing going on. I'm still wondering why they even bother to open the asian session at all sometimes! It is absolutely an unbeatable proposition with even a 3 pip spread for a day trader, many a night.

I DISAGREE AND ALSO AGREE. Bar closes are not "important" in the sense that they mean anything significant to any significant number of people, except in one major case: the close of the day. The day itself may be structured such that we subdivide it into periods which allow us to function more effectively (for example, we may define the first half hour as the opening range, the first hour as the initial balance, and we may refer to the morning, midday, and afternoon, and so on); however, the only instance in which the market really has the notion of a "close" is the close of the day, and given the global nature of markets, the true close of the market comes at the end of the week, when there is a true break from trading for 48 hours. Maybe that ruffles your feathers, if you are a fan of VSA or some other strategy which pays attention to the bar close, but the logic should be clear. We are all watching the same market, but one trader uses a 5 minute bar, one uses a 1 minute bar, another a 30 minute bar, another a 10K vol bar, another a 5K tick bar, another an 8 range bar, and so on. These are just data presentation mechanisms, and the market does not have a concept of any of them; they are purely our creation. The close of a bar is a snapshot of a price traded in the flow of market activity. I wish I had all the money back I lost when I was playing a system that had me entering when the bar closed across a specific moving average or price or area and I did not. How can you not do what I do, check this out. You have a simple system that if it qualifies on 2 simple rules and then closes beyond a specific moving average you "know" this pair, or this instrument respects(and no guys, all instruments dont respect the same moving averages which is why I suspect many MA system players go broke. BACK TO MY TRADE: I am playing a 60m chart and Ive already seen the previous bar close hug,enguphing and red, a real "no doubt about the direction now" kind of bar. And before that was another very small red bar which didnt call to me yet but now the chart is saying, "dummy, youve had 2 hours of downward action on this Forex Pair. The 3rd bar which has also crossed your moving average just now has already taken up half the size of the previous huge bar and 2 huge bars the same whopping size are very improbbable. If I wait for the close I might be running into exhaustion time. Why not get in now as there is 30 min left and this thing could put every indicator on earth on oversold in another 7-8 min of this kind of action. What can i lose ,plus the stop will be tighter?" So Moron me, jumps in and then runs to the kitchen to grab a piece of fruit. My stop is right above last bars close(on a solid bar) so i take my time. I come back 15 min later on purpose just so in case it runs away, I dont take "the early profit and run.' So I come back 15 min later and I see what was a solid bar is now a hammer! What do we see more often, hammers or solid bars? In fact, dont most hammers come from solid bars? Yet I still do this sometimes with the caveat that if I am in profit at bar close and its not too extended, i will add another lot but put the stop at previous bars entry, sometimes i put BOTH stops at previous bars entry and sometimes i play them independently. What I want to say is... I cannot say which way is more profitable at end of year. So how can you possible say that as I bet that also fluctuates instrument to instrument or pair? I will say that when the trade doesnt work out, you feel like you cheated, and when ity does work out and it really starts running away....you made mo plans for a 2 lot stop and you will hold overnight until it crosses something else, so now you dont know whether to leave it all on the table, take 1 off or take both off. Its why i prefer swing trading. It seems to work better getting in by latest 9:30-10am because after that the big boys might be done and all you see is illusory 'gambling" done by still some of the bigger gamblers...but they are still the gamblers. So if you wont wait for bar close....for God sake dont get in after 11:30am!!!!....especially if you plan to watch it till equity market close. Its done by 1130. noon latest and then its just watching paint dry on the wall after that, all the news is already out and factored in loooooong ago. So the ansere is: THERE IS NONE AND I THINK IT WOULD BE SO CLOSE, I WILL NOT SPEND MONTHS backtesting 2-3 PAIRS TO SEE A TINY DIFFERENCE...............Unless this pair had an unusually large continual amout of needles and wicks all year round. Then.........

