Bam-Bam

Hey Torero: Do you mean Barings Bank? If so, the trader was Nick Leeson (just mentioned him in the Official Movie Talk thread). The book and movie are both called Rogue Trader. The book is a great read. The movie could have been a little better but is still entertaining. It's amazing to see something like this can still happen. Seems like if you break the Queen's bank, extensive legislation would be put in place. Just goes to show you opportunities still exist if you dig hard enough, right? Cheers, Bam-Bam

"To some it's a game. To others it's a habit. But to Dan Mahowny -- beating the odds is everything." A great movie for traders is Owning Mahowny It's a great story about an out of control gambler, and it's difficult to believe the story is true. Whenever I think of Nick Leeson's mistakes, I am reminded of how similar his actions and responses are to an addicted gambler like Mahowny. This movie gives one a reminder about how easily one can slip into an addiction driven frenzy where emotions and random rewards drive your {trading} decisions. -------------------- I second the recommendation for "Touching the Void," especially if you're into outdoors/adventure. It's another true story that's almost impossible to believe. A great story of how to succeed in the face of truly overwhelming odds through perseverance. It also shows how important it is to take advantage of every little gift that luck gives you. I'm doubling size because I can just feel I'm gonna break even on the next trade, Bam-Bam

Hey Browns Fan, I use Sierra Charts. There are some weak points, but overall, I am an advocate. It is highly customizeable. On my trading screen setup, I have one trading chart (YM or ES), TICKS, TRIN, and an anchor chart displayed at the same time. SC is interested in improving their services, and they release an updated, new-and-improved version once or twice a month. Nearly every time I watch a TTM video on which Hubert shows a feature on TS, I find that SC has the same feature. SC has a ton of command shortcuts. I am planning to make a cheat sheet for them all sometime (that's medium priority, so it keeps getting pushed back). It has pretty much any indicator you could want (though you're not into that stuff). Screen updates are fast (at most 0.5 sec behind brokerage data). SC has tick charts and volume charts. Pros: - price - lots of features - custom programmable tools - support forum Cons: - backfill on data can be a pain - daily charts are a separate file from intraday - in mid 07 currency daily charts weren't loading properly (since fixed) - may have to reprogram any custom indicators using C++ - user interface could be a little prettier One disadvantage is that by the time you're getting used to SC, MultiCharts will probably be back up and running. Hope this helps, Bam-Bam

A list of my dumb trading moments could go on for awhile. One good lesson to remember: Understand how your execution software works. I was watching a stock with okay liquidity. It looked like it was moving up nicely, so I hurriedly clicked to get into it before it got away. I couldn't figure out what all these trade confirmations were that kept popping up on my screen. Why wouldn't the trade just go through? It took my a few seconds to realize I sent an order to buy at the offer size not at my default size. So I ended up buying 1300 shares instead of 100, ~$83,000 instead of ~$6,400. I immediately exited but took a bit of a bath in the process. As carpenters say: measure twice, cut once. Trader's Maxim: Check twice, click once. Enjoy the vacation day, Bam-Bam

Does anyone trade ES or YM in the pre-market? I recently transitioned back into my day job for a couple of months--received an offer I couldn't refuse. I've been watching pre-market activity on these instruments over the past couple of weeks to try trading before work hours. Liquidity on YM is pretty dismal, but still enough transitions if you're not trading in size. ES volume seems to pick up anywhere from 2:00am to 5:00am EST depending on the day's events. Order flow looks pretty good. You can really see big players consolidating before block transactions go through. And when the flow starts running, it's like a cascade. Activity spikes around the half hours (x:00 and x:30), with runups into the hour beginning at ~ x:50. I've mainly been trading ES between 7:00 and 8:00am EST over the past couple of weeks. That means 6:00am to 7:00am is analysis time. As a pattern trader, there are plenty of opportunities. However, there are an awful lot of whipsaws for stop hunting. Price may move in the expected direction to trigger some entries then shoot opposite to trigger panic exits before returning to original (expected) direction. See ya before the sun rises. Coffee's brewing, Bam-Bam

Hey Tin: What's the advantage of an iron condor over and iron butterfly? An iron butterfly is essentially a combination of a long straddle and a short strangle. If I am looking at it right, the yield curve is about the same. Thanks, Bam-Bam

My broker has a chat room for traders. I got on it a couple of times. Hate to say it, but fading the emotions of the other participants would be an incredibly profitable strategy. I turned a few nice scalps using the chat as my leading indicator. Every time they say, "okay, YM is going to new highs," I would short, and it would turn around and head back down. Trading can be a lonesome endeavor, and interaction with other traders could be advantageous. What I would really benefit from would be accountability. If I actually had to show someone all my trades and explain why I took them, I would act in a much more rational manor. Boy, that is a scary prospect! I am back to trading with music in the background. Cheers, Bam-Bam * Not a newbie, I just trade like one.

