John Carter's Setups: Legit or Lame?

[TimRacette 11]

@light I agree with all that, although I would like to play devils advocate and say that I do find John Carter and Hubert to be legit. At least he trades size

[Predictor 11]

@Tim

 

The top of the DOM In that picture is cut off. It could be in sim mode. Also, a good vendor can make millions from sales. Showing some live trades at a potential cost of even thousands of dollars would be justifiable.

 

I would imagine that he is trading live, obviously he has people come and sit with him. That doesn't mean that he is profitable to a worthwhile extent, however. Say, he is only marginally profitable or losing, again by not making any performance claims it protects them.

 

  TimRacette said:

@light I agree with all that, although I would like to play devils advocate and say that I do find John Carter and Hubert to be legit. At least he trades size

[TimRacette 11]

You may have successfully changed my view with that comment. Interesting.

[flintstone 10]

my 1st trade with john carter's simple options strategy cost me more than $3,000:doh:

[leobust 10]

Like any other trading books, you have to take the setups with the grain of salt. Try the setups, make adjustments, and if still doesn't work - discard it.

I found three Carter setups profitable only if you know WHEN to use them, (which was not exactly detailed in the book). You have to do your own experiment, market observation and adjustments to suit market condition on a given day. Every day have different volatility.

These setups are Gap play, Pivot play and TICK Play. Pivot play should be renamed S/R play as pivots themselves are only minor S/Rs. There are S/R levels that are more potent and these are the ones that make you money. I leave that to you to discover.

[steve46 12]

Good comment Leo

 

This is the way a trader should approach everything....its your system, and your money, why not take the time to research and see if something works BEFORE putting money at risk...

 

As you know, there are many who expect to receive the information tied up with a pretty bow already to use "as is"....AND in a market that is changing all the time, they expect it to work indefinitely without having to do any maintenance.....how realistic is that?

[tradingwizzard 10]

come to think of why should anyone give details on any given profitable system.....I agree there are successful traders, like we all know Paul Tudor Jones with the series that runs over the Internet....but even there, there is not a single hint about how he mades the anaysis....ok, some sort of analogies, Elliott waves, history repeats,.....basically normal stuff....nothing new.....so agreeing with Leo here....test everything and then jump on a conclusion

[sweet n´sour 10]

In my opinion Carter is probably legit and lame !

 

Think about. You have mastered trading to a degree that you are a bit profitable. Just a bit. You have winners and losers and because you make no big mistakes (psychological or other), you are making a little bit money over time. But just a tiny little bit better than break-even.

So now you can call yourself a profitable trader. If you have enough money you can even make a living out of that.

But ...that is not what people are expecting, when they are looking for a good trading education. Because if you have not lot´s of money to begin with, this approach is simply not good enough. Being a little bit better than break-even makes perhaps a profitable trader (90% are said to be loosers in trading anyhow) but that is not the same as a good or great trader.

So but now you can sell your image as a "profitable trading guru" with a good show and some teaching about the basics (discipline, option greeks ....etc.etc.), selling some nice indicators and so on. And with this you can make a lot of money. And now you can trade bigger size if you invest part of your educator profits and even your minimal edge gets you more money now.

 

The only problem with all that is, that people get a wrong idea.

 

If the Guru tells: "Ok listen, I can teach you some ground rules and stuff but my trading edge is actually really really tiny" than nobody would buy his courses. So he will not tell this and pretend somehow that his edge is actually quite substantial. (If he can trade big size, he can pretend this very easily.)

And the people start to trade his methods with wrong expectations ! And ...they loose!

Why ? Because their psychology is not in sync with the true expectations this methods have to offer. And than they are told their psychology is the problem, but that is just not the whole truth.

 

You can even play this game if you are not profitable in your trading at all! You have only to make lots of winners. (And of course your method should not be loosing to much in the long run, but it still can be a little worse than break-even.)

 

There was for some time a guy in Carters and Huberts team, who made winners most of the time (averaging down...etc) for nearly a year ! But than lost all this profit in one day (break-even for the year)!!! However the money his students paid for this year he kept !

 

And the best was: one week after the disaster he held a webinar on psychology "how to deal with big losses as a trader" !:crap:

 

Ok this guy had to leave TTM (for obvious reasons I assume). But he continues to run a trading room elsewhere to this day and perhaps the story repeats itself.

[steve46 12]

This is a quote from the previous post

 

"There was for some time a guy in Carters and Huberts team, who made winners most of the time (averaging down...etc) for nearly a year ! But than lost all this profit in one day (break-even for the year)!!! However the money his students paid for this year he kept !"

 

The gentleman's name was if I remember correctly, Robert Hoffman, and his website was called "Power Charts"......apologies if I have identified him inaccurately....

 

So this was a person who had a "room" and claimed to have over 300 paying customers who presumably followed his activities trading the markets.....again if I remember correctly he also claimed to have NEVER had a losing trade over a period of three (3) years........

 

The problem was that Mr. Hoffman was using a variation of the technique called "martingale"...and in this version, (again as I recall) when he would have a drawdown on a trade, he would switch to the next higher time frame and continue the trade....(I'm sure this is an oversimplification) and in some instances this seems to have worked out.....however one day....he got into a trade that DIDN'T....."work out" to his advantage....in fact it kept on going against him, so much so that ultimately he lost a LOT OF MONEY....I don't remember exactly how much but I think it was hundreds of thousands of dollars.....and yes shortly thereafter, I remember hearing of a seminar on how to handle the stress of losing money.....lol

 

For those interested, by all means do your own research because I am sure some of the details are incorrect....