Mits, you wrote this to me: You'd like to write a book about doing something which is so beneficial (according to some other guy) that you are unable to do it yourself? I just wonder what the rest of this book would be about.How to ignore good advice? And you want us to PM you for some further insight that you couldn't just discuss here?.... Why? First of all, id think after 1200 posts here youd just stick to building people up or not say anything....just like our mothers taught us. We have enough people who are ex-perts on trading on this and every trading board already, no? #2-I said I couldnt keep a journal anymore but you dont bother to ask why. Let me tell you..........I DID IT FOR YEARS! When you take karate for example and you watch a guy walk into the dojo and not warm up, you know either he is cutting corners....or he has sooooo much experience he understand his mind and body well enough that it is not mandatory for him anymore. #3-Yes, Id like to write a book. The fact that I havent should count as a plus, because most guys who write books cannot trade profitably for long periods....or they wouldnt write books. Warren Buffett waited 50 yrs to write a book. I wonder why? #4-Yes according to "some other guy"? Do you know who this other guy is, before you berate him? This "other" guy has called more daily tops and bottoms in the equity market in front of me by 10:30 than all the trade room callers in the country combined. He prefers to enjoy his money and stay anonymous. #5-Often the best teachers to learn from, are those who make a lot of mistakes....and admit them. I still am happy to PM with those who can see I did not start trading last year. -( You already have gone beyond us all here so you wouldn't PM anyone for advice anyway. I would not be on ANY thread where I could not respect what at least one person wrote enough to seek them out privately. Some of the best things here Im sure have been said #6-WHY DID YOU PICK ME OUT OF THE CROWD TO BUST MY CHOPS? AM I SPECIAL? Or do you just do it to everyone you dont agree with or newbies you can bully. I can see you'd be the kind of teacher that would take the wind out of his students sails as soon as the kid started becoming a little too pleased with himself. I dont have the time nor the "self importance" to post 1200 times here as you do or to put anyone else down who admits they cant always do what they preach. I am in that catagory. It is called being human.I am too busy learning from others and managing my spot currency and equities accounts. Please do not comment to me again, and I will show you the same respect. The only post of yours I would like to see, is just your last year of trading statements of live accounts.Surely you make a very handsome living to be able to put "me" down. I am really very offended by you saying all this, and not even knowing me if I am profitable or not, my age, my yrs trading and who my mentors were. I think you were very out of line. Let us shake hands and go our separate ways, please. To leave something here on a positive note. May I say to some of the newer guys to trading here: Do not be intimidated by the people who know more than you or have many more years experience. Often the best systems and the biggest winners are those with limited knowledge, who can write their system on the back of an envelope and even a 14 year old can understand it. In fact, as a tip for all of us, myself included..........after you finish studying all of your indicators, fib numbers and different time frames, and you want to know what to do, bring a child into the room,ask him to look at the chart you want to trade from and ask him if the currency or stock is going up or down, then you will know the trend far better than any indicator. Children see simply and clearly! Happy trading, everyone.

As I think about it, my dilemma is that Im not a day trader. The lowest time frame I will play is the 60m and thats usually a 2 day trade on avg. So I usually get in at the start of a new day/night which on NY time is 6pm. I watch it until the spreads close up and get some kind of feel for what the mky wants to do*** and I put my trades on, and truthfully i dont HAVE to be watching the london session, i could wait for the ny, but i often sleep right thru NY till 11am. so I never trust my sleep habits so i get up at 2am to "take a peak" and suddenly im trading till 5:30am. I really must try to put my trades on at 7pm and shut down till morning. Or.....retest both of my systems and see how they would work if i dont even look at the charts till 7:45am or so when NY gets rolling.That is my goal. Or...I can kiss getting back into great shape in the gym again good bye. At 54 its hard enough.

