<i>"Just curious if anyone can say from experience whether this is a useful tool for the tool box, or another to add to the scrap heap."</i> While on the topic of scrap heaps and systems, what was your experience with Felton Trading? Unless I'm mistaken, you gave them favorable reviews some time ago. What has become of the OTTO mechanical system in real-time since?
I was in Roger's room last fall for about 2 months. While I learned a fair deal from him, I had periods of profitability and periods of losses, followng his method, so I left the room. Otto sounded intriguing but was not released before I left. Since then , I heard from a fellow trader who remained in the room after I left it, and he found that Otto did not perform as expected (he gave up trading completely shortly thereafter). I stopped by one Otto training session earlier this year, and there seemed to be a fair amount of frustration with Otto, both on peformance, and the lack of ability for users to optimize and adjust variables. It's written in TS EL, but for some reason they locked it up so users could not get reports from it, while trying various inputs on their own. I do not know if it has been modified or improved since then. I still trade with divergence methods today, but not as prescribed by Roger (namely, no longer taking counter trend trades). Now that I have answered your question, Austin, let me ask you why you care about my experience with a competing vendor?
<i>"Now that I have answered your question, Austin, let me ask you why you care about my experience with a competing vendor?"</i> Simple. I consider you a voice of open honesty and reason. Your posts have always been candid and straight-forward. So I asked an anonymous opinion I value for such. You mentioned using two different methods before, and commented on a number of different "vendors". Just inquiring about the otto system's robustness, considering it was a widely written about product of a site sponsor and a supplier you had favorably mentioned. * <b>vend, vending, vendor = distribute, distributing, distributer</b> A thought occurred to me today that never hit before. There are a lot of vendors here who distribute information either for $$ or various emotional satisfactions. Some sponsor the website and others merely post for self-gratification. None of them, not a single one has ever posted a legit trade blotter anywhere in all of ET. Regularly, sporadically or otherwise. With possibly one exception. There are even more self-appointed ET "vendor police" who have post counts higher than the waning hairs on my head. None of them, not a single one has ever posted an account blotter anywhere in this site. Isn't that remarkable? Vendors (ego or $$ rewarded) don't post trades proof, vendor police (trolls) don't post trades proof... looks like a standoff to me. Wouldn't it be amusing if someone served a big platter of buffalo-style crow wings in P&L 2008 thread for the trolls to dine on? I guess it's just a matter of who cares enough to prepare that dish to pass around. This little pond in the world-wide message board realm would never be the same. Food for thought.
Fair enough Austin. I have spent more money than I'd like to recall on many different methods/vendors over the years. Frankly, I have found something useful in almost all of them, but of course some are of more value than others. I agree Austin, it would be refreshing to see either side post real results. The vendor police seem to be just as bad as the vendors. Case in point, Trading Zoo was totally trashed on a few threads here a while back. I bought the course and spent a few months in there. MP is one terrific trader, and his posted results on his website were exactly as he took them for real in the room. I just found it very difficult to be able to trade like him. Not that he didn't teach everyone (inluding me) his methods. It was just that his style of trading didn't fit my psychological profile (most of his set-ups involve placing limit orders out there waiting for them to be hit, sometimes like stepping in front of a freight train). I know some people who did very well (and still do well) trading his methods, but they weren't for me. It's been my experience in every trading group that I have participated in, that a few can replicate the guru's method exactly and do very well with it, while a majority attempt to and ultimately drift away in frustration. I believe this is because trading is an intensely psychological activity, and as such, the method one uses must match one's pyschological profile very closely. Trying to adapt someone else's method exactly is likely to result in failure because of this. My success has come when I've adapted bits and pieces of what I've learned from several people and made it my own, with lots of trial and error along the way. P.S. I do still look for who else I can learn from, albeit with increased experienced-based skepticism
I have taken the eminidaytrader course recently The methodology is based off of Market Profile and 1 minute ES bars. There are no basic indicators used such as MACD, STOC, RSI etc., but there are Paint bars that are volume generated that usually are part of a Balance Area where trade setups can occur. This site is the real deal. To use a baseball analogy, you consistently hit singles and doubles and once in a while a home run. To all the doubting Thomas out in the wilderness, I too, was one of you. I had become the perfect skeptic after buying the TI, RS of Houston, Todd Mitchell and many more day trading courses only to find out they weren't consistently profitable or did not fit my comfort zone as far as a trading style. With EDT, once you learn the trade setups, you place a limit order and wait for the market to come to you. There is no guess work, the market will either prove you right or wrong. Stops are 1.50 and profit targets based on multiple contracts are: .75, 1.50 and trailing.
jxsbree - Thanks for posting your experience with eMDT. How long have you been with them? From the website, it appears that they don't have a live trading room during the day. How well do you think you were able to learn the method without real-time support during trading hours? Do you feel that subscribing to the software indefinitely is required in order to effectively trade the method? Also, you mention entry on limit orders. My impression was that they enter on buy stops or sell stops. Is that incorrect? Thanks. Sandy
The bullshit alarm goes off when I read, on their website that, "the copyright [for their software] was issued in 2004 by the U.S. copyright office." FYI, the US Copyright Office does not "issue" copyrights the way the U.S. patent office issues patents. You can register, for $10.00, original material with the U.S. Copyright Office, but you don't need to do so in order to defend your copyright. I realize this may seem like hair-splitting, but their statement is put forth in such a way as to imply that there is something unique, indeed "patent-able," about their software. But, of course, they haven't actually been issued patent -- which are only granted after a rigorous review process. So, instead, they claim to have been "issued" a copyright, which is a non-sequitor. If they're willing to bend the facts of such a minor point, what else will they distort?