If your thinking about quitting then I want you to read this post (sorry its so lengthy). It was originally a reply to a thread that is no longer here. there person in question wanted to quit due to too much market manipulation by the big boys. This person is now doing quite well and has given us permission to post this. ------ I must have given myself another 2 weeks before I quit trading about 50 times in my career. I thank the good spirits I did not. Before the inevitable I want you to do a few things. Then you will be able to quit knowing at least you tried, REALLY TRIED everything. Make sure you buy and read the book, Trading in the Zone by Mark Douglas. And I want you to get the book by Anthony Robbins Unlimited Power. Both in a way deal with the same thing. That to be successful all you really have to do is think that you are becoming successful. I do not want to talk you out of the idea that the Wall Street insiders are conspiring to take your money. As a matter of fact I want to help you explore that theory. So let's take a normal day as an example. Let's say you did not take any of profitable calls. You only took the gap trade which never filled. You probably lost 20 points as did the people I know who took the trade. The weird thing is at least 3 of the people who took the gap trade with you, I would definitely describe as a Wall Street insider. He had 20 contracts and lost 21 points which was a 2100.00 loss. ( I wonder why he did not manipulate the market in order to make a gain). But lets forget that little problem. Let's talk about the (bigger Wall Street Insiders). The guys with hundreds of millions in the market each. I assume you had 1 contract in the gap trade. And if you had more, what was the basis for your disregard of risk? So you lost about $110.00. That was not fun. Now, how many of the big boys do you think it takes to drive the stock market down 38 points without so much as a rally to the pivot line? Certainly not 1. My guess would be at least 20 acting in concert. Wouldn't you agree? So, they had to figure out a way to know that you were going to play the gap. I guess they could have asked me. They could have put a little pressure on to have me make the call in the first place. Now for doing that I do not come cheap. My reputation is on the line. But everyone has his price. So I will not admit to this, because it would be a crime, but perhaps $10,000.00 cash would get me to call a trade, assuming that you would follow it. Let's face it, we are dealing with the big boys. They can easily come up with $10,000.00 which would only be $500 bucks for each of the 20 insiders. Since they are located all over the country, I don't think they all flew to New York for a breakfast meeting to discuss this manipulation. A quick conference call would be all that was needed. Since you never know who is monitoring calls these days, the lead conspirator could have said something like, "The tick isn't Pure anymore." That would be the key. They would wait for probably 5 minutes after the opening, or maybe it is a member in the room. I know it's not Tickman anymore. As soon as I hit the buy buzzer, these guys start selling. My guess is that they would have to insure that the market stays down all day, so they would not only have to make an immediate series of trades but would have to keep shorting any rallies that emerge during the day in order to keep that market down, below where you got in. My assumption is that on a lower volume day like today, with oil rising, it would probably only take about 20 billion dollars to keep the market down all day. But these guys have the bucks, and let's face it, with the incentive to take your money they would spend all they had and get their other contacts to help in case there was unexpected buying. Well we do know the result. Their shorting kept the market down. Of course, inadvertently, they helped Max Span go down and take some profits (There were at least 3 newbies in the room who did go short, but I guess the big boys couldn't get every newbies money or you would then have made a profit and spoiled their plans. And as usual, their plans succeeded. They got your $120.00. The only thing wrong with the plan is that each of those Wall Street insiders would have wanted his cut---these guys don't play for nothing. So instead of walking away with a sweet $120.00 in his pocket, each of our manipulators only took home $6.00. Now don't laugh. $6.00 may not be much to me or you, but these crooks got this $6.00 with virtually no risk since they had planned all the while to drive the market down. AW
Didn't you watch the Cramer video? Not only are they trying to flush out the thousands of retail traders, they're also trying to flush out other large players who have millions at stake on the other side of the trade. It's a very lucrative business, and most of the time legit.
