Introduce Yourself Here - Don't Be Shy!!

[Fractal 10]

Hello everyone,

 

I was referred to the site by MrPaul. Great information in these forum pages!

 

Look forward to contributing and learning alongside everyone else....

[TinGull 10]

MrPaul doesn't know what he's talking about....ever! HAHA! jk. he's one of the guys who's been pivotal in my evolution.

 

Welcome aboard!!!

[trigger 10]

Hello, I just wanted to drop a line real quick and say hi. I've been lurking around a bit and must say this site is top notch. Soultrader you've done a nice job with everything and everyone here seems real cool. I can tell some of you love to trade and some of you might be dangerous with a mouse in hand . I am currently using Metastock with internals and am convinced it's time to switch to TS and try to wrap my head around MP and add a few others indicators like volume delta. If your familiar with Metastock tape reading isn't the greatest experience when using Quotecenter. I am fairly new to trading about 2 years now and I'm from northern California. I look forward to discussion and hope i can contribute or at least stir up some ideas. All the best! - Zach

[MrPaul 10]

Welcome to the site

[torero 10]

Welcome and good luck, Zach. Some of us are more gung-ho than others but we get along ok (at least we'll try). Have fun!

[Soultrader 12]

haha... yea the most important thing is to have fun learning. Welcome aboard trigger!

[vicsch 10]

Hi Guys,

 

Think I've put the cart before the horse - posted a query before introducing myself.

 

I started trading the SPI 200 (Aust. Share Price Index), very lightly back in the late nineties and over the years, developed a kind of love/hate relationship with it.

 

I come from a WD Gann background (got really involved/bogged down with it), but it seemed to work pretty well back then and I stuck to my guns. Then after a while, (maybe it was just me), the market's footprint seemed to change and I found the SPI tougher and tougher to trade - so I gave it a break for a long time.

 

Anyway, I must be a bit of a masochist because I'm back for another crack at it. Market Profile has been a big eye-opener for me I've already found some incredibly useful information on this site. Hopefully I can also bring something useful to the forum some day.

 

Regards, Vic

[torero 10]

Welcome Vic. Hope you find your renewed vigor with success this time around. Markets do change and we're already have to be prepared for that next change so constant search for new ideas and rules are the norm. Good luck!

[Soultrader 12]

Hi Vic,

 

Welcome aboard. Please share us your insights as well. I will see you around the forums.

[vicsch 10]

Thanks for the welcome.

[Nick1984 10]

Hey Vic, nice to see another Aussie on the boards!

[alan76543 10]

How to introduce myself...well, I'm 43, and I got my start in the markets in 1993. After a very choppy first four years, my results have been consistent since 1997. However, I'm taking the mindset that I'm a newbie and a beginner because what I'm contemplating is so much different from what I've done the last ten years, I really am starting over from scratch, and I don't know a lot about the trading methodologies that I'm contemplating.

 

My current methodology started out as fundamental analysis, and evolved to a two step process...1) determining what the likely news/earnings were going to be, and then trying to figure out how the people buying and selling the stock were going to react to that news. Frontrunning dumb money was one way that I refer to it. My focus was very narrow, it was on the mortgage REIT and the oil tanker industries. Both of these industries are predominantly owned by the retail crowd, and I found you could predict with reasonable accuracy what they were going to do in advance. They would do some pretty stupid things which I could take advantage of, and it seemed like they made the same mistakes every quarter. The trades on that methodology usually worked, and if they didn't, they didn't usually go very far wrong. At one point, my understanding of the mortgage REIT companies was considered on par with that of the professional analysts, but it isn't now.

 

So if its working, why change? While its true I've had a good last ten years, my gut feeling is that the good traders of the world are tanning my hide. Although it has been reasonably successful, there are a few problems with what I'm doing now, 1) returns aren't what they could be, 2) There are periods of time where I haven't figured out what the heck is going on...in one of those big time now. 3) I'm dealing with companies without huge share volume, I've pretty much hit the limit of size I think I can do, and 4) because the trades were in small industries, I never felt like I had a strategy that would accomodate other peoples money.

 

So I'm trying to take the next step, which unfortunately means pretty much starting over. Although I've always tried to anticipate what others would do, my means is more of getting inside their head and understanding what they were thinking as opposed to interpretting a chart. I've read several books on chartreading...some twice or three times. I've read John Carter's book, follow his nightly videos (the free ones), and I've read several other books. One habit I never picked up was the trading journal or the trading plan. I feel I'm going to have to do that now if I want to succeed.

 

My steps that I've laid out for myself are

 

1a) Read a lot of books

1b) Start papertrading using several setups

1c) Look at a lot of charts, trying to understand what is going on within them.

2) When the paper results start going consistently positive, start trading with small stakes (single contract or 100 share lots).

3) When that goes consistently profitable, go to a bigger stake.

 

Not a fan of papertrading, but in order to have any confidence in what I'm doing (which to me will be the key to sticking to my plan), I need to have a lot of confidence in my methodology, and so I'll need to do a lot of backtesting myself to get that confidence.

 

Figure the positives are that I've already climbed this mountain several times. I've been a somewhat successful poker player (social anxiety stopped me from being better), a winning horseplayer, and succeeded fairly well in the markets. All of those pastimes have odds of success and learning curves similar to trading. However, from traveling the other roads, I know I have no chance if I try to tell myself past experience will carry me through, and if I don't give it a full effort.

