First and foremost, John Carter is a poser and a charlatan, so don't put a lot of faith in what he has to say. Second, he "borrowed" his so-called proprietary indicators from the Tradestation forums from those who wrote and shared them for free, and then re-badged them as his own. He sells them for thousands of dollars to the unsuspecting. Third, John Carter's methods are all smoke and mirrors. Don't believe that by following his tales, you will be successful. It's well documented that JC has lost much money trading his systems, his and other peoples as well. Failed traders typically shift gears by selling fee-based trading rooms, trading systems, write books, sell indicators, or all combined. There are a slew of these con artists out there, so be careful whose path you follow. I sincerely do not want to see you lose your money before you figure this out for yourself. My personal suggestion would be to open an IB account with the minimum amount required, and keep the rest of your funds tucked safely away in a bank for now. No offense intended, but you are no way ready to trade live yet. The odds of you losing your money at this stage is extremely high, almost a given. IB will give you the data feed you will need for $10 a month, free once you begin trading live. Meanwhile, I would suggest using low cost/free charting such as QuoteTracker, Sierra Charts, IBCharts, etc., with a IB demo account. Learn to use the TWS before attaching any front end to it, the front ends are only to speed up the entries/exits/stops, and you should understand what that front end is actually doing. Then, and only then , should you use a front end. I suggest Bracket Trader because it is free for as long as you wish to use it, with some minor restrictions in it's function. Spending several hundred dollars a month for charting, data, etc. is simply not necessary to learn trading. Preserving capital is the golden rule. Do not get sucked into joining fee-based rooms. They are a waste of time. Instead, search the forums, as there are a lot of good ideas out there. Unfortunately, for every good nugget of information, there are a thousand others that are worthless. Proceed with caution. Ignore the blowhards such as jack hersey and company, as they will only confuse you and add nothing of value. Keep it simple, find an instrument that fits your personality, and learn it like you know yourself. Any skilled trader can blow holes all through JC's theory on why to trade the YM. The ES is probably the safest to learn on, as is has the most volume, but that too can be disputed. Personally, I find indicators a waste of time, learn to read price action, and the money will follow. Waiting for multiple indicators to cross and line up with the moon is not the path to winning. If you are the type that needs hand holding and personal interaction, thus justifying in your mind why you need to pay for trading advice, chances are trading is not for you. This is no doubt one of the toughest unscrupulous professions there is to master. You need to be tough, smart, and not swayed by the chatter of others. Money management is every bit as important as any trading method, more so in my opinion. ALWAYS use stops, and have a valid reason for there placement. Fixed stops are the tale-tale sign of amateurs. Act accordingly. Create a set of trading rules and adhere to them like a religion. You can take the best winning system ever found and blow your account out if you do not practice inflexible money management and follow your rules. No doubt, naysayers will chime in and tell you how I'm not correct. As the famous philosopher Forest Gump would say, stupid is as stupid does. Report back in a year and let us know who was most correct. Good luck! st
Well, I certainly appreciate your honesty. The plan you describe doesn't sound exciting. Honestly, it doesn't even sound like I will make any money for quite awhile. This advice must be contrary to popular opinion because in reading it, all of the sudden I feel as though I don't get to go to Disneyland after all. I don't know if anyone can relate. Here I am, three days away from my IB account having clear funding. I get to use the TWS. I get to use all of the cool gadgets. It really is an adrenaline rush. In reality though, my exuberance will come at a price won't it? I read a lot of information here also: https://www.nybotlive.com/nlc_files/nybot35nb.html It's almost as if they are saying to stay out of the markets altogether. Definitely something to ponder this weekend before I buy those YM futures on Monday or short Google on a hunch. Thanks guys.
I agree. Stealth Trader has given you great advice. I'd like to suggest that an alternative to starting out with IB, would be to open an account with Thinkorswim in Chicago. The main disadvantage to TOS is somewhat higher commissions (but still low compared to typical retail brokers) and they are not the best for trading the eminis because they don't provide Time and Sales for their retail customers and they don't support 24 hour Globex trading. But they are excellent in just about every other respect, and possibly the best outfit for options trading, should that become of interest to you. The main advantages for someone starting out trading that TOS offers, however, is an excellent paper trading platform that perfectly mimics the live trading platform, and their shadow trader feature. The latter are live daily broadcasts by an experienced intraday trader, Peter Resnecek, (not sure of spelling). As a new trader, you could learn a lot from listening to Mr. Resnecek. My impression is that TOS may be a leader among all brokers with regard to trader education. And that is obviously of prime importance to you right now. TOS, i think, will allow you to sign up for a free two week trial of their trading platform, but i don't know if that includes the excellent shadow trader broadcasts.