Excellent post. The ramifications of it I am first feeling now....after 15 yrs of trading. TRADING FOR MOST OF US WILL NEVER BE WORTH IT BECAUSE.....We can never do both...1-pay our bills from our winnings, and compound our money until our acct is big enough to make us rich. I am a winning trader. I win consistantly. But waht good is making 50% a year which is better than Warren does if all of that and more goes for living expenses. Its a guarantee to go broke. The guy who gets into trading as a hobby,with the goal to slowly learn, and the ultimate goal to add extra income to his nest egg,will likely be the one to become the next Buffett! Are we all blind when we start trading? Why do we not do the math and ask ourselves...How will we ever have the size trading account we need if we cant even make enough to pay all our bills? Unless we have a wife who works that dont mind paying the bills..............this is a movie that will usually have a very sad ending. Look at all the guys selling systems on the Internet that claimed to be floor traders with yrs of experience. What happened to all of their money?

This video needs to be sent to the NRA and many congrssmen and people who could use their influence to help this video make a difference. Thanks a bunch for this! This is a perfect example of responsible, hardworking,good people who almost lost their lives and they were all veteran gun users or under the guidance of one. It makes a good case for much more proper training. How about this:Every gun owner who wants a "special CWP and "unrestricted gun use" must pass a fulll 2 day course and the govt would pick up most of the cost, the gun buyer to show he is serious would pay maybe $100. That automatically leaves out all criminals with records, most rednecks and definitely people who have an IQ under 80(sadly they pose the greatest threat of gun violence,no? lol) SEND THIS PUPPY OFF TO THE NRA AND MR OBAMA ASAP. -) As an aside, gun ownership IS going to increase regardless of laws passed, the mfrs like Rueger and Glock are going to become even wealthier but I predict that mistakes likie we saw here on this video,will turn into tragedies that will daily be on the 6 o click news. Hey wait a sec, why arent we seeing more of these on the news? dONT TELL ME THE nra BOUGHT OFF THE MEDIA ALREADY? And to this degree????? I pray not, boys.

Sun, not that MM needs any help from me to stick up for him. I have a question for you? Has MM if yiou look thru every single thread he posted here, has he said one thing that was devoid of logic, common sense, and a calm stance of standing back and looking at the facts? He has not responded to insults, cursed at or put anyone down in any way. These are all earmarks of a very intelligent forward thinking man who is open to new thought but makes decisions based on what he feels will work best, not on what supports his opinion. I doubt 2% of people in general have all those skills. And I will bet money that if you could show statisitcs or barring that, any kind of REAL proof that arming a citizen will indeed keep that person safer, I believe mighty mouse would change his mind. I myself own handguns. I am not happy that I have to do so. My own very strong opinion I "believe" would be borne out by statisitics is that GUNS WILL KEEP YOU SAFER IN SOME PARTS OF THE COUNTRY. IN OTHER PARTS IT WILL INCREASE THE ODDS OF YOU BEING MURDERED. How could this not be true when the difference of opinio and vaues of Americans vary sooooo much from city to city and even neighborhood to neighborhood. I can almost assure you, that placing guns in the hands of working class people who by chance wound up living in a gang and crime infested area is going to have a completely different result than placing several handguns and/or rifles in the home of a middle class man who goes hunting every week with his sons, which will differ from the result of movie starts like Sylvester Stallone keeping guns in his house as he is always worried about nuts trying to seek him out and "test " him.**** ****What a concept. Issuing guns with different classes or levels of rules per person. A movie star with constant death threats but has a drug problem should not be given the same permit or license as say a man who is an attorney, a community leader, has no drug or alcohol usage and has shown responsibility with his gun ownership....by never firing his gun! Also, should a man who has been on prozac be given the exact same rights withy guns as a man who lives in a gang infested area and is jumpy every day he walks outside his house? Who is more at risk? And at risk for what!!!!!? This merry-go-round never ends does it? And does a man who lives in a ghetto with a high murder rate, is he likely to be more responsible or less in owning a handgun? Here is the problem: I dont really know which group would benefit and which would not by carrying weapons, or keeping them in their home. But I wont shoot my mouth off claiming one way or another is a fact. I do have sympathy for people who live in ghettos and claim-How dare they try to stop us from owning guns when every other person in my neighborhood is carrying , the only dofference is he doesnt care if he gets prison time for carrying illegally. And you want me to depend on the police to protect me when they themselves are scared to come into my neighborhood." THIS GUY HAS A POINT! But what do the stats say, And............. drum roll please................WHETHER WE FIND OUT LATER ON, THAT EITHER REDUCING OR INCREASING GUN OWNERSHIP WAS THE ANSWER...IT CAN NEVER BE THE COMPLETE ANSWER. So.....................what else needs to be done to stop crime besides dealing with it at a gun ownership level. To me doing that, is putting ourselves in a Confederate America 1863 mentality. There are far too many other factors on what we NEED to do to reduce violence than making it harder or easier to buy guns. I think while I cant prove that...its a fact! Anyone disagree? I think the bigger problem is we dont have enough people in govt who are willing to say....the answer we come up with will never satisfy both sides. One group of Americans will feel threatened no matter what laws we pass. "WE DONT KNOW THE ANSWER TO THAT" Maybe we can fund a task force and/or organization who can do the research and find out a-what is better, more or less guns b-what will make all Americans "feel" safer aside from gun issues. Gee...yuh think having community leaders that actually lead might be a good start. Bye bye Mr Sharpton. Until we get rid of civil rights leaders, govt officials and others who lead with their mouth and not with proof, stats, and facts and especially caring................all the guns in the world wont save us.