of course they are but for one trader with 1 contract to think someone is out to get him specifically is ridiculous. that seemed to be the point here. i know traders who think like that
Spectra, Of course clinical paranoia is to be avoided in all healthy relationships. However, when our $ is at stake it is always good to have a healthy degree of skepticism. Human nature is good but it is also weak. And there are those among us who will yield to the temptation to steal from most of us trusting folk. There ARE thieves out there in the trading world who do not even think that their thievery is wrong!! They consider stealing 'just part of the game' in the trading business. Just look at all the ENRONS out there which have of late been prosecuted. Justice has been delayed far too long for these and other 'white collar' crooks! It is too much to think that "all the big boys" are ganging up on us in order to take our meager $100.00 trades. But it is NOT far removed from reality to be watchful of our individual brokers that they don't rip off our $. After all, THEY ARE THE MIDDLEMEN; they see our trades coming in for trades; they can delay our executions, etc. We need to be forever vigilant. Tom P.S. Please read the following post on this site: "FXCM may be the biggest...and they sure act like it." - theSnaggle December 12, 2006 3:24 PM: "If you are a small retail trader and depend on rapid execution at market with minimum slippage, do NOT deposit your money with this broker. Even their "non-Dealing Desk" is a joke. Here is there sales pitch from a recent email: - Rapid execution even during volatile market conditions - No requotes from a dealing desk confirming your trades - No restrictions on entry orders prior to news events - Anonymity: The banks, who are the counterparties to your trades, will only see that FXCM has an order in the market whenever you enter a trade. Your stop, limit, as well as entry orders are not known to the banks until executed. They go on to say that, "with multiple banks quoting, the spreads can vary," and that "on average, spreads will be tighter." This is certainly true when compared to FXCM's fixed spread dealing station, but this is not true for the average fixed spread retail brokers out there, which begs the question -- Why sign up for their No Dealing Desk platform at all? But that isn't the half of it. The speed of execution is in fact not faster and I have experienced more slippage with this than with Oanda's platform during normal volatility. Oanda's order tickets are also much more flexible and managable. During peak volatility, Oanda's fills are much better and their spreads are comparable. This makes me wonder exactly which banks are involved in FXCM's shady little adventure. Other platforms, like EFX Group's Navigator for example, offer much tighter spreads than FXCM's, although they charge a commission each way. (It's still much cheaper to trade with them.) Only Oanda, and a few other brokers such as CMC, etc., compete with EFX's quotes, spreads, fills and fees, although EFX's Navigator has the most flexible order entries in the retail FX broker community (IMO). FXCM lags far, far behind the curve on most fronts and for them to claim otherwise is just dishonest. Given their size, I wonder where Drew Niv's priorities are. (They are probably with that trading firm out of FL, Gibraltar Monetary Corporation, Inc., that defrauded $3M out of their customers, while earning $800K in commissions as an IB from FXCM.) I recently had a very bad experience with their trading desk. I entered at market during the Dec 8 NFP surprise, was filled in a few seconds with about 14 points of slippage (not so bad), and was in profit by more than 30 pips. I then went to close the trade as price seemed to stall, and for more than five minutes my order at market was rejected because "the market moved." However, the market was not moving more than 10 pips at a time at that point and my close order was, after all, "at market." The next best price should have kicked in -- so I called the trading desk. A dealer picked up after about 10 rings and said "Trading Desk..." I provided my account number, indicated that I was on the No Dealing Desk platform, gave my name and said "I want to close my position." The position was at breakeven at that point, but I wanted out. I was then put on hold and after a few minutes an agent from customer service picked up the line. This was totally disorienting. I then asked to close the position again, not quite believing what I heard. The operator said she couldn't help me and that she was transferring me to the trading desk. My position was now 15 pips in the red. (Wasn't I just talking to the guy at the Trading Desk?) After another two or three minutes, another person at the trading desk picked up the phone and the market had moved 70 pips against me. She offered to "close at market." When I told her that is what I asked the last guy to do almost ten minutes prior, she seemed unapologetic and said that because I was on the NDD platform all she could do was close the position. I replied, "Now that the market has moved 70 points against me, I can probably do that myself [insert appropriate expletive here]." Sure enough, my latest order went through, for a close at -73. This situation is currently being audited by FXCM, so I won't know what their decision will be. However, the original call to the trading desk should have closed out the position and I am unable to say whether the trading desk's actions were due to incompetence or to some other factor. Either way, DO NOT USE THIS PLATFORM for the following reasons: - Their spreads are not competitive, - Their execution is horrible, even for volatile market periods, - There is something very wrong with their trading desk, and - Their retail fixed spread platform is even worse! I find it rather suspicious that the largest retail FX spot broker in the US does not have more reviews