Sierra Charts supports range bars. They also support tick and volume charts (kudos to brownsfan). Your broker will most likely be able to provide a data feed to Sierra Charts if you can link it to Ninja Trader.

If you're deeply interested in the stock market or corporate finance, you should try watching "Barbarians at the Gate." It is a 1993 movie about the Leveraged Buy Out (LBO) of RJR Nabisco. It is based on a book by the same name. "Barbarians" is supposed to be a very good depiction of the whole LBO craze that shook business for awhile. I must confess that even being interested in corporate finance, I couldn't watch more than 5 minutes of it. Maybe it gets better as it progresses. "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" was pretty awesome. I had a number of associates who went to work for Enron and some other energy traders. I saw a lot of similarity between the people in the movie and the Enron'ers I knew. My favorite part was the Mark-To-Market Black Box comercial Skilling made, "you just decide what you want your profits to be, put everything in this black box, and now you have the return you need." {paraphrased} "Rogue Trader" was a fantastic book. The movie was a bit of a letdown. It was cool to see some shots of Singapore. If they could only make a movie about "The Ugly Americans:The True Story of the Ivy League Cowboys Who Raided the Asian Markets for Millions." Now, that could be a great movie. Nice thread, Bam-Bam * "The whole game of arbitrage is spotting who the a--hole is. If you can't spot the a--hole, well, then you're the a--hole." - Dean Carney (Ugly Americans)

Freddie: Stops are a frustrating yet necessary part of trading. I posted a question about a week ago on this forum. A number of seasoned members gave some excellent input. If you watch the CBOT webinar recommended by ranj, you'll hopefully develop a better approach to stops. Also, start tracking how far against you the price moves. My stops tend to be triggered at the very extremes of moves against me. Here's the link to the Q&A: http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/f30/help-with-stops-2724.html (it doesn't look like it hyperlinked, so you'll have to copy-paste into your address bar). If you're having trouble with YM and not afraid of big ticks, consider ES. For me, the order flow is much easier to read. YM tends to have a lot more fake-outs and shake-outs. That means a lot more busted trades for me. ES just has enormous volume that ramps one way or another once it starts going. Best 'o' luck, Bam-Bam * Not a newbie, I just trade like one.

Hi Cable, Thanks for the input. On the one hand I agree that the stop in question may have been a little tight. On the other hand, I had good rationale for selecting it. It was based on 1) market generated resistance-- pivot level, and 2) ~2.00 pt. "standard" hard stop on ES--it was actually 1.75 pt. In the past, I've tried loosening my stops. Then I am usually taken out on larger spikes that reverse as soon as my stop kicks, so the only benefit I receive from larger stops are usually larger loses that are proportionally more frustrating. Blowfish's recommendation to use a volatility based method makes a lot of sense to me. That way one can customize the stop level to the setup and timeframe that one is trading based on the ATR. In my case, risk management in the sense of stop placement has been more detrimental to my trading success than entry decisions. It's a matter of trying to do the right thing but just not doing it right. Thank you for the input, Bam-Bam * Not a newbie, I just trade like one.

Many thanks for all the recommendations. My first step is to follow Ranj's suggestions and record why I set a particular stop and if it was successful. I am also going back through my trade records to record the maximum incursion against my positions, both successful and unsuccessful. A very good point for me is to trigger a stop only if the bar closes above my stop level. That would have saved me on a good many trades. I can't remember how many times I've had one trade go through that kicks my stop before the market moves back toward my entry. Thanks again, Bam-Bam

I have been trading for a number of years with a limited amount of success. One problem that I have been unable to solve is that the market is incredibly consistent at taking out my stops on spikes against me before moving in the direction of my trade. As a result, I get stopped out of many positions that would have otherwise been profitable. This consistently occurs with any instrument I have tried to trade, either long or short. For a year or so, I decided that the market was out to get me personally. I've outgrown that bit of narcissism, yet the problem still remains. I've tried loosening my stops a bit. The spikes that take me out only grow accordingly. I've tried--sad to admit--trading without stops. Then, the moves against me continue against me rather than being spikes. I've tried using a set percentage as a stop. I've tried being on the trade side of Support and Resistance. I've tried being on the opposite side of Support and Resistance. I've tried alot of approaches, none of which seem to work. Please note the attached chart as an example. It is a chart of the morning session of ES for Oct 23, 07. The posted chart has 1-minute bars to show that the spike that hit my stop was the very top of the move against me. I entered the trade based on a consolidation on a 233 tick chart. 1. ES shorted based on pennant consolidation 2. Stop placed 0.25 above 0.5 Resistance Level 3. Stop hit on highest spike of retracement for loss 4. Trade re-entered @ 1520.25 for nice gain Any recommendations y'all can offer would be greatly appreciated. Thank you, Bam-Bam _______________ * Not a newbie, I just trade like one.