plust, You really are more right than you know. We keep a journal for a while, and then we go, "oh yeah, I see Im getting out too early, or worse yet...........WE CONFUSE OUR OWN SELVES! We find that one trade we just got in and got out. The next trade we added on as profit accrued, and the next trade we put on 3 lots and took "OFF" lots as profits accrued. So often, the trade journal makes us realize that even though we have an absolute trading plan, we have no trading plan thats understandable even to ourselves. LOL And then we slowly just stop keeping records. I think the less organized we are in keeping records the more we need to focus on that and less on trading, even if it means cutting your trades in half and more time pulling them apart, piece by piece like an expert mechanic trying to find the noise in his car. Now, Im not saying we literally change money mgmt with every trade but we do it often enough because we always want to either "squeeze more" or " lose less" on our trades so...the journal reveals the chaos. Sometimes I think some of us are incapable of journaling coherently on a consistant basis and should just keep a log insted. You know" Eur/usd short@13533. All in all out. 10:05am in 3:22pm out. Got out on price break of 8sma.. PROFIT: 59 pips The problem with this is that it doesnt tell us if we have a winning system and if we are losing every week, it doesnt tell us why. So then we spend more time in figuring out how to not keep proper journals and records than we do actually trading. I am not an organized person. My desk is always a mess and a pile of notebooks and papers that have gotten shuffled to another spot and back to my desk,some papers for 2 yrs now! Im serious. Im doing this 15 yrs and I still hate meticulous record keeping. The problem with trading or being the best at anything this hard is that you can do 9 things perfect,and the one thing you dont do right,may prevent you from winning at all. I sometimes wish I got into tennis instead of trading. Then I would get feedback every day. Just from the score! Plus my opponent would tell me"Hey,you are depending too much on your backhand"..my instructor would give me his take, and every person I played while training would give me his /her feedback. We dont get that in trading.We must give it to ourselves, and that's often the fatal flaw to a dream of becoming a mega successful trader. I truly think that 75% of us would increase our profits by 50% if we could hire someone to keep inpecable records for us. That would include a journal. They would obviously be taking dictation from us after every single trade! Graphs showing what times worked out best, what pairs, which MM method, even our mood at the time. Now that I think about it, if done really professionally, more time would easily be spent keeping records than actually trading itself. I have always claimed on this board, FF, and many others, that trading is so much harder than it needs to be because we are doing it alone. And listening to myself now, I can clearly see that spending 2 hrs a day on Forex trading boards like this, wonderful as they may be, can never take the place of a partner sitting at the next desk in an office with you, BOTH OF YOU LOOOKING AT THE SAME SCREEN,SAME CHARTS ,SAME TIME,SAME PLACE! I dont care that some of the market wizards and your best friends best friend all got rich trading at home in their