james_gsx

There was an article not too long ago in SFO magazine about the carry trade, it was pretty good if you know nothing about it. I'll look for it on their website and if I find it I will post it.

Hey Torero you might want to try something I learned about today in a seminar from a guy who's been trading currencies and futures for longer than I've been alive. Go through all those setups on your own, meaning with your eyes and no back testing and see how many times that setup appeared. Figure out how many times it setup and how many times it worked. Then find out how much heat you went under (how many ticks it dropped before becoming a successful trade) and mark it. For example if the most it has dropped was 6 ticks then turned around and became a successful trade make your stop 7 ticks. Because obviously if it fell 7 ticks it was never successful. Of course you can manage that based on a trade you think you held on for too long due to emotion and so on and so forth. You can also do the opposite to figure out how many ticks you can expect to gain before you start taking some profit off the table. Hope it helps.

I haven't subscribed to pit noise yet, since I will get a discount when I start working for the prop firm. I just don't see spending all that money when I can't trade full time. Contrary to that, it would be nice to listen to it and get a feel for how it works before I start at the firm, we'll see lol

Will do Brownsfan, and thanks.

Alright, seeing as how the last AAPL thread seemed to do pretty well with people offering their inputs I thought we could give it a shot with a current weekly chart of the Dow. From my newbie perspective, I see a doji but the week still finished up on strong volume. The week opened low near support and the bulls pushed the market higher only to panic and fall back to support. This week came with stronger volume and the market panicked early, then the bulls regained strength to finish at support. Now what's weird IMO is how the week before looks like the bears took control yet we finished higher, and this last week the bulls took control yet we finished lower. How would you take this? I see a lot of indecision, well emotion taking over. You could make the argument that the weeks before we saw a lot of people get shaken out on big volume, and then a ton of indecision to follow with just as strong of volume following after. I guess we wait for confirmation? I know how I'm going to play this already, but from a purely candlestick/volume view how would you perceive it?

What is everyones input on all the dojis in AAPL? I am interested to here some feedback from those of you who know the art. I called a top based purely on psychological reasons (everyone loved the stock and I heard enough about it, knew it would have a short term top). So how would you interpret this chart? It looks like a lot of indecision, but how would you decide what will happen next?

It's funny, I'm so motivated yet so scared to take the chance and go after it. I'm exactly what I tell people not to do, and I give out advice that I can't seem to take. If I take a chance, I may lose absolutely everything but my family and close friends. But at the end of the day, who really cares? Who cares what some credit report says, no one can take away from me that I went after it. I had a customer at Best Buy once tell me he was no longer eligible to be employed by any company because of his issues with the IRS. But he could start his own companies, and he kept trying for years and things are finally starting to work out for him. He's got a family, and is disgustingly in debt and his credit is shattered... yet he's still chasing his dream. I could learn a lot from that guy. It's easy to talk the talk, not so easy to walk the walk.

Thanks for the post, it really did help. But I really like this last part of your post and it sounds like most of my high school years. I didn't listen in highschool simply because I didn't care and I knew that high school wouldn't teach me a damn thing about anything I wanted to do in life. And yes, quitting annoys and disturbs me, and I left because as I saw it - it was a waste of time for me. I have looked more into myself and noticed that I have a fear of both success and failure. I see the life I want just on the horizon and so close to grasp yet I won't make the move, I won't take the chance to do something about it. I see this in my trading sometimes as well, mostly with equities and not so much with futures (at least not yet). I see an opportunity and I sit on it, and I don't act. Right now my life is in sort of a rat race that I don't like. I can live with it, it's not a shitty life but it's not what I could be making myself out to be. I used to always tell myself go take the risk, who cares if you fail might as well happen while you're young right? But for some reason, I can't even seem to take any steps anywhere. It's like I'm afraid of change, yet beg for change at the same time. I would suspect my rat brain has a lot to do with it, theres something in me that doesn't want to move forward, but my concious mind wants to sprint towards the goal. I almost want to say there is something deep down that I am yet to find and clear up, and once I do I will be on my way. But I have no idea what that could be... For some reason I am afraid to go after success, not sure why. Maybe it has to do with my parents, they were never truly as successful as they could have been and it's possible I could have programmed it into my brain that I can't be successful either because they weren't. Or maybe it's because people have had such high expectations of me my whole life that I'm afraid to really go after it, kinda like some sort of paralysis. I have a lot to think about. I am extremely motivated, but I'm too scared to take the first step. Maybe I just have to force myself to take the steps, and eventually my natural motivation will kick in and I'll get things done? I leave for home tomorrow, I don't want to go. I know I'm returning back to my normal life and frankly I don't feel like I'm ready, like I need more time to think. But I'm grateful for how much I've learned about myself in this short week.

