I daytraded at the now defunct WorldCo LLC. in NYC from 2001 to 2003. I found it very difficult to make a living but after many ups and downs left as a profitable trader. I have been following Covel's "Trendfollowing" for the past year. Seems to me like a decent strategy and would like to get some ideas on brokers and software. I would only trade after my regular 9-5 job but need a software program that analyzes the market and would notify me of breakout opportunities. Since I am tight with startup capital, can anyone advise on a broker that charges low commisions and a software package. I am primarily interested in trading the futures markets. Any help would be great!
Software? What for? If you really believe Covel's version of trend-following, all you need to do is look for "key" breakout levels on daily charts, place your entry-orders in the evening, wait for the market to open the next day, see what the market did after work, place protective stops on your open positions and be on the lookout for other trades. Anything else would be overanalysis. Overall on your statement you should have a lot of small losses and small profits that offset eachother. Ideally, in addition, there will be a few huge profits, ~5% of your total trades, that account for your entire profitability. You'll never know for sure which trades those will be.
i'll approach your question with the assumption that you are not a shill for the turtles. cov*l's book, while nice and a fun beach read, can hardly be called substantive or contain any actual useable trading knowledge. platitudes and pointing at supposed succesful fund managers will do little to help you in the reality of trading. trend following seems to be the new age marketing term for buy or sell, hold and hope--- this is in evidence of the extreme drawdowns the gurus of the movement experience. are you with the trend--what ever that is, is only determined after the fact--- if the directional trade makes money, you are with the trend, otherwise, you are against the trend ( losing money ). the public, by default, are trend followers--think about this, it should tell you something. when tested in the stock indexes, simply buying new highs/breakouts is a loser strategy. in fact, larry connors shows in his book "how markets really work" that buying lows and selling highs far out performs the "turtle method". can the turtle method work--sure--- buy/sell, hold, hope can work but its far from an ideal method as shown statistically time and time again. the software listed earlier can do exactly what you want. i'll add www.tradestation.com to the list. best wishes, surfer
Thank you all for your generous input. I am wondering where I can find a basic position trading strategy for starting capital of around 20K in the futures market. I guess the turtle trading strategy is not all that it's cracked up to be, plus I spent my hard earned dollars on that course. A simple stratgey thats profitable would suffice or is that asking for too much.
you should have gone to curtis faiths site he was original real turtle and gave basic rules for free there also russell sands was a turtle and although some think he is a loser ... he claims to be doing better than turtles now with his services finally have you considered learning your ACD's ? look for Mark Fishers book as a way to get some ideas good luck ...
i would recommend learning several basic options strategies to most efficiently use your capital. try www.redoption.com or www.optionplanet.com for a good place to start. best wishes and good luck to you !! surfer