I think it is a good topic. I can't say that I am profitable = planning to be though! LOL I can offer one hurdle that I am facing and perhaps it is an answer of sorts. I have this complicated system which gives me lots of signals and over time they have become quite good. However, I somehow get locked into a "mindblock" once the RTH session starts and often ignore many of my signals. Not sure why. Perhaps: Lack of sleep? Lack of confidence in the signals? Too much information? Reading posts at forums (getting too many inputs)? At another forum one person posted "traders who are successful don't waste their time at forums". I would say one big block is instead of visualizing myself trading with ease and confidence, as soon as I see a touch of red I remember losing days and see it happening again. Another thing is trading the ES. With stocks I'm fine. I can do chart analysis like crazy and its dead on. But I am trading the ES with a small account and the manipulation of it makes the road difficult. Good luck with the thread. (I don't expect people to post secrets but they can still post change in trading style or approach)
With restaurants, you can go see they have a secret sauce. With internet "traders" aka gamblers, they could never show people they have anything at all. All they can say is they know someone who could do this and that blah blah blah.
All I had to do was trust and believe in my system. It's crazy the amount of times I would be right but would fail to take action. I simply had to quit being a pussy and take the trades.
The thread is here at ET - and in that thread the readers are dazzled by the bright lights of $20k per week being small but more like the trader averages $40k which he considers acceptable. Here's the thing .... traders can fudge and doctor their statements easily - but the one thing nobody can do is to change the date\time stamp of a forum, this forum anyway. How many traders currently post real-time entry\exit AND rationale behind entry or TP etc.? Keep your eyes peeled while reading the forum from here on out and tell me one year down the road, HOW MANY if any such individuals you found here?
There's a whole world of HELP an experienced trader can give to a newbie without even going anywhere close to his secrets.
Sorry, do you have a link to the thread ? I don't need real time call outs. Near real time is adequate. I just need to see a small potion of the trade being live is fine. As for how many I will find, I would have to say in advance: 0. I know what it takes to be profitable. It doesn't take much for me to see if anyone has something.
You should contact that trader and thank him for that. It is not only the truth, it is actually commonsense. What you will find at forums is 95% time wasters who have nothing better to do, some traders who are actually trying to find a new technique or get feedback on their setups, or have failed and are looking for help to get back on track.
Here you go http://www.elitetrader.com/et/index.php?threads/grinding-it-out-day-after-day.187730/ Yes, yes, near real-time is what I'm talking about. For example, let's say you make a trade - the absolute last thing on your mind is ET - your trade is underway the moment you click the button to confirm trade. OK perhaps you watch a few seconds or minutes hoping it will go well or whatever, but then let's say a few minutes later, YOU SHOULD go to ET and record the details in the thread or post it anew. There are many benefits to doing exactly this: you not only have the market to deal with but now you have everyone at ET going to give you shite if you screw up. TAKING THIS DOUBLE DOSE of HEAT is the most beautiful aspect of being at a FORUM like ET - your learning curve will go parabolic as you do your best thinking under these conditions having 2 whips to get you to do better. And just IMHO there is no better place than ET to get this type of improvement which really comes from within yourself and not from others giving you secrets necessarily Try it out and see for yourselves, be disciplined about posting your trades esp. when you lose take the heat, you will be a better man for it.
I can think of other places. I have been to those and were banned. Let's hope ET won't ban me for calling out the noobs, or decide they know more about trading than me. If they did, why the hell don't they go trade, instead of running a forum ? Simple logic. In the 5 years I have played trading 24/7, I have never seen any secret on any forum. Youtube is a better source for the pro's giving some pointers.