Step right up folks. Hand me a few thousand dollars and with a spoonful of snakeoil poured down your gullible throat, you can trade like a pro. Want a guru led chatroom? No problem, step right up. Hey, for another $25000 you can enrol for one of my. "Don't get off your butt and do your own research - we will do it for you." Want to see how easy it is to make money ? Well, give me a few thousand bucks more and I will send you stock picks via e-mail. Forget the books, the experimenting with trading set ups, listening to the arbingers of doom, and the anti vendor brigade. Why it's sheer envy on the part of the anti snakeoil group. They are envious that someone so humble and altruistic as myself should reveal the secrets of wealth accumalation through trading. And all you have to do is sit on your fat butt at my feet and hand me your money. But I want to share the secrets of trading success with you. I feel it's my duty to hand you the holy grail of trading, so that you can take it forward into the future, and maybe pass it on to another generation of seekers of the mystic arts of trading. Cheques are fine if supported by a valid bankers card. Toby UK Motto : There's one born every minute...(A Fool)
Nah- I give up and admit defeat when proven wrong, it just hasn't happened often. j/k - as far as selling methods, etc. goes, about 8 years ago I was a sucker once too and spent thousands on seminars and courses from top notch names (at the time). Calhoun, Williams, Bernstein, Bressert, Dinapoli... not your run-of-the-mill huckster but established names (Calhoun being the only one who didn't have a book published). It seems the formula was to write a book, build up some fame, then sell courses & seminars. I will say that among the group I just mentioned, only Calhoun was a "huckster" and the rest just provided marginal information. Sometimes the information was dangerous if you did not do your own due diligence. I took the ideas that I felt were valid, tested them, and came up with my own method/style/system of trading. I've thought many times how much fun it would be to write a detailed training course, with trade-by-trade, minute-by-minute charts included with my own mechanical rules, the cases when I use subjective rules, how I went about building my methodology, etc. etc. Then I ask myself how much I could make selling this course? Should I price it $995? $1500? $2000? What if I made it more valuable for the buyer by including well known systems that sell for thousands, discuss their flaws, dissect what may be useful, etc. I have lots of theories on trading dogma disseminated by many that I feel I can prove wrong or clarify with 100% mechanical rules and backtesting results over diverse markets and timeframes -- but would I be giving away my edge? When all was said and done, it wasn't worth the effort. It'd be fun to get some fame and do good by teaching others, but it's not worth the effort. I'd make a lot more money trading foreign markets if I wanted to put in extra hours after US markets close. There are others here- would Candle or P2 consider writing a book or teaching others? Maybe if it was a pet project or if they wanted some fame- but if it was for income, that's silly, it's not worth their time.
tell it like it is dottom. those who can do, those who can't, teach. wish we could get some of you guys to teach. this forum is the only place we can hear from you. honus
I'm new to this thread and spent the day scrolling through some past messages. Other than a little hostility, the site seems to be a lot of help.....particularly for a newbie like myself. I recently subscribed to MT but cancelled since I had a difficult time keeping up....not to mention the fact my mentality isn't really a match for daytrading. I was wondering if anyone knew of any sites that focused on position trading or swing trading. In other words, a little slower paced. Does anyone here use momentumstockplays.com. Before trying it out, I'd like to hear others experience with it. Thanks in advance, and I hope in time I can become a contributor to the boards. Stacy
I use the momentumstockplays site, and I personally feel it's the best around. However, I've only tried out a few others in the past so my objectivity may be a bit clouded. One thing to realize about it is the focus is entirely on technical analysis. It's also geared more for swing traders....folks trying to catch bigger moves. In other words, he goes off the daily charts more often than not though he'll throw in a 5-60 minute setup from time to time. Hope this helps. If you want to know anything else, let me know and I'll try to help. F
The Calhoun being referred to is not me, Ken Calhoun, but rather a "Kent Calhoun" of texas/commodities trading. I've only been in the business since '99 (Ken Calhoun, DTU) and am not in any way related to this other guy. Small world, I wish he had a different name. If anyone has a picture of kent calhoun, please post/email it to me.. I need to differentiate myself from the guy who is not me. (I'm 38, UCLA grad, stock trader etc, living in hawaii, the kent c. is an older guy from texas etc) suggestions? (and no I ain't changing my name lol)
I personally am starting to feel that there are secret mechanical trading methods out there but they arent goingto sell them to you like indigo and these other trading systems. If these trading systems worked why would they sell them to anyone? They would just trade them themselves and be millionaires. They probably sell them because they dont work. Perfect common sense. wall
i wish i could have found this thread years ago when i was getting beat to a pulp every other day. my .02 is that to trade successfully you do not have to have a secret but you have to have all the pieces in place. take the analogy of a car engine: turn the key and the engine does what it is supposed to do. But if even one little piston is out of whack, the engine will seize up. trading is the same way: you have to have discipline, consistency, hard work, money management, fair execution, low commissions, and a sound methodology that offers a positive expectation over time. If you have those seven things, you can make money, period. Sure there is the risk of beatdown by a random shock event, but that's no different than the risk of a fatal car crash every time you drive to the store. Take any losing trader you want and I guarantee you that one of those seven elements is missing from the equation. Like the engine, all those elements have to be functioning properly for the power to kick in. Or for an even simpler analogy, think of them as seven links in a chain. The chain is linked to the money you are trying to pull in. If one of the links is weak, the chain breaks. If one of the links isn't there at all, you aren't even in the game.
There are absolutely no "secrets" and there is no way to teach a person to be a successful trader. When we bring in traders, we teach them the HOW (trading works), the WHY (certain stocks do what they do), and the WHAT (the market does)....it is then up to them to actively trade to become successful. We can only show what exactly is working right now - and it changes almost daily, certainly weekly/monthly. No magic bullets or pills (sorry).
Oh, I'd say there definitely is both. The thing is that those who have them will NEVER give them up until they no longer work and they can make more money selling the "secret" than trading it. So, the key is to focus on your TRADING and not look for that holy grail. Throughout history, many people have died looking for the real Holy Grail and many more traders accounts have died while the trader is looking for the trading holy grail. It's just like sports... stick to the fundamentals and hone your skills there. That's the real secret.