underwear. IT IS NOT THE RIGHT WAY TO TRADE! And we buy software and newsletters so we feel we arent doing this alone. WE ARE DOING IT COMPLETELY ALONE IF ANOTHER PERSON IS NOT IN THE ROOM WITH US! Maybe, just maybe, you need traders to work in pairs. One guy is the actual trader who executes, and the other guy is monitoring the trader and in a sense analyzing the guy who is analyzing the charts! Yuh think maybe you'd get a different result,doing that? Maybe....yuh think? :haha: Perfect corrolation/example: When the great boxer Muhammad Ali first got known, many of his critics thought he would never last because he broke 2 cardinal rules of boxing: He kept his left hand down way too low and was unguarded, and #2 he often punched moving backwards which goes against the law of physics! Despite these huge " flaws/bad habits" he became the champion of the world! Now here is the analogy..........You get into boxing tomorrow....and you try to box the same way he did. I assure you that your next hospital visit and early retirement from the sport will be close by! Now by the same token...you get someone into trading and have them do it the way many pro traders do. They will lose their shirt. What we also dont know about the market wizards or anyone else is that they may have spent a looooong time being perfectly disciplined,refining their craft and keeping records in an office doing it the right way. They just leave that part out....in "some" cases. So maybe that should lead a to cardinal rule #6: Dont trade alone if you cant keep good records. And if you must trade alone and you are not winning(on paper,sim or live)...........DONT TRADE. IT MAY NOT BE FOR YOU! AND SPEAKING OF MARKET WIZARDS, HEDGE FUND PROS, AND THE BEST FOREX TRADERS ON THE PLANET: Would any professional trader making over 500k per yr, be so cheap that they would not hire an asst. or 2 or 3 to work with them and keep track of records and data they never could. I bet when the big pros like Paul Tudor Jones (who has 29 people working for him!) have their end of the month "How did we do this month" meeting, I will bet all my money that he finds out something new, that one of his assistants brings out a pattern that either he or the market is doing, he would never catch by themselves. In my humble opinion,after about 40 years researching what makes people the best at any endeavor,and keeps them there is........ The amount of success you have will be directly proportionate to the abilities of the people you have around you. Period! Look at Tiger Woods and Venus and Serena Williams. How could they have made it to the top of a game every bit as hard as trading while teenagers! Could they have ever done it that fast alone. Impossible! Could they have even done it at all....alone?.......improbable. Why look to swim against the tide. This is the way a successful life works. Even Warren Buffett needs Charlie Munger .......and a staff. And Im sure he isnt in and out of a trade 3x a day like many of us are.So if he needs backup...... I will admit to all of you right now. I am a winning trader. But I cant trade for a living. Big difference. And I suspect that not keeping meticulous records is the main culprit. I always wanted to marry a woman who loved trading and loved keeping records. How many women are there in the world like that? Six? LOL And after all is said and done......YES, I TRADE ALONE........FOR NOW.