 

Best Regards

Steve

[Seeker 11]

  steve46 said:

This is a quote from the previous post

 

"There was for some time a guy in Carters and Huberts team, who made winners most of the time (averaging down...etc) for nearly a year ! But than lost all this profit in one day (break-even for the year)!!! However the money his students paid for this year he kept !"

 

The gentleman's name was if I remember correctly, Robert Hoffman, and his website was called "Power Charts"......apologies if I have identified him inaccurately....

 

So this was a person who had a "room" and claimed to have over 300 paying customers who presumably followed his activities trading the markets.....again if I remember correctly he also claimed to have NEVER had a losing trade over a period of three (3) years........

 

The problem was that Mr. Hoffman was using a variation of the technique called "martingale"...and in this version, (again as I recall) when he would have a drawdown on a trade, he would switch to the next higher time frame and continue the trade....(I'm sure this is an oversimplification) and in some instances this seems to have worked out.....however one day....he got into a trade that DIDN'T....."work out" to his advantage....in fact it kept on going against him, so much so that ultimately he lost a LOT OF MONEY....I don't remember exactly how much but I think it was hundreds of thousands of dollars.....and yes shortly thereafter, I remember hearing of a seminar on how to handle the stress of losing money.....lol

 

For those interested, by all means do your own research because I am sure some of the details are incorrect....

 

Best Regards

Steve

 

Steve from what I remember, Hoffman started with a one lot, and ended up averaging down to a loss of over 300k in a day. This among other things demonstrated that Hoffman is clearly a failed trader, and yet he's still going as a vendor, charging naive folks for poor trade calls. Shameless isn't it? Why do they still sign up? Mystery to me. There's better information here - and better traders - for free.

 

My opinion is that both Hubert Senters and John Carter can't trade either, but I'm sure they make good money from the punters. Repackaged a bunch of indicators and sell them along with a fancy name, a few videos and a service and they've got a business.

[steve46 12]

  Seeker said:

Steve from what I remember, Hoffman started with a one lot, and ended up averaging down to a loss of over 300k in a day. This among other things demonstrated that Hoffman is clearly a failed trader, and yet he's still going as a vendor, charging naive folks for poor trade calls. Shameless isn't it? Why do they still sign up? Mystery to me. There's better information here - and better traders - for free.

 

My opinion is that both Hubert Senters and John Carter can't trade either, but I'm sure they make good money from the punters. Repackaged a bunch of indicators and sell them along with a fancy name, a few videos and a service and they've got a business.

 

I don't remember all the details, but what is discouraging about this is the following

 

Skilled, educated, intelligent people should know that martingale betting strategies don't work.....all one has to do is simple research and you will learn that this is already proven....eventually and inevitably the participant's luck runs out and the market goes against them just long enough to bankrupt them....or to make them say "enough" and take a huge loss.....unfortunately on the retail side this is a viable strategy, because the average Joe usually doesn't have the knowledge or the ability to see it, or as I suspect in this case, Mr. Hoffman never let people see as he switched from one time frame to the next.....all they knew was that he didn't seem to worry when a trade went against him....

 

The bottom line is that the strategy he was employing wouldn't work for the majority of retail traders who have very limited accounts.....As I recall you had to buy his study course DVDs and only then were you allowed the privilege of joining his room at an additional cost of $250/mo)...

[sergso 10]

  steve46 said:

The bottom line is that the strategy he was employing wouldn't work for the majority of retail traders who have very limited accounts.....

 

Very true for most strategies. Capitalization is almost as important as strategy but millions start with the hope the odds will be on their side but their are not. Here is a good read on this subject. Actually I consider its author a true guru because he emphasizes risk management and that trading is a probability game.

[steve46 12]

  sergso said:

Very true for most strategies. Capitalization is almost as important as strategy but millions start with the hope the odds will be on their side but their are not. Here is a good read on this subject. Actually I consider its author a true guru because he emphasizes risk management and that trading is a probability game.

 

This to me is one of several critical issues relating to trading as a profession....I say this because inevitably there are those who approach me (and others) hoping to "buy their way in" to what they see as significant profits, if only they can find a system that works.....and in a pre-class interview I ask them....."do you have enough capital, that if you lost it (all) it would NOT change your lifestyle?" and "do you understand that a significant component of this class is about risk management as a way to consistently make money in financial markets"....in other words, its less about "setups" and more about learning to recognize, manage and fully exploit certain types of risk...this is (in my opinion) what professional behavior is really about and its how you learn to make a living as a retail trader. As it turns out most folks don't "get" that connection between risk management and overall profitability....not only do they NOT get the connection but they often assume that they can act like professionals who are NOT ONLY PAID TO TAKE EXCESSIVE RISK, BUT PENALIZED IF THEY DON'T (TAKE THOSE RISKS).....this is why we often read of folks called "rogue" traders...and people like John Corzine who took massive risk and lost......its a culture that is at odds with what a retail trader can do....