 

I'm still trying to figure out what sort of a system would work well for me. I've looked at John Carter's materials, Alexander Elder, and William O'Neill to start with. Have several other books at home (a lot dealing with theory of technical analysis...just to try to get a basic knowledge). I like Carters emphasis on a trading plan and Elders emphasis on records. A third piece of the puzzle to me comes from Dick Mitchell, who wrote about horse race handicapping years ago. He said that you'd always go back over the past performances for race winners, looking for information that would have told you that he had a chance to win. I figure that'll be the same for every trade here. And the biggie...I have to learn to bear the discomfort of being in a trade. Bearing the discomfort of being in trades and being able to handle the pain of a loss seem to be the two big obstacles to trading right. Easy to say, and hard to do.

 

Anyway, I'm going to try to go at it with the mindset that it is going to take me at least two years to really start to get this down. But I realize that I'm in a nice calm place contemplating this...the moment I start following things, I'm going to want to jump in...we'll see if I have the discipline to stay out. I'm hoping I can cut down on the learning time, but that's probably just another way I'm kidding myself right now. There will probably be some losses along the way as well. Sounds dreary, but if you try to climb Mt. Everest with a daypack, you aren't going to make it. Better to be mentally prepared.

[torero 10]

Hi Alan and welcome to TL. Wish you the best in your new trading life and hope you find what you need and eventually you can contribute your thoughts and experiences along the way here.

 

You have a great background from fundamental analysis now to the other side. But I'm confused why you think you're still mentally weak being in a trade when you seem to have done this in the past. I figured you only need to papertrade to get comfortable with the new system and find out if it's profitable (in any case, papertrading doesn't properly prepare you for the psychological stress like in real trading) and getting used to trading the new instruments.

 

Do you plan to trade stocks or futures or currencies?

[MrPaul 10]

What kinds of books will you be reading?

 

My best advice...

 

Read more charts than books :thumbs up:

[brownsfan019 17]

alan - welcome to the site.

 

Good luck with your endeavors and let us know how it goes. I'm not a big fan of papertrading either, so I can understand that concern. While you don't want to rush it, it's hard to stay on the sideline trading fake money in my opinion. I think the learning process is drastically sped up when trading real money b/c so much more goes on when real money is on the line. Of course you have to be able to take the losses and an account large enough to withstand that. It's a catch 22, but I would take the training wheels off as soon as you think you are ready. Just trade a very small lot, but trade it w/ real money. You've been here already, so I would not be concerned with papertrading too terribly long.

 

That's what I would suggest at least!

[Special ED 10]

I'm new to the site and I've got mail YAYYY!

 

My Bio

[MrPaul 10]

Wow I know there is a low barrier to entry in this biz but...well anyways welcome ED!

 

hahahaha

[Nick1984 10]

I love your show bro.

[TinGull 10]

Very nice. Welcome aboard.

[Special ED 10]

I love your show bro.

 

I love me too, and I love chucky and I love cheese! YAYY!

 

I love chucky cheese

[mister ed 10]

Hello to everyone, and thanks for a great forum! I have been reading on the site since about April/May, in the spirit of listening more than talking, but now is the time to say hello and make some contributions.

 

My background: from 1987 - 1998 traded FX, unfortunately only with moderate success, but learnt a lot. 1999 - 2002 equities. In 2003, and to the present, I went into a "real" business - leases, employees, the works:mad:.

 

Am now back into the financial markets, but only part-time while I try to disengage from the "real" business, hope to be full-time soon. I trade Australian equities through a DMA CFD platform; great leverage, but need to use it sensibly.

 

This is a great forum! Lots of information, and not much name-calling! There are some other great forums out there but the name-calling and general level of aggro can be offputting, not to mention time-wasting. I have learnt a lot from this forum, from very generous contributors. I wont mention names because I am sure to forget a few and that wouldn't be right.

 

My trading approach/beliefs:

Short-term; small profits, even smaller stops!

I like: price/volume, candlesticks, Wyckoff/VSA, support/resistance, short-term trendlines (3-7 bars), price patterns, Market Profile (the ideas rather than the actual MP chart itself). I will use a few indicators to help with analysis, not as entry/exit tools, such as ATR. These are the approaches I use.

 

There are plenty of approaches I dont like and dont use, but the funny thing is some of them I believe have real value, just not for me! For example, a trend line (beyond really short-term ones I already mentioned); I see them working but am still to integrate them into my approach comfortably. Elliot Wave, I hate it, but I see some traders using EW concepts (the simple ones) very well. Again, I can see the value, but not for me.

 

Ok, thats enough of an introduction, thanks again to all the contributors to this site.

[Soultrader 12]

Welcome to Traders Laboratory mister ed. I look forward to your contributions here as well.

[David1 10]

Have been dabbling in fx for a few months but think it's time to get serious !

 

Looking forward to learning from all the great contributors on this forum and chipping in now and again.

 

May the pips be with you.

 

David

[Soultrader 12]

Welcome aboard David. Looking forward to your contributions

[vae victis 10]

Hi all good people of the TL forum. It is time for me to officially introduce myself on this forum. I have been reading this forum for some time now and I am very thankful to all y'all who contribute so much here.

 

I am an air traffic controller in Texas and have taken up trading to help me relax:doh: I have a little less than 5 years left of my 'sentence' and will be trading to keep me busy.

 

My primary focus was on the ER2 until they moved and now trying to learn the YM.

 

I hope to someday be able to contribute something to this forum, but I have a lot to learn.

 

Thanks folks,

 

Vae Victis