Never mind. PLEASE DONT SEND ME ANY INFO. I went to the website. Whenever any website starts off with "Discover trends before they begin" that's a red flag to be sure. And to call your indicator Fibonacci miracle, means its NOT a miracle. This looks like a scam to me. A huge scam. Even my research on Forex Peace Army says this is a scam. Im not blaming anyone for posting it here but this indicator and especially fibonaccimiracle.com website which takes you to a website with another name!!!!......its all too fishy for me. I will pass.

Awesome looking charts! I really would like to find out more about the cost of this Fib package and all the details on what it does, so I can figure out how to integrate it into my own system I am currently using. Where can I see more info,please? Does it only work with trade station charts? thank you.

Phoenix, I am ashamed. How can I mention printing out trades and not keeping a journal. Of course! the journal helps you to spot the patterns you cant see in the visuals. They are like Brother and sister. One alone is powerful, both are unbeatable. Having neither means trading is just a hobby. Unless you already are a pro.But then youd have the past print outs and journals to show us anyway. It all comes full circle. Thank you Phoenix! Now....is there one person on this thread who does both......every day without fail? How about 3x a week when you think of it? No? How about after you drank a pint of Jack Daniels and you are wondering why the trading action is so slow in the Eur/Usd.......on saturday at noon?!!!:rofl:

Jesse Livermore traded on inside information and by the seat of his pants and played Monday morning quarterback. You are not learning what he did; instead, you are learning what he should have done. There are really no records of his claims. A great deal of it sounds like bullshit to me, especially the part about cleaning out the bucket shops because he was so good. Give me a friggin break. Mouse, as usual you are spewing out waaaay too much logic. I really dont need that much reality in my life. What I need is coffe. Plenty and plenty and plenty of coffe. Black, sweet, milk, no milk doesnt matter. As long as I can get into that "energy state" the floor traders do right before the opening bell, I want it! :coffee: Now I alwasy thought what you did about Livermore but was afraid to say anything and tarnish the great ones image. But if bottom line results are what we are going by here...committing suicide and dying broke is not a sign this man had his sh%$t together as a trader.........winner or not! As far as the 4 cardinal rules go, most of you are missing the boat. Wnat we need to focus on is the 5th cardinal rule which will help you to take care of at least 3 out of the 4 all by itself. THE FIFTH CARDINAL RULE: Print out every single trade you make. Mark your entry and exit points, and go over where you could have changed your strategy to have gotten either more profit, less loss on your losers...or....avoided the trade altogether because you made so little it just wasted your day. This 5th rule was given to me by a man whose name I will not mention. I consider him to be the best day trader of equities I ever saw in my life with n oone even in his league. Why?...I spent 6-9 months watching him give us in the room the trades BEFORE they were taken! And he made more money in the first 90 minutes of trading than anyone I ever saw did in the whole day. In fact, very often by 11am, he was just kicking back watching his winners run. That is a mighty good goal to have as a day trader. Do you realy think you wont burn out if you are constantly looking for trades all thru the day? I spent a fortune in money and time to get his principles. Do not discount them lightly. He said this rule made him the trader he is today. Discount it at your own risk. Or career! He says that if you dont go over your trades as soon as the trading day is over, you are never going to have the same perspective on it if you wait till the morning or next day. This 5th rule is so hard to do by the way, 4 years later after learning it, I still dont do it. Question for the group: Who does do it? One pro's thought about that is that if you cant take the time to do it, you are over-trading. Cut your trades by 60% and spend more time analyzing them " after the dealings done." There is soooo much to be gained by this simple exercise I was thinking about writing a book about it. How about this for a compromise. Print out 2 trades every day. Your biggest winner and your biggest loser and compare them to each other. Was it just luck and the loser was by far the better thought out trade. We need to re-memorize the trade then as our memory often records extreme pleasure and painful trades over simply good ones that have little emotion. PM me if you want to discuss this in depth.

WARREN BUFFETT IS THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION: Edgar, put another way. Why do you think Warren Buffett is the most successful investor in the world in pure dollars made? I will tell you exactly why. Before I do, is anyone in this whole board been able to answer that question correctly. I have not seen it in over 25 yrs reading about "The Oracle of Omaha." WARREN BUFFETT IS THE MOST SUCCESSFUL IN THE WORLD BECAUSE HE STILL LIVES IN THE SAME $34,000 HOUSE HE BOUGHT 40 YEARS AGO AND STILL WEARS A $20 TIMEX WATCH. This allows him to re-invest every single dolar he makes. End of story. I so far in my 54 years, have never heard of anyone else who can or evebn wants to do that. I would not trade places with Warren for all the tea in China. A man who is that frugal obtains all of his happiness from looking at stocks morning ,afternoon at night and probbaly when he is in the shower. I would bet if you put all his exciting moments into one place, it would fill a shoe box. Warren is a genius, but a man of very simple needs. I dont think there are 3 people on this whole forum that would ever be able to live in Omaha,in the middle of nowhere and just talk to people on the phone about companies performance day and night. For most of us, suicide is a better option. The traders I have been " let in on" their stories who have tried that life, everyone became drug addicts or mentally unbalanced or sick in some way. Look at Jesse Livermore. Committed suicide as an older man in a hotel room and died dead broke. And some say he was the best stock trader who ever lived. W.D. Gann...the great math genius some say was smarter than Livermore, had to resort to selling his system one book at a time for $1500 each, to survive. Some food for thought.