written about them on this site -- good or bad. I wanted to give FXCM's No Dealing Desk a try with a small $1000 account. My thumb is definitely a down on this one! I recently read what has to be a plug for them on Wikipedia by some corporate shill -- How could they get Best Retail Platform by FX Week in 2004? And the TW2 Member Choice Award as Best Currency Broker in 2004? And Best FX Specialist by S&C in 2002, 2003, and 2004? This just doesn't ring true. (I can say that the Trade2Win outfit is a sham, but FX Week and S&C? Come on! Shame on both of them.) I'm one step away from calling FXCM a bucket shop, but will hold off because I also trade stocks and futures and I know what a true bucket shop is. The worst FX brokers still don't compare to the games played by those operators. I now have a great online broker for stocks/futures and two for FX. They are out there! Oh yeah, I also traded with CMS Forex when I first started with the spot market back in 2000. Now THAT was a bucket shop! Nothing either CMS or FXCM can say will bring me back. ****UPDATE**** This is an update on the last rating. FXCM's audit team refunded the loss incurred as a result of the trading desk's error -- and on the same day of the report. While this response time is a cut above many brokers, problems with the Non-Dealing Desk remain. Something else I thought of that hadn't already been mentioned -- While the orders at market going in are filled and slippage is allowed, exit orders are Fill or Kill and execute at the price specified -- unless a price range is specified. If price moves even a pip, the order will be rejected. This process took a minimum of 20 seconds on Friday to find out whether the order went through. The average was much longer. This is simply too much time. There is no default for this setting, so the FoK range on exit orders has to be typed in every time...which also takes too much time. This is something I would expect in the futures or stock markets, but not in FX spot."
. Make sure you buy and read the book, Trading in the Zone by Mark Douglas. And I want you to get the book by Anthony Robbins Unlimited Power. Both in a way deal with the same thing. That to be successful all you really have to do is think that you are becoming successful. I think that the Power of Positive Thought and all is great, I have met very few successful and happy people who think that everything is going to hell and they will never make it. However, I also think its over rated by a lot of folks. For example every time I go in for chemo I've said this is the last time, its gonna kill that shit now..and alas I have a doctors apt next week for more poison. Kiev's book A Strategy for Daily Living is the greatest btw, much better than any of his trading books (or any other trading psychology book too for that matter) The other thing you mention is calls, and of course I have been in your business and we have talked before. I think that your a good guy, but anyone who continues to trade off someone elses calls (even if they are great) is not a trader and is not going to last very long anyway. You need to figure out your own way. Starting off on someone else's coattails is a fine way to learn, but you wont gain any real confidence and breaking away from it can be like getting off dope...sux but you gotta do it eventually. Anyway, thats my two cents. I do apologize to everyone that I have not been too active here lately, I have gotten a ton of PMs asking me where the hell I have gone too. I'll be back asap, but I dont know when that will be. Brandon
Too bad neither of those books will give you an edge to make any money. You could be the supreme master of the info in both of those books and still bleed like a stuck pig in the markets.
great opening post btw. a trader is only as good as his weakest link. trading requires: 1) a methodology with an edge but beyond that, to be successful consistently and have longevity you also need - a sound business plan, solid risk management, a strong control over your emotional urges, an understanding of risk management, etc. these books can help a lot of traders. it never ceases to amaze me how many traders just concentrate on the "magic indicator" etc. when quite often their biggest shortcoming has nothing to do with methodology of trading, but with mastering THEMSELVES. this is why so many very very smart people make TERRIBLE traders. it is not rocket science and it is not that complicated, but it is also not easy to do correctly
Nope. There is no getting around expierence. Books are mearly another preperation tool. I'm glad I've read the books that I have but no one book was my 'cure all'. CajunSniper / Puretick.com Administrator-Trader
I agree. I have read both books. And, Guess what, neither makes trading or let's say learning to trade better. You still have to adapt new habits. I have not mastered the habits yet, although I make money. Some days I put on what I call my "black hat" and don't plan trades, don't manage the overall picture that well. I don't like when I do that, but it's still a part of my overall trading behavior. I seem to make most of my money in the first few hours. My objective is to figure out how to just stop trading for the day when I hit that point. My issue is, that I don't stop, and frequently trade away good gains. This is my largest problem when I do it: overtrading. Does anyone have any suggestions for me? Things you have tried, thought of, or know that someone else has done to reduce the amount of overtrading. I have known this for years, but have not been able to apply this one thing. I have not tracked it, however I do know that the profit(loss) I make after the first three hours is generally negligible when you figure in commissions, extra trading, opportunity costs, etc. So, I am open to any and all suggestions. I think it's possible someone has been through this successfully and can lend some advice. Thank you in advance.