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Here is something that has been rolling around in my head for some time. We always hear that we should always trade a size ( number of contracts) that we feel comfortable with. Which really translates into how much are we willing to lose on a given trade, so we keep trading and we keep losing because we a comfortable. Think to yourself, if you had twice or three times your normal size, I bet you would be darn well sure that the setup you take is the highest probability in your arsenal. You may find yourself not over trading and being alot more disciplined. (Of course you must have a solid trading plan and good setups first.) Crazy, I know, it flies in the face of what we are taught to do as Traders. So think about it for a second. And Let The Debate Begin.

HI Cooter, First let me say your right, it WILL show up in your trading is what I should have said. AS for the ah-ha moment. A couple that I've had are as follows. 1. Someone mentioned, I don't recall if it was in a book or another trader, that when we trade we shouldn't try to make money from the markets but look for opportunities to extract money from the opportunities the markets presents to us. It helped me the think of the markets in a different way that was less emotional and more disciplined. Which also ties into the second ah-ha. 2. See the setups, trade the setups. I go that from Carter and Hubert. It is helping me to remove the emotion. A Work still in progress. Both are really the same dictum. I guess I needed a 1, 2 punch. There are a few other ah-ha's but those are the the most recent. Hope this helps. ASlo, about paper trading. I really don't paper trade too much anymore. I only paper trade to test new setups, but as you said, you can not get a true feel unless you are actually trading. So I just start out with just one or two contracts at first. Hope this helps.

Tingull, We think alike. As much as I like being in the chat room, it has distracted me from trading and has caused me to miss a few trades. Thats why I wasn't there yesterday. I just wanted to concentrate on trading. What I will do for now on is trade first and then enter the room during a quiet period.

That was an EXCELLENT post Tingull! I appreciate your input. I have realized something about trading. Not only do you learn the setups, the markets , patterns, tape etc. You also learn about your self. Your strength, your weaknesses, hopes and fears. I've learned what kind of person I am. A trader once said if you want to get an idea of what kind of trader your going to be,a disciplined one or not, take a look at yourself in your daily life. It may show up in your trading. The biggest obstacle to success is your-self, at least in my case. I feel SO close to crossing the Rubicon. Just a few steps away to becoming consistently profitable I have the setups, I have the trading plan and risk management in place. I've even identified my impulse trades and eliminated them. The discipline fades in and out but I am getting better. But I still manage to take the losing trades and always seem to " miss out" on the trades that would have been winners. I am also still a victim of my own fears. After a wining trade or 2 losing trades in a row I get fearful and often let a winner go buy. If you know anybody who wants to learn about them self, tell them to try trading because when you do you will be face to face with yourself.

Hi guys, if I can chime in here. With respect to pit noise. If one of us is willing to share the subscription with chat room that would be great. To encourage it maybe each one of us could pitch in a months fee to help the individual with the cost. We could pay thou paypal. Just a thought.

Why is it so difficult to trade Mondays and Fridays. If you stay away, tell us why. If you trade, do you trade differently than on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday? Tell us your thoughts.

Self Sabotage What is it and how to stop it. Can anyone elaborate on why we do it and do you have any mental exercises to deprogram it? ( or know any websites or mentors that help with this?)

Soul, the link to this video is missing.

Hi ian_uk, Here is a copied and pasted quote from the Ts site. I think you have to have an account with TS to access this page. I could't find any other way to access this page except thru my sign in. Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) CBOT Mini-Sized Futures View Markets Included CBOT Mini-Sized Futures Market Depth CBOT Full-sized Gold and Silver Contracts The Chicago Board of Trade is currently providing real-time access to each of the above services on an introductory basis. This is an introductory offer. Terms and pricing for each of the data services are subject to change. FREE Hope this helps. Good Luck.

MY Recommendation is this. Download the InfinityAT demo platform. You trade live market with real P\L but with no money. It's as close you will get the real thing and paper trader at the same time. Infinity Brokerage Services

Hello Werdgr, Hmm....thats a tough one. I don't recommend trading futures or stocks in the after hours. Extremely risky. The best advice I can offer is what I would do if I were in your shoes. First. Learn to swing trade stocks. Thats taking a position for a few days to a week or two. or FOREX. The Foreign exchange. If you get a day off from work, then you could e-mini futures or stocks. One more thing. You say $20,000? OK, take just half of that and put in a brokerage account. Keep the rest in a safe place, money market etc. This way it will force you to trade small at first until you discover your edge and learn proper risk management. Always remember, if you learn to control your loses, your profits will tend to them selves. Always use stops and stick to your trading plan. Hope this helps, good luck.

Hello Andrew28, Along with the other posts I also suggest this. Review ALL the videos in the video section. Pay particular attention to Tape reading, pivot points and Value area high and lows. SoulTrader does a fine job in getting the idea of the methodology and tools needed to trade the futures successfully. Also look in the chart section. Then pick a futures contract that best suites your personality. For me it's the YM's. Others are the NQ's, ES or the ER2. But I would recommend the YM's. The Dow mini. Each contract is only $5 per tic. So you won't lose as much during your learning curve. Just start with one or two contracts. Keep to your stops and as soon as you partially exit ( if doing 2 or more lots) a trade at your first target always bring your remaining contract to break even. You just guaranteed yourself a profit w/o the emotional baggage. After you have viewed the videos here got to TradeTheMarkets.com and sign up for their free e-mail videos. Hope this helps.

