Yes, that's why so many people lose and are never able to make decent money. Probably it is too simple. Or they are too simple. That might be possible too.
It's not just simpletons to blame, it's the industry that is corrupt, and ultimately human psychology that works against trading success. Look at AMP's $300 ES margins on futures, that's incredibly greedy of them to offer that knowing it only makes money for them at the direct expense/blow-up of their customers. Guys like Al Brooks (Crooks) and Dbphoenix think they aren't selling anything because they pitch their products with a modicum of class and subtly, they are still ultimately greedy charlatans.
Well if anyone is foolish enough (although I will admit you have to learn how to not be a fool), then they will get what they deserve. Most would do much better to just remember these two well known sayings, and accept responsibility for their own actions - instead of shifting the responsibility to someone else (mentally of course). 1. Pop goes the weasel 2. What goes up (down) must come down (up) J_S
I don't agree with you, there should be more legal limitations in the US on people like Al Brooks to either produce verifiable results before they are allowed to be able to pitch their products (webinars especially, books are more abstract so I can understand the legality of them more.)
What has been going on regarding Al Brooks? Just recently, I have taken on myself to decipher his book in my thread, so I am all ears about his stuff.
Brooks hasn't produced a shred of evidence that he actually trades since coming public and making good money pitching products for nearly a decade. He has increased his course's price 100% and now mentions variables like VX and breadth as pertains to trading, which he claimed were not relevant to price action previously. He has explained stop placement, position sizing per capital in account, or how he mysteriously makes his fortune scalping the ES on limit orders, nor has he mentioned how traders should profitably trade buy entering on stops, which he teaches but claims to actually scalp on limit orders. IMHO if you're telling people to trade one way and then claiming to trade in a totally different way, everything you say is suspect. Although everything Brooks says should be suspect due to the lack of verifiable P&L statements and his now high-profile visits to the yearly for-profit Las Vegas Traders Expo and other such vendor-like behavior.
I find this post quite interesting for a few reasons. First, NoDoji just said recently that she got lots of ideas from reading Brooks, and yet, I think she said something like she doesn't trade like him. Likewise, when the discussion turns to DbPhoenix, some have said that they have learned lots from him, and yet, nobody trades like him, all those who do trade profitably say they just got ideas from him, and I am sure that if he does in fact trade, he does not do so in the way he outlines in his PDF by taking 1 min RET after trend line breaks. (It of course doesn't help to show a method that relies on lines and then be told you have to lose the lines! He goes on and on about how you have to stick to rules, but none of these rules are actually all that firm.) So I'm left to wonder what is honestly and truly going on. In any other profession, the way that an expert would teach a student should be hugely similar to how this professional should do it. If you're an electrician, you better damn well wire up a house the way you are taught. If you're a dentist, you simply cannot get creative with how you choose to fix teeth. If you're an accountant, things gotta be done a certain way of else the books are all wrong. Perhaps when it comes to creative studies, painting in the complete opposite way you're taught can be a good thing, but I think we all know that getting creative while trading is a recipe for disaster. Now I realize that in trading, there are a million ways to make money and its not structured like other vocations. But you would figure that if a method is presented that is said to be profitable, and if this expert trader does in fact trade this way, then there should be someone out there who could take this and make it work. If the method is lacking specifics, well then, this is a perfect excuse for why someone cannot make it work. But Brooks is incredibly detailed in his setups. DbPhoenix of course leaves the important bits like entry and stop up to the individual. But you would figure that at some point, someone could actually trade in a way that a so called expert suggests and be able to make it work. I'm not sure why this doesn't appear to be so. Perhaps all the people who do make it work just as they are taught have gone silent, but its certainly compelling enough that it should not be overlooked.
The problem is that when it comes to trading, everything is just a shade of gray.. there is no black or white. No trade has a 100% chance of working, nobody knows all there is to know, many are wrong more often than right about a trade and still make money. Nobody can say someone's method doesn't work because all they truly know is their own method. Even though people say trading with the trend is the best, many make good money taking counter trend trades. Its just such a vast world of possibilities out there that it makes it so difficult to evaluate the validity of any one thing.
This remark is valid for all the threads on ET. 90% of all postings are useless and can be deleted without any problem. Even after that clean up the value of ET will be the same, no harm can be done.