Could it be the next "Smartest Men in the Room Part Two"? I know how it negative it would be of me to want that to happen. But I can't help it, it would be so exciting... kinda like a huge crash. Maybe I should talk to the trading doctor about this.. haha Anyways, thing's aren't looking good and I have a feeling they won't turn out so well. Any thoughts?

Interesting thread, correct me if I'm wrong but there isn't a pattern day trader rule for futures right? So I could trade however many times I wanted without my account being frozen?

No, we stayed up in Amarillo and I helped my sister plan her wedding. We were going to head down tomorrow, but that seems pointless as it's a 5 hour drive and I have to leave Friday morning anyways. Oh well, I visit Texas quite often so I'll be back.

Abe, you should have waited for the break in the neckline before making the trade. That would have been your confirmation for a head and shoulders pattern.

Thanks PYenner, that post helps a lot. I was writing in my journal tonight and came across a little self discovery. I currently have a feeling that has been digging through my chest for weeks, this feeling is far too common and it sucks. It's definitely a mix of depression and anxiety. I quickly looked back and analyzed where and how I first felt these symptoms, interestingly enough they are all linked. In 9th grade my parents were getting divorced, for the first time in my life my grades were suffering. I went from an A student to a D/F student. I felt out of control, and ultimately failed my first class ever. I felt the same feeling then, and it was terrible. I often felt that way when my grades would drop, ultimately I had the feeling that I lost control and failed. When I won first place at state for DECA that was a given, the real accomplishment was Nationals. Yet, I made it all so complex that just before the competition I had a similar feeling and felt out of control, and I failed. My last relationship that actually meant something to me, and I had the same feeling the last few months we talked. Again, I found myself losing control of the situation and that lead to failure and we stopped talking. Right now, I feel as if my credit card debt is out of control. Is it really out of control? Not really, I make more in a month than all my credit card debt added together. In reality I could have it wiped out in less than a year. Yet for some reason, I feel as if it's out of control and that it will lead to financial failure. But while writing in my journal I came across something that has never hit me like this before. The competition I won for DECA was e-commerce business plan, I am an entrepreneur at heart and I am pretty good at finding opportunities. While under the harshness of this current depression and anxiety I have found one of the greatest opportunities of my life. If I conquer this debt, then it will feel like the first major accomplishment of my entire life. The feeling will go away, as I will know that faced with the fear of failure I turned it into an opportunity for success. I can view it was a CFO walking into a troubled company and turning things around and making the company profitable. After doing this I realized just how far off my current goals were. So I jotted down new goals and I plan on going over them while I'm still on vacation. I still have the feeling in my chest, but I'm excited to tackle the challenge ahead. I have also decided to go back to school come next semester. I don't want to study anything related to finance, but something I will enjoy. I'm not going to lie, but this night of feeling like utter shit has turned into something big for me. I have never been this excited to go back to school. The question and real challenge still stands, will I be able to go 100% and complete it, or will I stop halfway? I believe after finding one major root to my depression - the lack of control and fear of failure due to no control - that I can finally move on. It's like when you find a bad link your trading system and you correct it, thats how I feel. I will also keep writing in my journal and I'm going to go see a therapist. I can no longer ignore myself and the problems I've been facing for the last 6 years. I think I began a new chapter tonight and I thank all of you that have put input into this thread. This website has been a blessing in disguise. Tomorrow I will read this and most likely feel embarassed for putting it all out there, but what can you do?