Hi Notouch, Yes, I have. I wait till about 20 seconds before the announcement and place an entry 10 tics above the 10 tics below the last price. Market not limit. I am taking advantage of the knee jerk reaction that usually follow the news. Thats why I will sell as soon as I see a pullback because at that point the market can be unpredictable in my opinion. I've never tried fading this. I have been studying the Ym's reaction to the PPI and CPI since last year and have traded this strategy for 3 out of the last 4 months. I am still fine tuning the technique but out of 6 trades, 5 were profitable, the 6th, Jan. CPI, I canceled the orders because the price was gyrating between the two entries for too long, too much indecision.

Hi keymoo, I have gotten pretty darn good fills bracketing stop market orders 10 point above and below the last price just 20 or so seconds before announcement. Liquidity is not a problem. A-mini's can become as active as in the regular session, and sometimes more so, for the first few minutes. But remember, I don't stick around in the position very long. As soon as I see signs of a pullback, I'm out. I tried to scale out but I get stopped out more often than not at the entry cutting my gain in half or more. Hmm....currency futures.. sounds interesting. I'll give it a look, thanks for the info. Good Trading.

This is an updated thread of an earlier one I posted in Dec. 2006 " The intraday trendline". Although the same can apply to ascending lines, this post is dedicated to the in intraday descending trendline that have appeared on the YM chart and is tradeable on the short side. All charts are the 233 tic. I have seen these trendlines stop a pivot or other technical reversal dead in it's tracks and is a good place to take your first partial and bring your stop to break even if your long. The strongest lines are the the ones that begin in the previous day and continue into the next day. The first chart shows a downtrend line that started around 10:15 AM on 2/04/2007 and chart 2 shows a continuation into the next day 2/05/2007. In chart number 3, here is the same day 2/05/07, later that morning the YM finally broke out only to form a new desending line. Notice how the YM just can't get above the line. In chart number 4 here we see a downtrend line form at the 61% fib retracement. Again the YM has a very difficult time getting above this downtrend resistance. And even when it finally does break thru, the resistance line isn't really broken......it's just moved a little. Chart 5. In conclusion, I have found this trendline phenomenon to be very useful when used in conjunction with the tape, pivots and or other technical signals, when going short or setting targets on longs. I have also found this to be useful on days when reading the tape has been difficult. Around holidays and during " lunch hour". OK, feel free to post any thoughts you may have. Good trading.

How silly of me to forget. MBTrading has free realtime quotes for YM. However, of late, their quote stream had been more than alittle delayed. Hopefully in the future, they will correct the problem.

If you have an account with Tradestation their CBOT quotes are free. However, if you open an account with them, you have to make 10 round trip trades to have the platform fee waived.

Soul, Thank you for giving us this great forum. Wishing you a very happy, healthy and profitable New Year.

Happy Holidays to everyone and to you Soul, MrPaul, TinGull and Torero.

Hello everyone, This is one very interesting thread. I think I am the only one here that employs 1 min. candle bars to pin point my entry on certain trades. As far as intra day pattens go, there are a few that I have seen that work very well and consistently over and over again when they appear. Using these along with the pivots and tape reading ( that I both learned from you, Soul , I not only have better entries but now able to hold stops of less that 10 tics, on initial entry, with very few stop outs. As for trading trendline breakouts, I don't like. However, trendline failures ( that is, failed to break thru ), is a whole other matter. If I had traded yesterday, I might have traded a downward sloping trendline that could have given as much a 30 points of profit, all depending how you manage your stops. You can see this pattern on a minute chart and on the 233 tic chart. If you want to see a chart, just let me know. Your thoughts are always welcome.

Good observation Soul. I have noticed lately that the YM trade has changed of late. I haven't been trading then long enough to know if this is seasonal or just that what previously worked isn't working and something new has started. I'll start to watch for this pattern. Thanks. Good observation.

Hello Asop, This is something that can only come with experience. There are three things that I look for. First is you should know where your Stock/Future contract support and resistance levels are located. Also, day or previous days hi/lo are, and pivot points.( for pivot point education check out the video section of this website). Second, when price approaches any of these above levels start to watch how volume behaves. Look at the tape. I am in the process of learning tape reading but it already has placed me in profitable trades and also kept me from placing what would have been losing trades. ( The video section has a great videos with tape reading made by SoulTrader, Traderlaboratory's founder ). Third, I like to look for certain candlestick and/or technical patterns that appear intraday. The falling wedge pattern and the candle stick hammer when appear at the day Hi/Lo or swing Hi/Lo are very powerful patterns with a high probability of profitability. If you don't know what they are, read books. Now when two or all three or these conditions are present at a particular price level, a reversal may be in progress. Hope this helps. Good Trading

Lessons learned this year is to stay with your trading plan. Stay disciplined. Manage risk. Let profits run.

After our conversation today, you are probably going to think I'm crazy, but if tomorrow was like today, I will take a crack at it. Your right about no reference points with the pivots. However, I did notice that the YM's kept to a descending intra day downtrend, thats be appearing more frequently since the daily trend line break, that was confirmed at 10:01am and was confirmed broken at 11:52am for about 50 points.