It is funny that Don stops posting his performance numbers during his jellies training. If he is so good, why did he stop posting his numbers when every one get to verify whether those numbers are fake or not (i presume his jellies are able to do these, unless they are just floating directionless in the dark tank :eek: ). In the latest blog, he post some cryptic message "Wednesday Notes - Speechless Yes, it happens and no, hell is not freezing over." What exactly does it means ? How come no jellies come to ET and comments the his training ? I guess Don must have suffer a great loss on Wednesday (FOMC) day, yet he never admit it. He only hint at it. It shows that his comments are very biased, only reports the good, filter out the bad.
Have you read more than 2 days of Don Miller's blog? His September 16, 2009 post was all about mistakes. Here is part of it: "Rifle through the virtual pages of this diary and you'll see plenty of them. Who could forget that infamous day in October 2008 where I -- along with the rest of the world -- got the wake-up call of all wake-up calls as the VIX shot through 60. -$94K was the "tuition" I paid to learn how to trade the VIX in the stratosphere if I recall. And yes, the tuition was worth it as that week ended +$40K and month +$315K." Talking about losing $94K in just one day is filtering out the bad??? That one day loss shows that even a skilled scalper can lose money quickly. His October 31, 2008 post has a chart showing his gross monthly gains, gross losses and net result month by month for the first 10 months of 2008. 5 of the 10 months have gross losses of $50K or greater (net positive as the gross gains are larger than the gross losses). The good, the bad and real ugly is all in the blog for anyone who bothers to actually read it.
It would be interesting to see how or why Don lost the 94K on that day. Did he lose his discipline? Did he keep averaging up or down and took big losses because he couldn't admit he was wrong? Was it because of revenge trading? When he was averaging about 6K a day how does he lose 94K in one day? That's like 16X his average win day.
all above. don was big-time averaging down, no matter what he teaches now. no question many days 2008 had massive intraday drawdowns that recovered for tiny realized at end.
you always defend everything don miller in detail and knowledge depth. very personal, first-person style. must be extremely close association, no doubt
Well, we agree completely. It also comes down to the basic question: Can trading be taught? or What kind of trading can be taught? Overall I don't think the majority of the Jellies are going to be successful because of the reasons you stated. Don averages $8 per return with a very low commission. I am sure the students learnt a few tricks and useful information, but my guess is that only less than 20-30% of them are going to be profitable once they are on their own... It will be probably hard to collect data, because we can not be sure they are going to be using STRICTLY Do't methods...
Well, I agree again. Of course, the longer is the learning period the better, but we have to draw a line somewhere when the mentor can say, you are ready. If during 4 weeks the market sufficiently presents all kind of movements (rally, selloff, sideways) that should be good enough to show his strategies. On the other hand there can be even an 8 weeks period when the market moves mostly one way... I have a strategy that can be described in 3 simple sentences and can be understood in minutes, so it really depends just how complex systems he is teaching...
The blog has changed since he started to do the teaching. Until that it was a personal journal and reflections about the market, now it is more like a teaching tool. He is not required to post anything, if he doesn't want to. The students had the opportunity to ask for their money back after 2 weeks, and none of them did. I am sure eventually we will hear from some of the Jellies, but it will take time. Let them swim a bit alone first...
teaching what? weight loss inspiration? charity donation inspiration? don launched the blog once his IRA money from outside business venture started growing through trading inside worldclass volatility. don railed about vendors, how they are all worthless, everything needed to know is archived in his blog. no need for anything else. never see ads there. never sell anything. never ask for one dime. all vendors are crooks. blog exists for proving dollar performance. only measure that counts. all his words. his reason for starting a blog to begin with. what changed?