Thank you (although I don't think you were being sincere). When I see good traders, real traders, who are actually trading and then either posting or teaching at the same time. Wow, let me just say that I can really respect their mulit-tasking abilities. It is not an easy thing to do. Anyways, as usual you miss the important details of my post: 1. "at least 2.5 points" (2.5 is in reference to what is touted as being "great" in this thread) 2. "entertained handyman at same time" 3. If you can point out where I'm coming off as angry that would help and I will tone it down, but, let's not forget that in a text forum without voice intonations or anything else to go on, it's easy to be mistaken. Heck, I've made that mistake hundreds of times so I can forgive you as well.
Well, I would have said the same thing about your comments but I don't want to come off sounding like I need "anger management" or anything. Anyway, point is that I (try to) logically lay out what does not make sense, where there are contradictions, etc. I quote what you say and give information to support my position. Calling me a moron does not help anyone, nor your cause if you wish to sound convincing.
<i>"Quote from tango29: As has been said a zillion times, most if not all trading info is available via books or free online. Study your arse off and work your arse off and give yourself a chance to earn a living. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Say it loud! Say it clear! Thank you."</i> Now say it specifically. As has been written = asked a zillion and two times... what specific books, which chapters and pages for what approach(es)? Where specifically to begin for meat & potatoes education on entries, exits and trade management? No fluffy psych books... black & white how-to is what they seek. Likewise, what specific, exact free online services are open for consistent, long-term, dependable Q&A access? Instead of tossing off the general comment of "free stuff", how about some exact direction for all the newbies trying to be saved here in ET? Give them a course of action away from predatory vendors who only exist to rob them. Don't point out problems and walk away... provide clear-cut solutions. * We constantly see free room and/or free info threads in this forum and all over the web offered up. Then the 100% predictable happens: they attract the attention sought. At first the early adulation is payment greater than any amount of $$ possible. Then, it soon becomes work. People send emails with questions. People in the free rooms ask questions. After all... aren't those forums there for people to learn from? The thread OP or free room operator tires of the workload. What should have been a long-term commitment to people who were promised a free education is yanked away too soon. Then what? The aspiring traders who seemingly found what they sought wasted time, effort and perhaps real $$ tested in the aborted process. ** Takes much less effort to pop inside this forum and bitch about what does / doesn't work. Heck, there are guys who spend every waking moment posting day & night in here. Must be the sun never shines outdoors where they live. Most of that posting is a complete & utter waste of everyone's time. Nothing wrong with pointing out problems in any aspect of life. That's the easy = lazy part. Offering real solutions to the problem is where lazy ends and genuinely helpful begins. Let's be careful not to confuse the two. If someone / anyone wants to post endlessly in here or anywhere, why not make the bulk of that time and effort beneficial to all? Guide the gullible newbies towards green grass instead of circling them endlessly away from every dark shadow. List some specific books, chapter & verse. Post a nice list of free rooms accessible to all which will be there to handle Q&A for the next several months assured. That's the type of time & energy directed which "newbies" here in all of ET really need from their volunteer saviors.
Recommending educational sources wasn't the intent of this thread. I was simply pointing out the idea in light of all the hucksters that the best way to make a living is to take trading like you are getting an advanced degree at a University, instead of Lotto America. There are plenty of educational threads here, and quite a few offer recommended readings. As you mention I for one don't have the time to post here all day and night. I've been a member for 5 years with ~500 posts. Use the search function and do some leg work for answers to educational ideas. It's not that hard and if it is an issue for you maybe setup a thread that accesses all the educational threads and recommended readings yourself.
I am a new trader and I have been in MyTrades room since 2/1/2008. They trade the mini S&P here. This will be my last month as this, IMHO, has been a waste of money. Wayne, who runs the room, keeps saying how "things will get better" but they never do. Grump. Gives 1 or 2 resistance points that may give a point or 2 and sometimes as much as 10 points when the market bouches off of it. Usually these are 5 to 10 points away from the current price and the market may not reach it. He will not say how he comes up with them but when the market reaches them it usually bounces. The majority miss by 1 tick. Thats it - 1 or 2 calls that may never be reached or are missed by 1 tick. He also teaches a MB (market balance) method that uses 5 minute bars where the volume must be between 8 - 18000 and are basically double bottoms/tops - lot more complicated in the rules though. I don't follow any of his trades. Lav. I was hoping to follow her method. She uses Bollinger Bands, Support/Resistance, Price Action and Fast Stochastics. Great teacher and will spend all day teaching. Her method is accurate. However, she has made 2 calls in the last 4 trading days. She is hardly ever in the room prior to market open. I would guess that since 2/1/2008 she has not even shown up in the room 10 or more times - no notice and no one knows where she is. You never know what time she will show up in the room or if she will call trades. If she does call trades she is very confusing. Sometimes they are posted in text chat, sometimes she draws them on the chart which has a 8 to 18 second delay or sometimes she uses the mic. Very inconsistant. At times you don't even know if is she going long or short. Her trades are very accurate though. Probably 80% or better and usually get 2 points or more. Unfortunately, she spends most of her time reading and answering text chat and PMs rather than concentrating on calling trades. If Lav does not show up you spend most of the day listening to silence. Because I am a new trader and I have confidence issues, I need someone to call the trades in order to gain confidence. If you want just the education and you like Lav's method it is a great room for that. If you are looking only for trades to be called then you may want to look elsewhere. Earlier in these posts someone mentioned that Lav "rents". Lav rents a trading office in the city which is 2 hours from her home. She trades from this office and spends the week there. Also someone mentioned she worked with "Woodie". Don't know about that but do know she spent a considerable amount of time with Marsh Jones and taught some classes there. I have yet to pay for the room in any month. This is due to no fills or my not pulling the trigger or not understanding the call. Again, my biggest complaint about the room is Lav's not calling trades, inconsistancies in how she calls trades, not showing up in the room at all with no notice or not sticking to any kind of work schedule. Lav is a great teacher though. 4/30/2008 (Fed day) is a good example. Wednesday is the day that Lav is scheduled to teach from 2:30 to 4:00 but she usually ends up teaching to as late as 6:00 - again, great teacher. She first came in the room at 12:20 and taught her method until 2:06 and turned off the mic. She then trades her own account during the fed decision and was not heard from again until about 3:00. She called no trades at all that day because it was "too dangerous" for inexperienced traders. She posted a chart of all of the trades we could have taken if we had followed her method. However, she was never in the room then and never called any trades all day. 5/1/2008. Lav comes into the room at 9:44, mentions a support area where the market may bounce and then turns off the mic. Looks like another typical day.
