I knew being overrun by newbies will not be a problem. All you really need is 2-3 regulars...There is a reason why the chatroom died here...
That's all any chat room really needs...just a few regular members. Yet, those few members need to be quality members. Thus, quality is more important than quantity. Lots of free chat room software out there or even low cost. Really the only other requirements is chat log history storage and timestamped. Also, find a good moderator that can handle the trolls if the person that started the chat room is not able to moderate because trolls will eventually show up. I think this was Baron's initial intent to do here at ET but the problematic traders showed up and couldn't be managed.
Right. Well considering the apparent failure to establish a trading room to everyone's liking, can anyone recommend a room, or at least speak highly enough of one? I'm looking for one with a focus on intraday trading equity and fx futures.
If you are truly looking to learn, I think you're already shooting yourself in the foot by looking for a room that is trading multiple instruments. I'm not saying they can't be looking at a few things at the same time for correlation since price moves tend to be more neat when a few instruments are all moving in the same direction, but trading the NQ and ES one minute, and then switching to FX the next is building bad habits. Only a truly expert trader can flow so easily between different instruments, and even then I doubt if this is the case because a truly expert trader would just go big on size for what he knows the best. Part of being a very good trader is waiting. If you bounce around to a different instrument because something isn't happening, you're teaching the bad habit of not allowing for patience. Often times, you also end up missing the best entry, and when you look back to your first instrument, its taken off, and you're left chasing, entering at a worse price, second guessing an entry, etc. In my opinion, a room would trade only one thing and do it well. If there is no immediate entry on the horizon, its the perfect time to ask questions. Since many day traders say they only have 5 to 10 entries per day, most time is spent either waiting for entry, or sitting in a position. A truly professional room would teach the waiting aspect without trying to bounce around looking for something to constantly pull the trigger on.
Great input Gotcha, thanks. Do you know of such rooms? That is certainly true when trading discretionary. If one traded purely algorithmically, purely mechanically, and that system is proven to work on multiple markets, then multiple markets can be traded.
They don't exist because the trader who can do this is living the good life and certainly wouldn't have a "for profit" room. Sometimes you get lucky by finding fellow traders who match you well, but highly rare. In my experience, its very distracting, and if you're so good that you won't be distracted, you have nothing to gain to be in one. There is no system that will work on multiple markets. Sure, buy low and sell high always works, but the devil is in the details, in the tweaks, in how many ticks you let it runs against you, how many ticks an average swing can be, etc. You have to know your market very well.
With this I agree for 200%. With this I don't agree at all. Personal experience learned me that (more or less) universal systems exist. But you should base it on something else then what you (and most people) use. "How many ticks an average swing can be" is irrelevant. The biggest gains are in swings that go far beyond the average swing. Because they go unexpectedly beyond the average swing they go so far. Because most people are on the wrong leg. That are the big moneymakers. If you get out at the average swing you will miss huge profits, but on the side of the losses everything stays the same. So you reduce the profitability and increase the risk/reward ratio. I daytrade the ES and the biggest part of my profits come from moves far beyond the average move.