I remember when Hoffman first got big in the trading world. He was really sneaky. He started off with these youtube videos in reference to the ES. They weren't half bad. He'd bad mouth other gurus and say how worthless they are. He did that for a year or so, then created a website and a free mIRC chat room. He said he just wanted to provide free trading help to struggling traders and not be a guru that charged money. He proved to be a complete liar. He got himself a big following, and started charging for services. Big surprise there. All the people that subscribed were newbies that didn't know a thing about ES trading. Pretty pathetic if you ask me, but it made him some serious $$ with the huge following he had before the website. Stay away from Hoffman. He's not only a liar, but a terrible trader. Anyone that loses $312k on a single trade is not worthy of teaching others.
He did a webinar after his losing trade. In the webinar he said that he was comfortable with the loss and anyone who was saying he "got his head handed to him" didn't have any idea about his account size. Also, he said he had set a percentage-based stop in advance with his broker so that if his account had a drawdown greater than a certain percentage for the day, he would get stopped out (even though he would have preferred a controlled liquidation done himself than to be liquidated by his broker). In my opinion, his percentage-based stop was not something he set himself, but was a percentage that is enforced by his broker, since they don't want HIS loss to become THEIR loss. I suspect he DID get his head handed to him, but just wants to downplay the loss. In my opinion, he was trying to make it sound like he had millions in that particular trading account, and I doubt that to be true. I'm told Infinity has a rule where they liquidate one's position(s) if an account loses 60% in a day. Assuming he had around $520K to start and lost 60% of that amount ($312K) before they liquidated his position, that's still getting one's head handed to him. He would always talk about preserving capital, and yet he blew out a big chunk of his account.
Damn, the Holy Grail right here on ET! What a recipe for financial success in trading! Of course he'd have a big following of struggling newbies. How much better can it possibly get for a struggling newbie???!!! Here's a guy who demonstrates a way to trade without having to worry about timing market moves and without even having to use stops because the sophomoric noobs all know the only real loss is a realized loss (and price always turns your way as soon as you capitulate, and the professionals' most important job each day is to "hunt" the stops of small retail traders and screw them each personally). It works soooo well, until it doesn't, but by then you have a BIG FOLLOWING of paid subscribers to cushion your fall during the inevitable blowup. Then you regroup by teaching everyone the important lessons you learned from that one pesky little bad trade, then wash, rinse, and repeat. NEWBIE ALERT: Everything you need to know about profitable trading is FREE, either on-line or at your local library. All you have to add is a couple thousand hours of sweat equity to get started. If you're unable to invest a couple thousand hours of quality time to your trading education, move on.
Rob likely started to believe he was such a levels guru that the Martingale strategy would always work for him.
Partial alert. The real truth is that it might take 20,000 hours over several years' time and $5,000 or $10,000 or $50,000 or $1,000,000.00+ lost to the markets thru failed trading before someone gets all the pieces of a vast puzzle aptly in place. For every scratch-taught person who can sift thru library books, youtube videos and public messages boards to find the gold flakes dust from amidst a literal sea of overburden trash, there are ten thousand ruined traders who got lost in the sea of said trash. So let's be totally honest about both edges of the reality sword. Nobody with zero exceptions ever read any book, slapped a 20sma on a chart and learned to navigate it bar by bar. There is one helluva lot more to this profession than that, and it will surely cost anyone who steps into this arena with zero exceptions
I'm not saying that paying for trading education is bad in and of itself. As a total beginner, I paid for two subscription services and both were excellent, but I had this notion that all trades should be winners even if it meant stretching the extremes of risk management and my hair-brained idea cost me all of my beginner's profits and more. Any trading room or service where risk management is absent (such as averaging down without a fixed stop loss stated in advance) is, to use a favorite phrase from a trading buddy, "the Devil's chocolate". I said it would take a couple thousand hours "to get started". I keep meeting people who've blown thousands (maybe tens of thousands) and haven't even yet attempted to do the basic research to develop and test a core plan. Someone asking for help once provided me with a day's signals based on their trading plan and there was a short signal and a long signal at the exact same time and this person did not see this as a problem. Austin, just one of your videos sparked a whole trading plan idea for me, which I still use to this day, but I spent months putting it together and learning to trust it. BTW, your risk management is top notch
I know nothing about Mr. Hoffman, his webinar, methodology etc. But I do know that the percentage of an account he blows in any given day is totally irrelevant to whether he is a good trader. If he has put together a significant net worth based on his years of trading -- say $10,000,000 -- and he is comfortable risking about 3% of that in a given day than a $312K loss may well be within the parameters of his plan. I am not a guy who doubles down. In fact I am more likely to trade less when I am in the red. But, assuming he has made a great deal of money trading, then what does a given account matter. Suppose he opened up at AMP and wired them $2,000 tomorrow and on Thursday blew 150% of that account. Presumably he could wire them $1,000 on Friday and by the close be squared up with them and have forgotten about it before dinner. Account size is always irrelevant. Assuming you are liquid and not tied up in real estate or other less than immediately marketable assets all that counts is % of net worth or % of liquid net worth. If I was worth a liquid $10,000,000 I probably would have a daily loss limit of well under 1% and a weekly limit of maybe 1% or $100,000. But hey, 3% is not crazy as long as a guy knows he can trade the next day without going on tilt. That's the key rather than whether it is 1% or 4%.
fwiw some long-time followers in his room attest that he never collectively made $300k total in all his years of affiliation with TTM room in public. In other words, he blew several years' worth of wad in 1/2 of one session. I believe that was posted somewhere in here, maybe earlier in this thread or a similar thread. I don't come here much any more, and I get a lot of emails from others so not 100% sure but think that conversation is archived here somewhere.
That approach is the classic, textbook "pied piper" sales approach. It's us against "them"... they are leading you astray... here follow me, I'll lead you to the promised land" tactic. Not for nothing, but the second best execution of that in the history of trading was Michael Parness and his "Rule The Freakin' Markets" Campaign. He definitely made millions in his day, which was the pinnacle peak heyday of day-trading history. The absolute slickest, most professional campaign of "us against them" was Don Miller's jelly program. No question about it, Don's repeated castigating of "educators who charge money" which suddenly turned to, "well. I'm now a little bit of an educator for $10,000 per head count" is hands down the best planned ever. Ironic part is, both of them were frenetic day traders... banging the tapes multiple times daily in heated fashion. Neither of them are still active day-traders applying their information in real time markets now. Imagine that.
Donna, you are one of those gifted individuals with a rare knack for the aptitude AND desire AND work ethic needed to succeed in this profession. You would have won in the end no matter how much broken glass was there to be crawled over. And your learning curve across the board was waaaaay shorter than mine