Great post! I didn't reply to the original message because that's almost exactly what I'd say anyway. On that note, there is someone I didn't think of when this thread was alive. He's quite good and talks price action mostly, you know, the thing that EVERY indicator LAGS (since 99% are calculated from price). The educational service is FREE but more importantly the VALUE offered is incredible. Just amazing. I think he offers some paid stuff on the side, and I have no idea about any of it, I've only watched the free videos and know he's intelligent and not full of it. Judge for yourself, might not be the best place for newbies. http://youtube.com/user/SnP500Trader This is only one example of the type of information that you can find for free, if you put in the time. Anyone looking for someone to incessantly ask questions of, is in the wrong business, sorry for delivering the bad news, but it's true. Understand, any new business owner can use some mentoring or assistance, but if posting on here or some other message board once a day (if that) to find answers to those very RARE questions that have not already been asked (and hence can be found using a search function) isn't enough, well, there's limited options. Really, what that type of person needs is a money back guarantee. Look, trading a simple moving average crossover system is not any more difficult than most college courses. If one can't understand most of what is written in a college level book, then one probably is not ready to own a business, let alone a business with such a high failure rate as trading. If you think about it, any room that calls trades should be able to offer some sort of money back guarantee, unless of course there's no tested history, in which case there's no point in following those calls!
Interesting post, FYI and take it for what it is, I received a PM that echoed extremely similar comments. Anyway, here's something that occurred to me the other day out of nowhere: If Grumpee misses so many trades by just a tick then why doesn't he just change his system to take trades within a wider range or to scale in (or out) of a position? Surely he sim-trades, i mean paper tr..uhm, i mean actually trades more than 1 contract, let alone 2 or 3. Pretty sure that's been said outright and if it hasn't it should be because if the opposite is true, we have a 1 or 2 lotter charging $300 / month for a room that doesn't make calls. The only reason I can imagine for not scaling in is to limit the number of trades you are in. This limits the number of excuses you have to make when they don't work, I guess. It just doesn't make any sense to watch winning trade after winning trade go at least 2 points or more and not take an entry when you are within 1 or 2 ticks of target. That's just crazy really and listening to someone who does that, well, ok enough on that one. Now, if Grumpee or a shill wants to point out that his system only "works" when the target is hit I will point out again that apparently winning trades "miss by a tick" all the time and by any definition a winning trade works just great. Secondly, the S&P is so damn volatile that 1 or 2 ticks is nothing, nadda, bubkis. Price may as well not move at all or move 4 ticks. The more you think about it the less sense any of this stuff makes.
Sorry - I did not mean to mislead anyone here. Like I stated, I do not take any of his setups. I did not mean to imply that those following his calls miss by a tick the majority of times. Grumpee posts his 1 or 2 price points of where to go long/short at around 7:00am EST and he gives exact numbers - not a range - such as "1317.25 Short". I am guessing here, but the majority of the time the market never reaches these points or they are cancelled because of "price action" that he does not like. If the market does come to the price point and it has not been cancelled it will almost always bounce from there. Sometime it is a market high or low for the day. Sometimes it only bounces 2 points. I just find it amazing that he can call these points so far in advance and only be off by a tick. Sometimes they hit to the tick. They joke in the room about him being a "one tick d***". So he was calling very few trades in a day. Within the last few weeks he has tried calling none or maybe one or two price points that are closer to the market action that he calls "hueys" (Heads Up). He never posts these in the room and are verbal only so you may miss them. Again, these may be cancelled because of "price action". I do not follow any of these calls because he does not give out any information on how they are derived so you will always be dependant on the room. He does, however, give training on his "market balance" method. The room was not for me. Others may benefit from it.