If you want to get your feet wet with real money just trade 1 contract until you can show a profit for 1 month. Sounds easy, but it's not. If you can be profitable for 1 month then increase your size. Experience is important, and you need to learn to read price action with the psychology of trading real money. I promise you that you will literally try thousands of things that won't work which is why it is extremely important to learn to read price movements. Once you can read price the money will just seem to find a way to flow into your account. I already posted something about this today, and I promise you it is true. There is no magic to trading. There are no gurus. The day you learn that there is no magic, and the day you learn to read price action is the first day on your way to becoming a profitable trader.
wow! money to burn...ah..make on the very first trade, I remember it well, but before you hit that button read this first http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=52060
I'm seeing a lot of red flags in your reply, so in the premise you are not trolling and are in fact serious, allow me to make the following comments: 1. Trading is not supposed to be "exciting." If it's excitement you seek, go to Vegas. 2. You most certainly will not make money for a long while. Don't confuse beginners luck with consistently being profitable month after month, year after year. It takes long years of hard discipline and toil to become profitable, most who try never get there. Supposedly sane people have committed suicide trying to master the markets. You either get control of your emotions right now, or your emotions will cause you to fail before you even begin. 3. My advice is merely an opinion based on having been there, done that. Nonetheless, I can assure you that is will closely mirror the "popular opinion" of credible traders with a long history of success. It may go against the grain of those who want to be traders and who have a motive to sell you their wares, but it is sound in principle. It's your decision alone whether you are a follower or a leader. 4. Once again, if it's the "Disneyland" experience you seek, go to Vegas. Or better yet, use the money you will undoubtedly lose, and instead take a group of less fortunate children to Disneyland and give them a fond memory they most likely will never have the chance to experience. 5. The terms "cool gadgets, adrenaline rush, and exuberance" simply have no place in the mindset of a successful trader/investor. With all due respect, you are coming across as either very young who has never had to work for anything, or a troll wasting the time of others. However, I will give you the benefit of doubt until shown otherwise. Trading is a serious business, not an outlet for fun and games. And yes, I can almost guarantee that you will quickly lose your money given the mindset you are displaying. I don't mean to offend you, just the cold hard truth and the picture of perception you are painting. 6. No one is saying to stay out of the markets, you have been given the keys on how to get into the markets and actually survive. However, you have no trading plan or proven strategy, no experience, a somewhat lackadaisical approach, and yet you feel that you are ready to begin trading on Monday based on a hunch and some charlatan's book that you read. A recipe for disaster if I ever saw one and seemingly the by-product of todays child rearing philosophy that instills "no one is a loser, everybody is a winner" crowd. Trading is a take no prisoners event, bar none. This isn't tee-ball anymore. 7. If I have offended you, so be it. I simply call it as I see it. Sugar coating is for candy, as I don't belong to the cheerleading crowd. You asked for input, and I have given you my take on the matter straight up on the rocks. The choice is entirely yours on how you proceed from here. 8. In summary, I strongly suggest that you paper trade for however long it takes until you show a consistant profit. Plan on this taking months, if not a year or two. That said, paper trading is not the same as actually putting your money on the line, so don't expect the same results once going live. Start small and stop trading live immediately if you are losing. Go back to paper trading and examine what you are doing wrong. 9. Anyone who tells you that they became profitable after only a few months is either a liar, in denial, or the extremely rare exception. The learning process never stops as the market internals are always changing. Even the best of the best have losing streaks and/or break their rules occasionally. 10. In my opinion, the path to success is being in control of your emotions, being properly funded, adhere to your tried and true rules, know you don't have to always be in a trade, understand your personal limitations and weaknesses, and money management, money management, money management. Preservation of capital is more important than profitability. st
Can we talk more about this? What does it mean to read price action? Are you talking about looking at charts and watching trends? Will learning charts like the MACD and others help me in creating my own system? I have heard many say I am not ready to trade. I believe you. I tried it for 6 months a couple of years ago and it was the worst experience of my life. Stress, anxiety, insomnia, ulcers, lol. How I broke even, I will never know. I really want to do it different this time but where do I start? Several people have said to open a paper trade account. Then what? I have heard of technicals and fundamentals but don't know much about them. Are these what you look at to "read price action"? I'm just trying to figure out what reading price action is and where do I begin my education. Thanks to all of you. I really appreciate it and while some have said that ET forum folks can be mean, I have experienced nothing but graciousness. Thanks again.
You sound a lot as if you are overwhelmed by the information overload. Employ the KISS principle at once - study RAW price action - no indicators, no complications, do papertrading for a good long time until you are seeing consistently positive results with the papertrading. Decide to learn about one small area - take 1 market such as ES - study the history of it, pick a timeframe to concentrate on, watch the charts of price action during the day, how it acts around major news events, before the close, right at the 9:30 timeframe when stock markets begin trading, when Bernanke makes some kind of statements, etc. Determine the position sizing, stop and risk that makes sense for each trade - DO NOT EVER TRADE MORE THAN 1 CONTRACT until you have proven yourself for several months at least. Ulcers, stress, anxiety, insomnia is a sign that you are way overleveraged, or way ahead of yourself to the point that you don't even understand the implications of the trades you are contemplating. If you are trading correctly, it should be as BORING as watching paint dry. This is because your risk should be so small that several losing trades in a row would not even phase you. Likewise, you will not be swinging for the fences and trying to hit home runs on each profitable trade - they will just be small up and down events. The graph over time of your results should show an equity curve that is gradually rising with some bumps along the way - it should not look like a roller coaster, or an EKG monitor. If it does, you are doing it wrong. Back when I was 25, I got this great idea to cash advance $20K off credit cards, put it all in a trading account and trade options. I was trading positions of $5K or more on 1 month options. By some strange luck, I actually made about $10K initially on a $5K position because I bought some ES puts about 30 minutes before Greenspan announced a rate hike due to inflation concerns. However, the swings were ridiculous, and I did not learn my lesson until when I took a $10K hit over lunch one day. Let me tell you - it was exciting as hell - but it was very very stupid and it took me years and 2 blown-up accounts to settle down afterwards. Trust me, there are far better and cheaper ways to find entertainment than to create your own in the market.