Edgar, The sad reality of trading for a living: Its funny how everyone says how much you made isnt the whole story. That is until you ask them: Im going to give you a scholarship to study with a professional trader. One makes $10million a year(no other facts disclosed) and the other makes $40,000 a year, but the 40k trader only works 1/2 a day and just follows 1 market while the 10m trader has to keep track of many. EVERY PERSON WILL CHOOSE THE $10 million dollar trader. Money talks and BS walks,every time. Now with that said, I think that unless you have big sums to start your account with, the most important thing is to determine what your LIFETIME EARNING POTENTIAL IS. tHIS CAn only be done be knowing what you will be starting out with and how much % you will make on that money on average every year. Period. Nothing else counts. You can count pips if you like, hours per day traded, or how many times you brush your teeth per day. In the end, if you make 100% annual return, and I will even throw in that you pay no taxes, and you have a $25,000 starting account which is a bit on the high side for starting Forex accounts, and your living expenses are $28,000 per year, you will never be able to be anything but poor as your outflow is more than your inflow. However in the same scenario....if you make 33.3% return on your money, but you have 10 million in your account thats 3.3 million in profit yearly. But if your living expenses are 4 million a year I will still jump into your shoes because you can always borrow, open another business, or easiest...cut out a lot of un-necessary expenses you have every month.The person spending $28k per year cant even pay for the needs he has right now! In the end, unless you inherited money, you want to be able to make enough and either do 1 of 2 things- double the amount of moeny you can leave in your account so you get to be a million dolar earner. That means you need to make over 100% annually and 99% of traders will never ever be able to keep that up even if they did it one year. or...you need to be able to deposit an amount of money sop large, that if you can live off 40% of that every year and be happy without touching the principle, thats OK too. The problem most traders (and pro poker players) almost alwasy run into is...............the one year you have a losing 6 months and your accct starts dwindling,you lose your confidence, you start freaking out and cutting expenses and soon you blew out your acct. Now, you may have made 2 million dollars by the time you "go thru" the million that was already in your acct, but where most traders alwasy get fatally shot is that when that year happens, you can never get back in the game.. Being 15 yrs in trading I would say trading is a game for the young who can blow out an acct, move back with their parents and start all over again. Or for people that already have enough to live decently on now in the bank but they want a lot more. My story: I am a winning trader at this point. I cannot after 15 yrs call myself professional because my acct is to small to pay all my bills. My hope is to both double my annual return and also double my acct size thru outside work utilizing other talents, or I will eventually grow weary of trading as many have and then it becomes just a past time or hobby. See Edgar, I believe many traders we will never hear of, can crush all the famous guys out there who write books and have invented their own indicators and systems(because they cant win enough to live off of.) but they dont have the aggressive personality to get other people to fund them, or they just can never win enough for one reason or another. The sad truth is, what good is being the best in the world and making 600% annually every year,if yiou only have $1000 starting money and your expenses are over $6000 a year. Most of us reach our peak in trading sadly, far after our earning years have peaked or visa versa. Its why so many good traders have 3 hrs a day to spend posting on trading boards. They make enough to talk about, but niot enough to have a life outside trading. Trading is n ot the best choice of Profession for people who avoid reality or read too many Anthony Robbins books. That would include me to a degree. Thats the sad reality of trading.