How naive. Makes me wonder if bwolinsky even trades at all. It's pretty clueless to assume from this thread, that a guy who trades for a living will give his student rules that haven't been backtested already. As for black boxes, the workings of a black box are known to those who develop them and trade them. It need not be a black box for DadsSon, but it is to you and me. Therefore, based on the assertion that backtests and black boxes are necessary for success, DadsSon should be successful. -A
He doesn't have a black box, and while it probably was backtested separately from the mentoring I know the mechanics of trading always leave slippage removing whatever edge their might be in TF for 1-2 point manual scalps. Yeah, it's too much slippage, slow reaction, and that can only be remedied with a black box. Yes, I trade futures, and I use three different proprietary strategies of black boxes.
Some advice which is good for all traders even if this is or not a fake journal. 1) Get MS Excel. 2) Create a real journal / trade log. 3) To do the above create the following columns. Day of week, reason for trade, win, loss, summary. 4) In the win and loss columns you should put a number, this will allow you to create a row called grand total to add up your loss and wins and do statistical analysis like calculating your win ratio. 5) The summary is the outcome thoughts on the trade. If you keep seeing similar mistakes it will hopefully allow you to correct them in the future. Also, knowing you need to write out all of your trades may keep you from over trading / revenge trading. The reason of the trade should be a profitable edge based setup. Obviously, if you do the trade for some other reason, its probably not going to work. Punishing oneself for a winning trade is stupid, instead try to understand why the trade work. Sometimes you can get experienced enough that you are in the zone and can actually predict the future in real time. 6) I would not suggest creating a Journal on ET until you have been trading for awhile unless you are testing out a new idea or for example reporting what's its like at a new prop firm. 7) The reason to not have a journal here especially if you are actually young, is that you are going to be attacked by some of the trolls here. Unless you can take it like Neke or you have a strong belief in your system. Also, the best traders like Buffet don't use black boxes, only the worst traders like LTCM use it to blow up their own and investor accounts. Most back testing does not work since it can't predict how the market changes in the future. The best testing is forward testing an idea with a small account. However, I agree that looking at charts of the past to test your ideas before future testing is also good.
To all the rest of you, I happen to be the Son of a Bitch who is mentoring this kid. I was called by his Pastor like a year ago from a Christian church even though I am not Christian, to see if I could give David some direction, help the family out, cause his old man died two years ago. I am not good with kids, matter of fact I tolerate anyone under 35 and most people in general. Pastor thought it would be good for me as I have cancer, other health issues and of great help to the family. I don't believe in FREE anything, I belive in working your fucking ass off to get ahead in this life, I believe in worshipping God, and I believe in a man's handshake. I am old school. Yea, I made this method in like 15 minutes, had the money management rules backtested individually every month for past few years, and I test on tick data going back 12 years. I selected a few rules he could remember, no sense in handing out a ton of rules if you can't remember them. I don't use any commerical sold software for testing, and I wouldn't hand out any method to anyone if I hadn't backtested and traded it myself. He can't take any so so signals, bars can't be too big, scalping isn't like short term trading, have to pass on anything that shows any kind of S/R and still be able to have a few trades. And just cause YOU can't make volume work doesn't make it useless. I employ a staff to trade and program for me 24 hours a day. I have backups that backup, multiple data feeds, rent 2 seats, cable, dsl and satelite dish, a generator in case electric goes off, and yes I have automated systems too. And today I am just sick from puking-taking chemo again. I want the kid to make $5,000 and he will stop day trading, he doesn't much like doing it, but I am not going to front him his college money, he has to make it, and I will then trade it so he could go to any college he wants in USA in a couple years. This is going to be my only post to David's journal, I wanted him to see there are different people in the world, and you have to constantly watch who you talk, not everyone is your friend. He needs to learn much about being a man, about values, promises, what happens when rules are broken whether God's or man's. But above all, you can rebuff what people say, but no name calling and be respectful or put them on IGNORE. How about any of you take some 15 year old kid from the projects and help your fellow man out. There have been some very decent posts for anyone just starting out and for old traders too. And no, I am not taking any more students, I have a ten year waiting list. I am the only SOB around that collects their fee from student's profits. If you all don't like David posting a journal, go anywhere the hell else but his journal. I just don't see the point, he is here cause I told him to post his trades, that's it. He makes another 34 points and he is done. PM me if you want to hash it out with me, but leave the kid alone if you going to talk trash.
H123 You Sir, have a Good Heart ============== DS Learn well... and keep the need to lift additional weights to a minimum Young Sir RN
Not to say this is not true, but some of this does not make sense. Assuming he trades 2 contract per point that means if he makes 34 more points, he will have made $ 3,400, so $ 5,000 - $ 3,400 = $ 1,600 he already made which does not correspond to the postings, but he does say he made money with help from Handle so maybe he had built this profit up already. Also, having satellite internet does not make sense due to latency and speed. Also, renting 2 seats would mean spending around $ 3,800 ( $ 1,900 x 2), and I don't see the benefit of renting more than 1 seat plus remember this cost occurs every 6 months, and its not worth leasing even 1 seat unless you are doing 50 rt per day which this strategy is not employing. Again, even if you are doing 250 rt per day, as far as I know you don't need to lease more than 1 seat. Also, why would anyone want to wait 10 years to get trained on this strategy which really is not that great in the 1st place. Of course he is training for free, so I guess it really does not matter.
It makes sense as a backup. If you're a good trader, you can anticipate trades far enough in advance. I'm pretty sure a 5 second delay wouldn't affect me at all if my trading consists of only stop orders and limit orders placed at the broker, because I'd be placing them at least a minute or so in advance anyway. The method being discussed in this thread appears to be like that. Why would a guy who employs a staff of traders and programmers be trading one simple method? You're thinking too small. -A
Someone who knows only how to run a black box isn't a trader. Personally I consider such persons fools, but if it works for you, then that's cool. -A