I never rated the purchase of my car on credit as an achievement, sure I got a loan but that was not the achievement. The achievement was the emotional value that came with the car and finally having something of my own. There are pros and cons to financing the car, but thats not what this thread is about. Again, this all comes down to a lack of motivation. I don't go back wondering what I did right or wrong, I don't fear losses because I may not be able to afford something, I don't get pressure because of "low equity". It's really rather simple, I just don't give a shit. I had an interesting talk with my sister yesterday about this very thing and interestingly enough she went through a lot of the same stages I did. There are a lot of family issues that I'd rather not dive into yet, but thats always had a negative effect on myself and the divorce is one of them. But I find myself believing that I shouldn't be successful, and I have to come to a point in my life where I need take control. I need to decide for myself whether or not I want to sit back and watch life go by or really go after something 100%. I think after I go after something and overcome all the small obsticles then I'll feel much better about myself. I am notorious for going after something only to get halfway, get bored, and walk away. I've never truley accomplished something 100% except for that 1st place finish in DECA - but even then I've never considered it a true accomplishment because I didn't win at the national level. I always figured state would be a cakewalk. Maybe you see something here that I don't.

Kinda makes you wonder, what if the whole system collapsed? I mean, the fact that the majority of the US is in so much debt makes you wonder how long it can keep going, before something big happens.

This looks interesting, I'll definitely watch it tonight.

When you say a retracement trade after a big gap, are you referring to the gap being filled? If so, would the gap fill then be a good place for a pivot trade? I remember John Carter talking about this before, but I would like to hear your input.

I think something was already going on when Cramer made his rant. But it does go to show the man deserves more respect. He brought up something verry litle people knew about, only for it to become mainstream a few days later. Oh well, there will always be the people who think he sucks just go look at ET.

You know, I used to take trades and later sk myself why i did that. But since I started trading futures and learning the futures market I am doing this less and less. Now that I have a system that works with my personality I have not done that since, sure I make mistakes and things like that but I'm not ever taking anything that shouldn't have done. I never look at the $ value for every trade, when I take a trade I'm immediately looking for an exit to lock in my gains. Before I used to hate when people told me to take small gains as they add up. But once I realized I'm a scalper then that all stuck, and now taking 5-10 YM every trade is no big deal as I know it will build up. Maybe twice a day I will check my updated P&L but I'm more concerned with the points rather than the dollar value. I couldn't say that about myself two months ago, I have come along way. I would love a trading coach as I know I do things that I am unaware of, yet a coach could show me. I think it would greatly benefit me. I know a time will come when I make mistakes and get emotional, it's bound to happen especially with my age and being new to the futures markets. But I can't be ignorant and believe it won't happen to me - I did that once before and it turned out to be very costly. I found one thing that really helps me is discussing my views on the market with other people. I tell them what I see and give them my reasoning, this helps me understand the market better and maybe see things I previously did not see before. Thanks to all of you for helping out with this, it has bothered me for quite some time and I'm glad I'm getting it all out. I am on vacation right now so I won't be trading, but I will check back here and post on the forums. I purposefully left my laptop at home so I wouldn't be tempted to download E-Signal and try trading or watching the futures minute by minute. I need some time away. I sold all of my equity positions Friday soI will just watch the market and not act on it. I think this vacation will be great for me as I will be able to reflect on a lot of things. I'm visiting my sister and she's great at talking to me and helping me learn more about myself, so I plan on discussing this with her as well. Good trading to everyone and good luck this week.

I'm not really sure what happened, I didn't win I know that much. I felt like everyone back home expected me to win and so did my teacher. I felt as if all that work really wasn't worth anything. When I won in Colorado I kept everything very simple and easy to understand, when I went out to California I made a lot of the plan complex and even the power point was over the top. But really I'm not sure what happened either, I just never had the motivation again. I guess I subconsciously gave up and felt I let myself down. But I really don't know.

I remember being in New Zealand I met some former All Blacks (I think thats the name) players and they did that chant they do - it was pretty sweet. I've always liked following rugby it's an interesting sport.

lol I am dependent on caffeine, it's gotten better but if I don't drink any for a few days I can feel the taste of Pepsi out of a cold can in my mouth and I crave one. I used to have mood swings (I would get really hyper when I needed a Pepsi). Soda doesn't keep me awake anymore, I just crave the flavor from the can (for some reason it's just the can and not any other form). As far as my living situation - I live at home with my mom and her good friend who is more like a step dad. I work 9 - 10 hours a day at Nordstrom 5 days a week. Usually from 11-8 or 12-9 or 10. From there I go home and my second wave of energy hits and I stay awake all night. I go to bed anywhere from 2-3 am then wake up (or try) at 7 or 8 am. I've been doing this for years when I was in high school, when I sleep more than 6 hours I wake up with a bad headache and I feel like crap all day. Once I get home from work - usually around 10 - I immediately hop on the computer and look at my charts. I do all that work and check the internals, etc. I send out a few emails to friends in the market and we discuss different strategies and things like that. I probably stop all my trading work around 12 am after I get home from work. After that I just sit around and watch tv and talk to friend then go to bed just to do it all again the next day. There is a big reason behind why I work so much though. My mom used to be a major workaholic (still is though). She worked for PwC as a consultant and spent all her time traveling and I saw her maybe twice a week if I was lucky. I loved the money she made and the lifestyle. When my parents got divorced everything fell apart and now my mom makes half of what she used to make and lost her motivation. She still works an easy 12 hours a day but is plagued with debt. I made a vow to myself to never be in the same situation. I loved the lifestyle we had and I had a sneak peak to how much better it was for the really wealthy and successful people (I met a lot of her bosses who were making 2+ million a year). After that I loved the taste of success and was always looking for ways to be successful. I can honestly say it's not about the money, it's about the feeling of being successful. When I was in 11th grade I got 1st place at state for a business plan I wrote and that was my first real taste of success. We flew to California for nationals and I had an idiot judge and I got up and walked away during the role play. Since then I have lost that motivation - it comes in waves but it has never been what it was. I have come to realize I live two realities, a normal 19 year old that makes good money at Nordstrom and a young trader that has the potential to do great things and I think I'm really wealthy. Unfortunately I try to mix the two and I put myself in a lot of debt to get a taste of the lifestyle I want but I can't afford it and half the time I don't want to admit it. That keeps up at night sometimes and that puts a lot of pressure on my trading, because I get frustrated that I'm not there yet. But when I start trading, I forget about everything it's just me and the markets. It's like when I used to play soccer, I forget about everything and focus on the game everything else is a blur. I understand I'm young and I've had a lot of people tell me to take a break. But you know just as well as I do how hard it is to take a break from this industry. It is truly addicting, and I feel if I take a break then that is more time I am doing nothing and the higher chance that I will continue to do nothing. Whereas if I'm working and finding ways to improve then I will always be successful and working hard.

Good trading Abe, I've seen a lot of improvement from you lately. Keep it up! p.s - what is there to do in Dallas? I'm leaving for there tomorrow morning.

Just saw the same moves coming up on the ES and YM so I took both. Turned out to be a +50 YM and 2.75 ES trade. I'm happy with that and I'm done trading for the day and I'm just going to go look over my charts and see what I did right/wrong and where I can improve. I finished with over 200 YM and over 20 ES, good volatility allowed for my setup to come up quite regularly and work out with bigger than normal profit margins. Only a few losing trades, but they happen. I'm glad I'm going on vacation, I could see myself getting greedy next week with such a good day and screwing things up so this will give me time to clear my head. Good trading everyone!

What is the symbol for that? I used to have it on my screen but after I had to uninstall and re-install e-signal I lost it.